Feynman

Having reviewed The Challenger Disaster recently, I should also mention Feynman, a graphic novel biography of Richard Feynman written by Jim Ottaviani with art by Leland Myrick. It's based, in part, on the oral histories Dick did with Ralph Leighton, son of his long-standing colleague Bob Leighton. It's great fun to read, bringing back a number of memories of a fascinating character I had the pleasure of knowing. It includes some stories I hadn't known, and quotes extensively from some of his lectures. His Nobel Prize banquet speech, for example, covers some of the same ground as Robert Heinlein's SFWA Grand Master speech. The artwork is lacking in several places --- sometimes it's hard to tell Feynman from Freeman Dyson, for example --- but the story is nicely laid out in the same random-walk way that Feynman's oral histories are.

(That said, all of the graphic novels Ottaviani and his collaborators have done have been excellent. They cover a wide range of technology and science, and are a delight to read.  I'll review more of them some other time.)