NONFICTION BY FRED BORTZ

SUPERSTUFF! MATERIALS THAT HAVE CHANGED OUR LIVES by Fred Bortz (Franklin
Watts, 1990, ages 12-up, 144 pp.)

>From the Stone Age through the Bronze Age and the Iron Age to the present
Age of Superstuff, human tools have become more powerful and versatile
because of an ever-increasing selection of new materials.  SUPERSTUFF is
the only popular book on materials science and engineering for readers of
any age.  It connects the application of materials -- semiconductors and
superconductors, glass and ceramics, polymers, alloys, composites, and more --
to the scientific knowledge underlying their properties and their manufacture.
The American Institute of Physics Children's Science Writing Awards Committee
commended the author with ``special mention'' for his efforts to convey this
important subject to young readers.

MIND TOOLS: THE SCIENCE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE by Fred Bortz (Franklin
Watts, 1992, ages 12-up, 144 pp.)

This detailed look at the thoroughly modern science of artificial intelligence
(AI) confronts its young readers with the question, ``Can computers think?''
It discusses the famous Turing test of machine intelligence, expert systems,
chess-playing machines, computer vision and hearing, and more.  The author's
joint interview with Herbert Simon and the late Allen Newell enables these
two founders of AI to speak directly to teenagers, and they seem to have
relished the opportunity.

CATASTROPHE! GREAT ENGINEERING FAILURE -- AND SUCCESS by Fred Bortz
(W. H. Freeman, Scientific American Books for young Readers, to be published
April, 1995, ages 9-14, 80 pp.)

Beginning with the true story behind Murphy's Law and the Law's true meaning
--
You can succeed if you pay attention to things that may fail -- the author
takes us on a tour of some of the most fascinating failures of engineered
artifacts over the last century, with a focus on the past thirty years.
Readers will

     * imagine dancing on the Skywalks of the Kansas City Hyatt
        before their catastrophic fall,
     * rock and roll with Galloping Gertie,
     * imagine the last ride aboard doomed aircraft,
     * feel the agony of the engineers who were fearful before Challenger
        exploded,
     * wonder what the Three Mile Island meltdown means for our future, 
     * relive the Great Northeast Blackout as they envision potholes on
        the Information Superhighway,
     * feel the terror of the people engulfed by water as a defective
        dam failed, and Lake Conemaugh became a roaring cascade on its
        way down the mountain to Johnstown.

Despite all its attention to failure, the book is really about success, a
theme that the author establishes in his dedication: ``In memory of my
father,... who taught me not to fear failure, nor to accept it, but to learn
from it in order to succeed.''  He learned his father's lesson well.

For more information, send SASE or email to:

        Fred Bortz
        1312 Foxboro Drive
        Monroeville, PA  15146
        412-856-9312 (h)
        412-396-6101 (o)
        bortz@duq3.cc.duq.edu