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Apollo's Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and Imagination

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Harnessing the power of artists and scientists, science writer Sims tells the amazing story of one day in the life of our planet. From James Joyce to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, writers have shaped big stories around our 24-hour day, painters have called on the dawn to praise God and ordinary people have found terror and awe in the night skies.

Scientists, too, have used their imaginations to construct elaborate, beautiful and utterly false theories about our planet and its environs. Ptolemy's eloquent proof that the sun and all the universe revolve around the earth guided navigation (and scientific thought) for centuries. Kepler accepted the sun as the center of the cosmos. "But as a consequence, Kepler found himself horrified at the thought of the sun cast adrift among innumerable stars," so he argued for a finite cosmos centered around our sun.

Sims ("Adam's Navel") moves from myth to science and back again as he invites us to marvel at the dawn and understand the qualities of light that color it. "For the rest of my life I will reflect on what light is," says Albert Einstein in one of the many punctuating quotes Sims sprinkles throughout the text.

The speed of light, its color spectrum and how the earth's spin, axis and rotation affect our perceptions - blue sky, rainbows, sunsets and dawns - are naturally recurring themes throughout a day that's entirely dependent on the sun. He touches too on the eventual death of our sun and other stars, greater and smaller.

The myth of Phaethon, Apollo's son, who insists on driving the chariot of fire, begins at dawn and Sims retuns to it throughout the day, accumulating disasters. This is as close as Sims gets to preaching in a book that necessarily dwells on atmosphere, pollution and weather. He conjures up clouds and explains them, touches on nuclear winter, imagines the world before the dawn of ozone (life under water) and explains why ozone is good in the heavens and bad in the lungs.

He visits Leonardo DaVinci, Galileo, and Darwin, Matisse, Michelangelo and Berke Breathed. He discusses circadian rhythms and artificial light and the young Italian who sealed herself up for four months in a cave to test the possible effects of isolation during space travel. When her time was up she thought she'd only been enclosed for two months.

He discusses the dawn cacophony of birds, the "border habitat" of bats between sunset and night, the air the dinosaurs breathed. He ruminates on Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone" and movies like "High Noon," reminding us how morning, noon, and night give rise to symbols so ingrained we hardly think of where they came from.

Sims' prose is restrained and lively, spare and sparkling, visual and eloquent, witty and erudite. He makes us think, reflect and take time to admire the moon. "Apollo's Fire" is, simply, a delight.

Michael Sims is one the most insightful and talented of contemporary science writers. Apollo's Fire follows Adam's Navel, his lyrical romp through the human body. This luminous new book is a journey through the planet's oldest narrative, the cycle of day and night. Sims's writing is often praised for its wit and erudition. In this new book--in the clarity and elegance of its prose and its astonishing alchemy of art, history, literature, mythology, and solid science--it's easy to see why. Shoehorning sophisticated science into fluid narrative is no easy task, but Sims makes it seem so. Reading Apollo's Fire is like walking one whole turn of day with a curious and engaging friend, impossibly well read, who asks the questions you wish you'd thought of, and then answers them in lucid, beautiful, playful language: Sun dogs and moon shadows, contrails, the strange story of ozone, the border habitat of twilight, the nature of sunlight and the physics of wind, the myth of Apollo and the story of Phaethon. Best not to fly through this book, but to saunter, musing. Then run out and buy copies for your friends and family to keep on their nightstands. They'll thank you for it.

Michael Sims captured the essence of the human body in "Adam's Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form" and now he is back with an equally fascinating journey through the day. His "Apollo's Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and Imagination" is another gem mixing science, history, myth and folklore.

Because we are used to the cycle of the day, we generally don't think much about it. Like water, air, soil and other commonalities of life on this planet the day is often ignored except when we are late to some appointment or notice some phenomenon in the sky, such as unusual clouds or a rainbow. Sims writes of these and more, such as the legend of Phaethon, son of Apollo (from which he derived the book's name), the iconography of the movie "High Noon", the procession of the day from dawn to midnight, the starry night, and the use of the moon in Japanese prints. This is a very good read and a store of neat facts and legends about the daily cycle. In fact Sims reminds me of another very good writer on natural phenomena, Chet Raymo, who gives Sims' book praise on the back book cover.

I recommend this book highly to anyone who is interested in the day and the "enchanting journey" (as Raymo puts it) on which the author leads us. This book will make the reader more attuned to and aware of the day's passage.

Review of Apollo's fire: a day on earth in nature and imagination by Michael Sims published by Viking of London in 2007

Reviewer: W. P. Palmer

The author information on the book's cover states that Michael Sims is `acclaimed for his witty and original take on the natural world.' There are certainly some original and entertaining parts of the book, but overall these are few and far between! There is far too much pointless verbiage. The power of the author's scientific explanation is limited. For example, take the section explaining the effect in terms of global warming or cooling of jet engine contrails on high flying aircraft. The author expands on several general principles correctly, but the examples provided do not appear to follow the logic of the principles the author established.

There could be numerous scientific reasons why the theory and practice differ, but although interesting the section needs revision. I have asked several people to read this section (pp. 100-102) and they all find that there is something amiss.

I was interested in learning about Luke Howard (pp. 95-96) as I had not come across him previously. Similarly I found that the Galileo story (pp. 207-216) good, particularly his last discovery (p. 215). Generally the book is bitty- good in parts, like the curate's egg. The connecting theme of the `phaeton' travelling across the sky does provide an integrating theme, as such integration is greatly needed.

In general, I would not be in a hurry to purchase this book.

BILL PALMER

A good book makes the reader feel more alive. By that measure, Apollo's Fire is a fine, fine book indeed. Michael Sims' prose gave me the ongoing urge to get out into the out-of-doors more often and, when I do, to see it with new eyes. It is impossible not to walk through a day, any day, differently after reading this insightful, devout and whimiscal book.

Michael continues to prove himself a wonderful writer and observer of the world. Check out Apollo and get ready to be amazed.

There's nothing subtle about the material or text, and in places it's very deep indeed. The invocation of 'science' is in the same vein as that of, say, Paul Erlich and Trofim Lysenko, with a sad twist. Using a variant of the Book of Hours as a vehicle to condescendingly inform us (that means you, dear reader) that we're selfish, business is evil, and that we should look to failed and unsustainable societies as spiritual guides strikes me as a very bad case of self-loathing. After a bit of this the suspicion comes to mind that the author lives in Connecticut, wears Bally shoes and Gucci belts, and most afternoons drives a BMW X7 to a local Ben & Jerry's for an afternoon break and celebrate Nature. You don't have to spend money to be insulted: Check the book out from your local library - they get a discount.