[Animats]

> I guess this is subjective. But to me, there's a distracting amount of purple prose.

Yes, there is. Most of what he's describing is ordinary metalworking. He gets rather worked up about a belt sander. Which is strange, because the author has written several good books about survival and air crashes and has spoken at Los Alamos.[1] He can't be that naive about basic industrial technology.

Or maybe he can be. It's possible, in America today, to grow up without ever using a tool more complex than a screwdriver. This is a problem.

[1] http://www.laurencegonzales.com/bio.html