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Experimental College: My Summer in Serendip
Experimental My summer in Serendip” is a lighthearted comedy with tragic overtones, which asks some ominous questions. Aiming at your heart, it may unexpectedly grab at your crotch but hopes to offer something to your head. Dave Price is twenty, old enough to know what he wants to do with his remaining college years--he thinks--and still young enough to be faking an ID. In June he thinks he's got things figured out pretty much. By August he'll be practically unrecognizable to his June self. During Summer Quarter, Ellen the nursing student across the hall, his roommate Duncan and a further cast of “Dorm Zanies” challenge Dave's concept of self, gender and sexuality. He'll never be the same after this trip but is pretty much glad he came. From the time a female dorm neighbor questions Dave about his "nice roommate" to the time his mother discovers gum wrappers all over his bedroom floor and girls' underpants in his dresser drawer, you'll live one surprise after another with Dave. Summer 1974 is at the end of the Hippie Era but long before Reagan. Gay, Bi and Trans politics are in flower but being any of these things can get you fired, expelled, Discharged--or killed. Dave Price, a double major student in engineering and Journalism is about to discover that the most complex equations needing to be solved aren't those involved in Newtonian Mechanics or AC Circuits. Whether you're Straight, Bi, Gay and whether or not you give a damn about spacecraft or news reporting, you'll find something to ponder during the Summer of '74 and in The Magical Land of Serendip!!
224 pages, Paperback
Published July 21, 2018
About the author
Glynda Shaw
10 books5 followersGlynda Shaw is a Seattle native, an aerospace engineer, a social worker, and an experimenter in alternative energy and biosystems.
"Currently for different reasons, I especially enjoy reading the novels of Patricia Cornwell, Tess Gerritsen, Mary Downing Hahn, Lisa Jackson, Lee Child, John Sandford, Lisa Unger. There are many others of course but those are the ones I drop everything to read when a new title appears.
Throughout my life I have enjoyed and respected Poul Anderson Isaac Asimov, A Bertram Chandler, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Howard Pyle, Mark Twain. More recently; Stephen Baxter, Bernard Cornwell, S. M. Stirling and of course always, Robert Louis Stevenson.
I also read a fair amount of history, technology and science. Charles Sheffield, Freeman Dyson and Gerrard K. O'Neil and probably my current favorite writers of speculative technology.
My writing influences are varied and include feminism, gender issues, the fact of my own blindness and cultural issues,including my Celtic background and a love of the Pacific Northwest and also of the American South. Most of my life a seem to have been a very small minority yelling about something or other and not always winning but generally remaining on my feet.
I try to root my stories in places I’ve been and can describe credibly. I’ve been known to take vacations places so I can get the setting right. I like to show my characters making independent decisions and creating lives that fit them even if not acceptable to all of their neighbors.
Those are the sorts of people I tend to like also; folks who know stuff and aren’t afraid to ask the questions “why not?” and “Why do things have to be this way?”
I like to champion things that are old but still good but also new things that are good but not just because they’re new and trendy. One of the most charming images I can think of, the author of which has been lost to my memory, was that of a young woman on a horse, surrounded by a force field actuated from the saddle; and she able to tesser from planet to planet, having extraordinary adventures."
"Currently for different reasons, I especially enjoy reading the novels of Patricia Cornwell, Tess Gerritsen, Mary Downing Hahn, Lisa Jackson, Lee Child, John Sandford, Lisa Unger. There are many others of course but those are the ones I drop everything to read when a new title appears.
Throughout my life I have enjoyed and respected Poul Anderson Isaac Asimov, A Bertram Chandler, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Howard Pyle, Mark Twain. More recently; Stephen Baxter, Bernard Cornwell, S. M. Stirling and of course always, Robert Louis Stevenson.
I also read a fair amount of history, technology and science. Charles Sheffield, Freeman Dyson and Gerrard K. O'Neil and probably my current favorite writers of speculative technology.
My writing influences are varied and include feminism, gender issues, the fact of my own blindness and cultural issues,including my Celtic background and a love of the Pacific Northwest and also of the American South. Most of my life a seem to have been a very small minority yelling about something or other and not always winning but generally remaining on my feet.
I try to root my stories in places I’ve been and can describe credibly. I’ve been known to take vacations places so I can get the setting right. I like to show my characters making independent decisions and creating lives that fit them even if not acceptable to all of their neighbors.
Those are the sorts of people I tend to like also; folks who know stuff and aren’t afraid to ask the questions “why not?” and “Why do things have to be this way?”
I like to champion things that are old but still good but also new things that are good but not just because they’re new and trendy. One of the most charming images I can think of, the author of which has been lost to my memory, was that of a young woman on a horse, surrounded by a force field actuated from the saddle; and she able to tesser from planet to planet, having extraordinary adventures."
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 14, 2017
Easy to read in eBook form, there is a delicious irony in reading this 1970s themed book with such a futuristic method.
September 21, 2016
What do red panties, Wrigley’s gum wrappers, typewriters, and a fish pond all have in common? Find out in this novel.
Experimental College is a cheerful, odd, and often surprising story about David Price, a Blind engineering student going to the University of Washington in the late 70s during one very special summer.. While he navigates his classes and degree program, he also meets several quirky companions, and discovers a lot about his own passions, both academic and romantic.
This story is a mix of gender role and sexual exploration combined with ruminations about life support systems, closed ecosystems, and physics. It is both cerebral and emotional and touches on some important points of psychology and sociology. It’s also a fascinating journey as young Dave Price learns more about who he really is. The story covers issues about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people in a sensitive, intriguing way, as it is also a snapshot of the world of the 1970s.
I really liked reading it.
Experimental College is a cheerful, odd, and often surprising story about David Price, a Blind engineering student going to the University of Washington in the late 70s during one very special summer.. While he navigates his classes and degree program, he also meets several quirky companions, and discovers a lot about his own passions, both academic and romantic.
This story is a mix of gender role and sexual exploration combined with ruminations about life support systems, closed ecosystems, and physics. It is both cerebral and emotional and touches on some important points of psychology and sociology. It’s also a fascinating journey as young Dave Price learns more about who he really is. The story covers issues about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people in a sensitive, intriguing way, as it is also a snapshot of the world of the 1970s.
I really liked reading it.
September 21, 2016
What do red panties, Wrigley’s gum wrappers, typewriters, and a fish pond all have in common? Find out in this novel.
Experimental College is a cheerful, odd, and often surprising story about David Price, a Blind engineering student going to the University of Washington in the late 70s during one very special summer.. While he navigates his classes and degree program, he also meets several quirky companions, and discovers a lot about his own passions, both academic and romantic.
This story is a mix of gender role and sexual exploration combined with ruminations about life support systems, closed ecosystems, and physics. It is both cerebral and emotional and touches on some important points of psychology and sociology. It’s also a fascinating journey as young Dave Price learns more about who he really is. The story covers issues about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people in a sensitive, intriguing way, as it is also a snapshot of the world of the 1970s.
I really liked reading it.
Experimental College is a cheerful, odd, and often surprising story about David Price, a Blind engineering student going to the University of Washington in the late 70s during one very special summer.. While he navigates his classes and degree program, he also meets several quirky companions, and discovers a lot about his own passions, both academic and romantic.
This story is a mix of gender role and sexual exploration combined with ruminations about life support systems, closed ecosystems, and physics. It is both cerebral and emotional and touches on some important points of psychology and sociology. It’s also a fascinating journey as young Dave Price learns more about who he really is. The story covers issues about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people in a sensitive, intriguing way, as it is also a snapshot of the world of the 1970s.
I really liked reading it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews