Sled Driver

Brian Shul's Sled Driver opens with an introduction where he promises that this isn't necessarily a technical book:

This is not a story of the making of the SR-71 , nor is it a technical digest of the
many intriguing facts and figures about the plane. . . Instead, this book is one man's view
of what it was like to fly the world's fastest jet.

 This is, of course, fine with me, and what follows are a series of anecdotes about the author's time with the SR-71, from his training to seeing the final flight of the plane as the last model was transferred to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.

The good: there's a lot of interesting material here, even given that Shul glosses over the actual missions for the most part (which of course makes sense, given the nature of the SR-71's duties.

The bad: the overall tone is akin to the narration of Starship Troopers, and many passages end abruptly (and not just because what would follow would be classified)

The verdict: an easy read with interesting flying stories, so try it if you can find it.

I understand that this is out of print, so I'd recommend seeing if there's a version for the Kindle or if it's available used somewhere.

Distant Star

Roberto Bolaño's Distant Star is a novel I'd been looking for for some time. It's an expansion of a short chapter at the end of Bolaño's earlier Nazi Literature in the Americas, although the name of the pilot changes between the two stories (for the worse in my opinion).

Like quite a bit of Bolaño's work, Distant Star focuses on poets and poetry. Our narrator is someone like Bolaño, a Chilean exile who has bounced around over the years. (As mentioned by Bolaño in an author's note, this is most likely Bolaño's alter ego, Arturo Belano). Narrator first encounters the poet/pilot in a poetry workshop, which he (Carlos Wieder, the pilot) had been attending under an assumed name.

I've seen Distant Star called a companion piece to Bolaño's By Night in Chile, in other reviews, as they both deal with the post-coup literary scene. Of course, while this is true, they're quite different works. The paranoia and irrationality of O'Ryan (whose obsession with Wieder drives much of the novel) pales before that of our priest in the latter novel. (Not to mention that the pacing is significantly different. A deathbed rant as opposed to a fugue.)

Recommended, as with all of Bolaño's work that I've come across. (Although I'd prefer the chapter in Nazi Literature in the Americas, to this.)