I have heard Charles Pellegrino raised in discussions of Biblical Archaeology, with the assurance that he is an archaeologist who was called “the real Indiana Jones” by Larry King (and, therefore, we are supposed to trust his credentials.)
I was looking for a book by Pellegrino (Return to Sodom and Gomorrah) but couldn’t find it in the library, but they had a number of other books by him on other subjects. I looked at one of them and the cover flap described him as a paleontologist and an amateur astronomer. I got curious, and poked around online, and found this:
“Dr. Charles Pellegrino is the author of twelve books, including Unearthing Atlantis and Her Name, Titanic. He is a paleontologist who designs robotic space probes and relativistic rockets. In his spare time, Pellegrino writes mindbending technothrillers. Jan de Bont, the director of Speed and Twister, has recently signed on to direct the film adaptation of Pellegrino’s Dust. Dr. Pellegrino lives in New York.”
What is the deal with this guy? I’m not familiar with his books, but I have to wonder whether he’s really a paleontologist. In fact, given the rather varied and spectacular descriptions of his day job(s), I have to wonder if his middle name is Munchausen. Does anyone know the straight dope?
A little over a year ago I read Pelligrino’s “Flying to Valhalla”.
I found it to be exceptionally well written. His design for a manned interstellar probe is one of the only one’s I’ve seen that accounts for near relativistic collisions with the more than occasional atoms encountered in deep space.
He also postulates one of “Pelligrino, Powell and Asimov’s Three Laws of Alien Behavior”:
Law No. 1:
Their survival will be more important than your survival.
If an alien has to choose between them and us, they won’t choose us. It is difficult to imagine a contrary case; species don’t survive by being self-sacrificing.
Law No. 2:
Wimps don’t become top dogs.
No species makes it to the top by being passive. The species in charge of any given planet will be highly intelligent, alert, aggressive and ruthless when necessary.
Law No. 3:
They will assume that the first two laws apply to us.
The author goes on to apply these laws in a well crafted plot. He gives you ample opportunities to appreciate the ramifications each one implies. I have not read any other work by him but would be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I’m not sure the “benefit of the doubt” should extend to him being an expert on Biblical archaeology, though. Is this guy a professional archaeologist, or is that just hype? I mean, it sounds to me like any SF author could be listed as a designer of “robotic space probes,” but that doesn’t mean he works at JPL.
Pellegrino is not particularly well-liked in the SF community for his self-promotion and ego. He’s written on a variety of subjects, and claims to have been the first to put forth the idea that you could clone a dinosaur by using blood from a mosquito preserved in amber (i.e., the Jurrasic Park solution). Last I heard was that he was complaining that Spielberg refused to credit him for it.
Bzzzt! He already loses. By any reasonable measure, bacteria are “in charge of” this planet, and none of those qualities can be used to describe them (with the possible exception of “aggressive”).
That’s more than I got out of Google! Unfortunately Google directs me mostly to his Titanic book and sci-fi stuff. I searched for “Pellegrino” and “Selected Publications” in an attempt to find his home page (most profs will have such a thing on their page) but to no avail. Does anyone have an idea what university, if any, he is affiliated with?