Solar System Books

The Bronze Age Computer Disc impressed me greatly. As much as a detective story into the ancient past it is a rich and fascinating travelog of a little understood and fabulous ancient culture - the Minoans. The book shows how the mysterious symbols of the Phaistos Disc, found in Crete at the beginning of the 20th century, can be used to demonstrate a fantastic system of measuring time, space and distance, that existed as early as 3,500 BC in the Far West of Europe. This book is an easy to follow read, beautifully crafted, and with parenthesis to sift out the mathematics for people who are willing to take the author's word. The Bronze Age Computer Disc ends with a promise of many more revelations to come. I honestly cannot wait. Within the book lie some of the most incredible assertions regarding our ancient ancestors ever proposed.

The author aims to prove the use of circular pattern on the Phaistos disk, but manages to come up with circular evidence. Pardon the pun, couldn't resist. The basic observations are valid and useful, such as the 30 fields on one side and 31 on the other, but his conclusions beyond this are essentially unsubstantiated. For example: He is assuming a certain number of degrees on the circle (366), and a certain number of arc-seconds per degree, and furthermore that the length measure is a foot, and that there are 36.6 feet per arc-second. If it is so, then the result corresponds to within a kilometre with the circumference of the Earth, which is remarkble. Since it is remarkble, he concludes that it must be true, which is of course a circular argument to say the least. The book is full of similar units and measures that are unsubstantiated. I can not recommend it.

The book is easy and enjoyable to read, even for those without an archaeology background. It also combines some good social description with an intriguing hypothesis: that ancient Crete, with a simple round stone, could calculate time, distance and position as accurately as any watch, calendar or map that would be developed in the next 2,000 years. Neverthess, I found the proof a bit lacking in substance and heavy in supposition.

Future traffic policing is a 24 hour a day live in your vehicle job for these officers. Their banter is very entertaining.


3.5 out of 5

Future traffic policing is a 24 hour a day live in your vehicle job for these officers. Their banter is very entertaining.


3.5 out of 5

This is not the complete book. It is only the first three chapters. This book is only 87 pages in length. I bought a complete copy from an online bookseller that is over 270 pages.

Old Galactic Gun Girl mission.


While not the precocious super bright type Telzey Amberdon is, this not-kid-either can handle a gun.

Again, a mission for a talent young woman with the skills to suit a mission with strange aliens, disguise, subterfuge, and more.

At stake could be interplanetary war, as the plasmoids are Repulsive.

The Hub is in good hands with the platinum blonde Space Agent babe on the case (with the odd bit of male help of varying use).

Not bad, but this book revolved mainly around the characters. Not that it's a bad thing to spend time on the characters and their machinations. However there is an underlying mystery that in my opinion was somewhat neglected. I didn't find the resolution to be particularly satisfying, and in fact the mystery itself wasn't laid out in much detail.

It was a pleasant read, and I would recommend it. However I feel that it's just an average SF book.

I am going to open with a brief explanation of my five-star rating system: (1) _Five Stars_: Classical or classical quality. Superior in almost every way.(2) _Four Stars_: Excellent, but just this side of Paradise.(3) _Three Stars_: Solidly Good. Above average. The virtues outweigh the faults. (4) _Two Stars_: Below average, but not a complete time-waster. (5) _One Star_: Poor. Really bad. Read this one only when you're drunk. I spell this system out because I am fully aware that it may not be the same as those of other reviewers.

All of which brings me to my global rating of James H. Schmitz's _Legacy_. It is not a classic. Nor is it unusually excellent. It has its share of faults. The love scenes, which I thought were great stuff when I read them in high school under the original title of _A Tale of Two Clocks_, now seem a bit silly and juvenile. There is a scientist who is too much the gullible, Absent-Minded Professor to be believable. And the notion that the tough, smart villainess will Tell All after being spanked by the heroine strains credulity.

Some readers might argue that Trigger Argee's infatuation with a handsome scoundrel for a third of the novel is a fault as well. I am inclined to be a bit generous here. After all, who among us has not been a Fool for Love at one time or another? Still, it should be noted that later stories featuring Trigger have her less prone to put up with masculine nonsense.

The plot involves some plastic skinned living machines called the plasmoids made in the days of the long-lost Old Galactics. Mankind discovers them on a distant planet, and now there is a race by different factions to get them, experiment with them, and use them. But in the meantime, the plasmoids have begun a series of experiments of their own on humans...

