{"product_id":"book-cz3b","title":"Strange Angel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNow a CBS All Access series: “A riveting tale of rocketry, the occult, and boom-and-bust 1920s and 1930s Los Angeles” (\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e headline screamed: ROCKET SCIENTIST KILLED IN PASADENA EXPLOSION. The man known as Jack Parsons, a maverick rocketeer who helped transform a derided sci-fi plotline into actuality, was at first mourned as a scientific prodigy. But reporters soon uncovered a more shocking story: Parsons had been a devotee of the city’s occult scene.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFueled by childhood dreams of space flight, Parsons was a leader of the motley band of enthusiastic young men who founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a cornerstone of the American space program. But Parsons’s wild imagination also led him into a world of incantations and orgiastic rituals—if he could make rocketry a reality, why not black magic?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGeorge Pendle re-creates the world of John Parsons in this dazzling portrait of prewar superstition, cold war paranoia, and futuristic possibility. Peopled with such formidable real-life figures as Howard Hughes, Aleister Crowley, L. Ron Hubbard, and Robert Heinlein, \u003ci\u003eStrange Angel\u003c\/i\u003e explores the unruly consequences of genius.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe basis for a new miniseries created by Mark Heyman and produced by Ridley Scott, this biography “vividly tells the story of a mysterious and forgotten man who embodied the contradictions of his time . . . when science fiction crashed into science fact. . . . [It] would make a compelling work of fiction if it weren’t so astonishingly true” (\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Brilliance Audio","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49377197818160,"sku":"BDcz3b","price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audio CD [10]","offer_id":49377197850928,"sku":"10cz3b","price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/cz3b-Square-cover.jpg?v=1773834406","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-cz3b","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}