What Mad Universe?

Authors

  • Michael L. Shuman University of South Florida Author

Keywords:

Robert Guffey, Spies and Saucers, UFOs, conspiracy theory, propaganda, Cold War

Abstract

Michael L. Shuman reviews Robert Guffey’s Spies and Saucers (PS Publishing), a three-part collection of fiction steeped in 1950s flying-saucer lore, Cold War paranoia, and conspiracy culture. Shuman traces Guffey’s sources in figures such as George Adamski, Donald Keyhoe, Gray Barker, and Ray Palmer, and connects the book to Charles Mackay and Charles Fort on mass delusion and the instability of truth. He praises the stories’ shifting narrators and pop-culture density, recalls his own boyhood fascination with saucer magazines, and reads the collection as a mirror of a present age of propaganda and false narratives.

Author Biography

  • Michael L. Shuman, University of South Florida

    Michael L. Shuman had long careers in both newspaper management and software development before earning his PhD and joining the Department of English at University of South Florida, where he teaches writing for the technical professions and coordinates the department’s internship program. Dr. Shuman is Deputy Editor of The Mailer Review.

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Published

2020-10-15

Issue

Vol. 14 No. 1 (2020)

Section

Book Reviews

How to Cite

Shuman, Michael L. “What Mad Universe?”. The Mailer Review, vol. 14, no. 1, Oct. 2020, pp. 295–304, https://mailerreview.org/journal/article/view/749.