spautz's review
4.0
3.5 stars, rounded up for being put together well (and for all the pretty pictures, too).
This is a collection of short essays by about two dozen different authors, loosely grouped into general topics. Despite being nearly 15 years old, many of the topics and essays still stand up okay today (this was one of the book's stated goals). Even the places where new discoveries and developments have changed things are interesting for their historical perspective, in my opinion -- such as the discussion of 'future' Mars missions and space telescope projects, and refinements in what we know about Kuiper objects.
I originally found this book because of Neil deGrasse Tyson's name, but it's unclear whether he wrote anything beyond the preface -- but that doesn't matter because the various authors are generally quite good: the essays themselves are (mostly) clear and well-written. There are a few awkward parts, and several places where the writing jumps awkwardly between "pretend the reader has no idea what astronomy is" and "assume they've already read this specific author's book", but on the whole it's written to be understandable to anybody with an interest in astronomy (and especially sort-of-recent topics and discoveries) and I think it hits that goal well.
This is a collection of short essays by about two dozen different authors, loosely grouped into general topics. Despite being nearly 15 years old, many of the topics and essays still stand up okay today (this was one of the book's stated goals). Even the places where new discoveries and developments have changed things are interesting for their historical perspective, in my opinion -- such as the discussion of 'future' Mars missions and space telescope projects, and refinements in what we know about Kuiper objects.
I originally found this book because of Neil deGrasse Tyson's name, but it's unclear whether he wrote anything beyond the preface -- but that doesn't matter because the various authors are generally quite good: the essays themselves are (mostly) clear and well-written. There are a few awkward parts, and several places where the writing jumps awkwardly between "pretend the reader has no idea what astronomy is" and "assume they've already read this specific author's book", but on the whole it's written to be understandable to anybody with an interest in astronomy (and especially sort-of-recent topics and discoveries) and I think it hits that goal well.
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