Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe
Ratings6
Average rating4.2
A rip-roaring tour of the cosmos with the Bad Astronomer, bringing you up close and personal with the universe like never before. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel the universe? How would Saturn’s rings look from a spaceship sailing just above them? If you were falling into a black hole, what’s the last thing you’d see before getting spaghettified? While traveling in person to most of these amazing worlds may not be possible—yet—the would-be space traveler need not despair: you can still take the scenic route through the galaxy with renowned astronomer and science communicator Philip Plait. On this lively, immersive adventure through the cosmos, Plait draws ingeniously on both the latest scientific research and his prodigious imagination to transport you to ten of the most spectacular sights outer space has to offer. In vivid, inventive scenes informed by rigorous science—injected with a dose of Plait’s trademark humor—Under Alien Skies places you on the surface of alien worlds, from our own familiar Moon to the far reaches of our solar system and beyond. Try launching yourself onto a two-hundred-meter asteroid, or stargazing from the rim of an ancient volcano on a planet where, from the place you stand, it is eternally late afternoon. Experience the sudden onset of lunar nightfall, the disorientation of walking—or, rather, shuffling—when you weigh almost nothing, the irritation of jagged regolith dust. Glimpse the frigid mountains and plains of Pluto and the cake-like exterior of a comet called 67P. On a planet trillions of miles from Earth, glance down to see the strange, beautiful shadows cast by a hundred thousand stars. For the aspiring extraterrestrial citizen, casual space tourist, or curious armchair traveler, Plait is an illuminating, always-entertaining guide to the most otherworldly views in our universe.
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I almost rated this at 2 stars, but my complaints mostly have to do with the type of reader I am.
The book is not for me, but I think it is for someone. I'm not sure the author knows exactly who he wants that someone to be. There is a lot of interesting trivia in the book, things that can whet the beak of someone and get them interested enough to sit back and picture what the skyline of Mars might look like, for example. I imagine these would make a person look for other content around Space and our place in it. Unfortunately, the trivia is interspersed with a lot of filler material. Sometimes, these are just adverbs and unnecessary spacing. You could carve out about a quarter of this book and be left with a better product for the time saved.
There is another component - small fables told usually at the front of each chapter. These weren't for me, and I think they point to who the author thinks he's writing for - junior high or high school kids. I can see these being good hooks for that population, and the book, I think, reads as if it is aimed at that level (most of the time, anyway). I did not like the fables because they were written in the second person present tense, which I absolutely hate. Sometimes (and weirdly), these narratives pop into the regular sections of the text, and that felt discombobulating.
I think this book is trying to be 3 or 4 different products at once. I think it could be better in one of the following forms:
- A generously illustrated traveler's guide to the Universe, 80 to 100 pages.
- A first-person narrative of someone experiencing the story being told, in a more classical sci-fi way...(?)
- A much more scientifically detailed, but ultimately more refined version of the book. I know that seems counterintuitive, but I felt that much of the content in this version is filler.
The author describes himself as a “science populizer,” and that is fitting because in some sections it read like Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining things at me in a way that even I, someone who loves space, felt a little annoyed by. I think the author means well and it's possible I couldn't get past the writing because of my tastes and/or prior knowledge. I do wonder if science needs “populizers” as opposed to something else, something about that term feels a little icky to me. I don't know.
I read an Advanced Reader Copy.
