I'm the author of The Friendly Orange Glow. I agree the book skips across the surface. Some backstory: I originally proposed three volumes, each 1000 pages, to

I'm the author of The Friendly Orange Glow. I agree the book skips across the surface. Some backstory: I originally proposed three volumes, each 1000 pages, to the publisher. They laughed and told me absolutely no. My thinking was, PLATO as a topic needs to be approached the way Robert Caro approached Lyndon Johnson. It's going to need multiple 1000-page books. The publisher's reaction to my proposal was laughter. Their deal was, one book, 150,000 words, take it or leave it. So I took it: I'd spent 30+ years working on the project, had accumulated some 7 million words of interview transcripts, and had to get it out. In the end I delivered 229,000 words to the publisher which even then was the result of painful and severe chopping out of not only major sections but even entire chapters--all kinds of history got removed from the manuscript. (By the way, the final book came out to 209,000 words. Publisher was pissed that it wasn't 150,000. Editor, god bless him, stood by me, and we shipped 209,000 words. Publisher, I firmly believe, punished me by listing the book at a $40.00 list price, which is instant market death for a hardcover book in 2017. Powell's refused to let me do a book event because they don't allow $40 books to be presented by authors. It was sabotage, in my opinion. The publisher did atrocious, half-hearted work at publicity. They sent seven copies to people at the New York Times, which did nothing and never reviewed it. Nor did WPost. Nor did LA Times. Or SF Chronicle. Or Boston Globe, etc, etc. Only Wall Street Journal reviewed it, and they gave it a glowing review. But here's the thing... anyone who knew and used PLATO is going to have their pet topics and focus areas, and complain about topics the book did include that are not favorites to them personally. Trust me, I've heard from thousands of PLATO people and everybody's happy and unhappy at the same time with what is in, and what is not in, the book. But I didn't write the book for PLATO people. I wrote it for the 8 billion people on Earth who'd never heard of PLATO and who were likely to never hear of it and its significance if something didn't get published that triggered PLATO to finally enter the conversation. And look what's happening: Y Combinator's Hacker News is talking about PLATO! Ars of all things is talking about PLATO! In the past 5 years, Slate and WIRED (who always hated PLATO and refused to mention it) talked about PLATO. Verge and Motherboard covered it. PLATO is now a part of the conversation. Mission accomplished. Finally: If you want to get a copy and read The Friendly Orange Glow, you can buy a hardcover from me directly by going to the Amazon site's hardcover page for the book, and selecting a "New" copy from seller Birdrock Books. That's me. I'm selling new copies for $11.11. Brand new, out of the box from the publisher. They come from me, with my signature on it.