The novel has some nice touches. The portrait of a futuristic university early in the novel is well done and entertaining, if a little sketchy. The plasmoid 113-A, Old Repulsive, is engaging. There is a lot of skulduggery on various space liners. And there is an effective description of a fort taken over by the king plasmoid near the close of the novel:

A small fiery crater appeared. It darkened quickly again. Out of the biggest opening, down near what would have been the foot of the stump if it had been a stump, something long, red, and wormlike wriggled rapidly. It flowed up over the structure's surface to the damaged point and thrust the tip of its front end into the crater. Black material began to flow from the tip. (323-324)

So. Three stars. Solidly good. A reliable space opera with an engaging heroine. Perhaps it should be noted here that James Schmitz in a quiet, unspectacular way did a marvelous job with space opera heroines. His best known are Trigger Argee and Telzey Amberdon. But Nile Etland, Grandma Wannattel, and Reetal Destone deserve mention as well. I suspect that you will like Trigger Argee a lot. Perhaps that is really all that needs to be said.

In my book, "Astronomical Symbols on Ancient and Medieval Coins", I devote an entire chapter to comets that were depicted on medieval coinage as signs of divine right to sovereignty. Several other chapters also refer to the use of cometary symbols on coins as a part of in-depth discussions of various sovereigns.

I have a Ph.D. in astronomy with my thesis dealing with long period cometary orbits. As part of my numismatic research, I supplemented my own knowledge with that of several other sources, and found Yeomans' book to be especially valuable.

I highly recommend this book to all who are interested in reading about historical comets.

Marshall Faintich

Comets where first discovered way back in the time of such scientific scholars like Aristotle and Ptolemy. The book Comets was written by Donald K. Yeomans. In the book he tells you the history on comets and how they have been and are being discovered in space. He also describes the different views of the scientists of the time on comets. An example of a wacky thought of comets was by Aristotle as he thought that comets had something to do with meteorology.
The author also describes how comets impacted societies and time periods. Suck as how Newton viewed the comets of 1607,1618,1652,1664 and 1665. He tied this info into his theory of a heliocentric universe. This book tells you facts on comets also like how Halley's Comet returns roughly about every 70 years. I didn't really enjoy this book because of the fact I am not a big reader and it is basically a book of facts. The book on comets is really a giant fact book compiled for studies. I would recommend this book if you where going to do any type of project or paper on comets but I would not recommend it for the casual reader.

This book is so full of errors and mistakes that it ends up being more of a waste of time than anything else. In addition, the writing style is amateurish - almost to the point of being funny. You get the impression that the author was simply transcribing Sky&Telescope rather than thinking through what she was actually trying to say.

This book is a useful overview of what we know about Jupiter. Anyone interested in Jupiter will find it readable. And some of the information will appeal to specialists as well.

An introduction gives a short history of observations of the planet, including the robotic missions of Pioneer and Voyager. After that, there is a chapter on Jupiter's atmosphere and another on the famous Red Spot. Beebe then tells about the problems in modeling the interior of the rapidly rotating Jupiter. And we find out more about modeling of the upper atmosphere.

I was intrigued by the part about spectrographic measurements of the hydrogen and helium in Jupiter's atmosphere. You see, spectrographic analysis gave a mass ratio of 21% to 22% of Helium in the Jovian atmosphere. But Beebe tells us that the Galileo Probe in situ observation was more like 25% Helium. That is actually important. It turns out that a very straightforward calculation of Big Bang nucleosynthesis predicts a minimum of 23% to 24% primordial Helium in the universe. The percentage of Helium in Jupiter ought to be a little higher than the primordial one. So it could be that the Big Bang calculation of 23% to 24% is indeed right on the money. On top of that, as Beebe points out, the Probe results could confirm that there is enough mixing in the upper Jovian atmosphere to prevent much Helium from separating out and falling to lower elevations.

Beebe continues with a description of Jupiter's satellites and ring. By the way, I would like to point out that many more satellites of Jupiter have been discovered since her book was written. Those discovered in 2000 include Kalyke, Harpalyke, Isonoe, Taygete, Themisto, Praxidike, and Magaclite. Those discovered in 2001 include Aitne, Hermippe, Eurydome, Thyone, Autonoe, and Euanthe. Several more were discovered in each of those two years. By early 2004, a total of 63 satellites of Jupiter had been found.

The author then briefly describes the Jovian magnetosphere. And she concludes by discussing the Shoemaker-Levy comet collisions with Jupiter and the results from the Galileo Probe.

