Customer Reviews

The Story of the Solar System

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Don't buy this book if you are looking for an in-depth, extensive coverage of the history of our solar system. There are much better, more informative books on this subject, e.g. the Cambrige Guide to the Solar System or The New Solar System (both also from Cambridge University Press). Nevertheless, the author does a good job in telling this history in a splendid, non-technical and 'epic' language, like a great adventure starring the sun, the planets, the comets and the asteroids, from their first beginnings in a giant molecular cloud composed of interstellar dust to the tragic death of our sun after some 10 billion years (!), leaving our earth as a cold dead world (there's a very beautiful, eery, surreal painting of this blackened dead earth in this book, with the sun as a tiny white spot flickering in the dark sky). Very impressive writing, sublime at times, as if you were actually there, floating between the stars, watching the conception and development of our solar system unfolding before your own eyes. A good book for the novice, I would say, maybe best suited to the teenage cosmologists of the world. The best thing this book has to offer is the paintings, by the author himself (he is from 1968, working for Sky and Telescope, and also an astronomer), which are truly spectacular. I suspect they are the true reason why this book was written. You can get an impression of his 'glorious realist' style by visiting his website. So, buy this book if you like a good cosmological narrative and nice space artwork. Leave it, if you're more scientifically interested.