Inventor of the Future

March 1, 2022

Author of the Hugo/Locus finalist Astounding, a group biography of John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard that was also best-booked by the Economist, Nevala-Lee here homes in on inventor/futurist Buckminster Fuller. The narrative covers Fuller's career; his sometimes contentious relationships with students, colleagues, and leading cultural figures; his enormous influence; and the cost for him of his single-mindedness. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

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June 13, 2022
Novelist Nevala-Lee (Astounding) offers a cogent assessment of futurist Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983), “a man who had been revered by both the counterculture and the establishment” in this solid biography. Nevala-Lee traces Fuller’s rise from being an uninspiring student at Milton Academy to the visionary who revolutionized—with differing levels of success—the design of things as varied as bathrooms and sports stadiums. Out of a childhood trip to Chicago a “lasting interest in industry” was born, and despite below-average grades, Fuller was admitted to Harvard, where he had a rocky experience and never finished. The death of his daughter in 1922 marked a turning point in his life, Nevala-Lee writes, and led to his “encounter many of his lifelong obsessions for the first time.” The author does a great job exploring the mythology that surrounded Fuller, as well as his creations (such as the architectural geodesic dome) and his anticipating such modern developments as the internet. The many celebrities, artists, politicians, and innovators Fuller crossed paths with make for rich fodder, too (he was friends with Hollywood director John Huston, and Albert Einstein allegedly told him at a party, “Young man, you amaze me”). The result is a fascinating portrait of a larger-than-life figure. Agent: David P. Halpern, Robbins Office.

Starred review from June 1, 2022
This probing biography of Buckminster Fuller distinguishes man from myth while giving the iconic designer and futurist due credit for influencing generations of big thinkers. His early years defined by entrepreneurial fits and starts, Fuller found purpose in everyday structures. His mission to align housing and transportation with advances in material science and industrial production blended humanism and utopianism and attracted like-minded innovators. But often his designs were "less than meets the eye." The three-wheeled Dymaxion car looked like an aerofoil but handled poorly. The corresponding Dymaxion house, made of aluminum with an internal rainwater circulatory system, proved neither cost-effective nor particularly comfortable. Geodesic domes, for which Fuller would become famous, sprouted at college campuses and international expositions in the 1950s and 1960s, but proved leaky and fragile. Sf-novelist-turned-biographer Nevala-Lee diligently emphasizes Fuller's contradictions: the game-changing builder who never held an architect's license, the big-picture humanist who trampled the actual humans who surrounded him. But he also persuasively demonstrates that, in the end, none of Fuller's epic shortcomings would matter. Fuller's most enduring creation was his own ethos, that of the free-thinking futurist whose design solutions would solve the planet's problems. Such ideas would take deep root, especially in Silicon Valley, even if the math never quite worked out.

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July 1, 2022

Nevala-Lee (Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction) claims that Buckminster Fuller, considered to be a modern-day Leonardo da Vinci and one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th century, has never been the subject of such a comprehensive biography. Described as an unconventional thinker before his time, Fuller was the architectural designer and futurist best known for popularizing the geodesic dome architectural style in the United States. Disney's design team utilized the dome as the central element of its famous EPCOT Center. Fuller believed that technology could lift entire nations out of poverty. Silicon Valley leaders, including Steve Jobs, admired his counter-cultural, philosophical thinking and believed Fuller provided a model of what was possible. Fuller's importance was only partially understood during his lifetime, however, and he was arguably a key prototype for the Ivy-League-dropout start-up founder, as Nevala-Lee argues in this meticulously researched biography, with more than 450 notes and an extensive bibliography. VERDICT This dense biography is best for readers seeking a deep understanding of a countercultural icon of futurist thinking that has impacted many modern tech industry leaders.--Gary Medina

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Starred review from June 1, 2022
A full portrait of the fascinating life of a famed disruptor. Novelist, biographer, and science-fiction writer Nevala-Lee draws on abundant archival material to fashion a thoroughly researched, comprehensive biography of architect, inventor, and "serial entrepreneur" R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), who famously created the geodesic dome. Fuller, the great-nephew of transcendentalist Margaret Fuller, grew up in Milton, Massachusetts. He entered Harvard in 1913 but did so poorly that he withdrew after a semester. After a stint in the Navy and a job in sales with a meatpacking company, Fuller joined his father-in-law, a designer with an interest in architecture, to invent lightweight building blocks for the construction of efficient, affordable housing. Together, they established the Stockade Building System, with Fuller as chief salesman and promoter--a role he inhabited throughout his long career in many ventures. His interest in housing led him to build his own "scientific housing company," Fuller Houses, to produce components that could be delivered as a package and assembled quickly on site. Cars and airplanes inspired him to design a blimp-shaped house and car. As Nevala-Lee notes, Fuller's self-aggrandizement, mythmaking, "expansive claims" and "messianic language" informed many previous portrayals of him as a Renaissance man in the mold of Leonardo da Vinci. While not underestimating the fertility of Fuller's imagination, Nevala-Lee reveals his subject's reliance on colleagues and students. Like a virus, he had "a unique talent for using a host to reproduce." When he taught at various colleges, he recruited students as unpaid labor, taking their discoveries "to the next school on his list, burnishing his image as a genius by assimilating the work of many others." Hailed as a futurist, among his predictions were online education and remote working. He influenced architects such as Norman Foster and Frank Gehry, and his conviction "that economic forces favored gargantuan service industries," has been borne out by Amazon. A perceptive and cleareyed biography of a unique figure.

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