I recommend this book.

Decent information for beginners to the field of solar physics.
However, in a couple ways this book is a fine example of how NOT
to write a science book. Lang states numbers and units in a very distracting way: for instance, "1.5 thousand meters" and on a diagram of the Sun, 15 M(degree sign) for the central temperature.

On page 73 we read, about the Sun's oscillations: "That interval is similar to the separation between the most intense contractions during child birth, at least during the birth of my children."

OK, did we really need to know that in an _astrophysics_ text?

Kenneth Lang, the well-known author of Astrophysical Formulae, wrote this excellently-illustrated introductory book about the Sun's atmosphere. The level of the book is appropriate for an "educated layman" who is interested in the field of solar astrophysics. I read it as background for the incipient STEREO mission. It concentrates on the new knowledge from three recent space missions: SOHO, Ulysses, and Yohkoh; but it also includes data from many other spacecraft, ground (and underground) observatories, and historical data.

The book is organized well. It has sections on the three space missions, the space environment, helioseismology, the corona, the solar wind, solar activity, and the Sun-Earth connection. Each chapter concludes with a chronology of important scientific discoveries in the field. The book also includes side boxes containing key concepts in understanding the physics described in the text. Apparently these were included so the text might be used for a undergraduate course; but the academic level of these side boxes is so inconsistent I do not think this book alone could be used as a text. The book concludes with a set of Internet addresses (it is a pity that the movies that have been made of solar phenomena cannot be incorporated into a printed book) and an extensive list of references to original papers.

The book's strength is its illustrations, which cover almost every observable aspect of the Sun. Many of these are taken from seminal papers in the field, and the author is careful to give credit where credit is due. If the book has a weakness, it is this scrupulousness in attributing discoveries to scientists: the author sometimes presents the discoveries in piecemeal fashion. He thus sometimes fails to present an entire coherent picture of a phenomenon, while presenting parts of the picture many times. He also has an annoying idiosyncrasy of writing out powers of ten and units (e.g., "50,000 to 1.2 million meters per second") rather than using an appropriate abbreviation (50 - 1200 km/s); I often found myself converting his writing in my head to get a feel for the numbers.

In general, the book is an excellent introduction to this field and I recommend it for that purpose. It is not adequate preparation for someone wishing to enter the field of solar physics, but it is not a coffee-table paperweight either. It gives the reader the ability to understand what solar scientists are talking about, and what the target science is for the various missions in NASA's Sun-Earth Connection enterprise.

I liked this book! What a wonderful alternative to loud, noisy, smoking, gas eating, motor generators. Ritchie writes from his own experience, and leads you through the entire prosess of how he built his own solar system. What's also interesting, he built a system that is very cost effective.

If you 30 or 40 thousand dollars, you can get someone else to build your system for you, that will power your entire home. If that's what you want, don't buy this book.

You will have to look long and hard to find the kind of information that Ritchie from his own experienc has put into this book.

There are plenty of myths about solar electricty and someone needed to write do-it-yourself book showing how simple and inexpensive a solar electric system can be.

Five stars for this one.

This book will leave you wanting. Wanting to stay on the grid! ... It lacks a lot but most of all it lacks Pictures, Illustrations, something to help visualize how to do what the author is talking about. Pick up any "how to" mannuel. What is it filled with? Pictures, Illustrations. This book has 3 maybe 4. Besides that, it is poorly written.

The book is also, shall we say , "lacking in value". If you get my meaning. I have never done a review before but from the review guidelines, I assume amazon will not allow me to be any more blunt than that. Of course if you have money to burn you could use it for your wood store to fire your boiler to produce steam in your own personal turbine. Now there's a idea. Someone should write a book about it.

This is a good book, but not for babies or preschool children like it is categorized here. There are a lot of facts, and it will simply bore most children if they don't have a very, very, very strong interest in this subject. My 4 and 5 year old daughters said it was "boring" and didn't want me to finish... however, I insisted we finish what we started... and they constantly looked around the room and even sat on their hands trying to sit still until we did. I even tried to ask a lot of questions and make it as interesting as I could... but truthfully this book would be better for children a little older than my own... or maybe a good book to read when your child is learning about this topic in school. Otherwise, I don't see how it will hold your child's interest... there are a lot of interesting facts, but not written to grab the attention of preschool and kindergarten students.

A Science Fiction Story

Tickler problems.


2.5 out of 5

A Science Fiction Story

Centaurus City research screening.


3 out of 5