Book Description
Blast off with Douglas Florian's new high-flying compendium, which features twenty whimsical poems about space.
From the moon to the stars, from the Earth to Mars, here is an exuberant celebration of our celestial surroundings that's certain to become a universal favorite among aspiring astronomers everywhere.
Includes die-cut pages and a glossary of space terms.
Customer Reviews:
A "Universal" treat!.......2007-05-05
I think Douglas Florian's new book, 'comets, stars, the moon and mars' is his most expressive yet.
Beginning with the poem "skywatch," two children look at the sky. The next poem is "the universe."
Die cut "planet" holes move the reader deeper and further through space. From "mercury" to "venus" to "the earth" to "the moon" the poems continue in order according to their distance from the Sun. Comets, black holes and the mystery of what lies beyond are also addressed. Florian's ability to weave facts and fun are on full display here.
The bright color palette echoes the amazing views from the Hubble space telescope. This generation of kids has grown up looking at Seymour Simon's books about the solar system and the Universe. They have seen the colors that are out there.
Check out the Harcourt page about the book and download Florian's Poetry Kit. The "Practical Poetry Pointers" are some of the most best tips for writing poetry with kids that I have ever seen.
You have Gotta-Have-It.
Book Description
Meteor Showers and their Parent Comets is a unique handbook for astronomers interested in observing meteor storms and outbursts. Spectacular displays of 'shooting stars' are created when the Earth's orbit crosses a meteoroid stream, as each meteoroid causes a bright light when it enters our atmosphere at high speed. Jenniskens, an active meteor storm chaser, explains how meteoroid streams originate from the decay of meteoroids, comets and asteroids, and how they cause meteor showers on Earth. He includes the findings of recent space missions to comets and asteroids, the risk of meteor impacts on Earth, and how meteor showers may have seeded the Earth with ingredients that made life possible. All known meteor showers are identified, accompanied by fascinating details on the most important showers and their parent comets. The book predicts when exceptional meteor showers will occur over the next 50 years, making it a valuable resource for both amateur and professional astronomers.
Customer Reviews:
A Must for Meteor Enthusiasts!.......2006-12-03
WOW! what a book this is for aspiring and experienced observers! I'm in awe. Dr. Jenniskens' new book is so chock-full of information it will take years to soak it all in. He has done a masterful job of explaining everything that goes into the generation of comet dust trails and the resultant meteor showers they spawn. That -- plus a comprehensive listing of EVERY expected meteor outburst (and their expected ZHRs!) for the next fifty years! Not just the main showers like the Leonids and Perseids, but all minor showers as well.
I'm absolutely astounded by the enormous amount of work that must have gone into creating this book! It is simply an amazing work that should be in every library and on every meteor enthusiast's shelf -- because you'll be going back to it again and again for the rest of your life!
(Note: This is probably not the right meteor book for youngsters just getting to know this wonderful science and hobby, however. The charts, graphs, and mathematics are a little overwhelming for beginners.)
Pete Bias (author of Meteors and Meteor Showers, an Amateur's Guide to Meteors)
Book Description
When Moomintroll learns that a comet will be passing by, he and his friend Sniff travel to the Observatory on the Lonely Mountains to consult the Professors. Along the way, they have many adventures, but the greatest adventure of all awaits them when they learn that the comet is headed straight for their beloved Moominvalley.
Customer Reviews:
Comet in Moominland, Paperback.......2007-09-23
Wonderful book for both children and adults. I fell in love with moomin adventures as a kid and wanted to share it with my child. He loved it too.The charm of the Moomin Valley never fades.
The shipping was fast and the book was in mint condition, I am very pleased with this purchase.
Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03
Large astronomical objects blow up everything, even trolls.
So what is a young moomin to do when threatened with extinction by big space rock smooshing? Set out to save the world of course, preferably with a bunch of friends. If you make some new ones on the way, then that is perfectly fine as well. How exactly a short funny looking little guy can have his own astronomical impact requires a bit of invention.
Run for cover!.......2007-05-27
Tove Jansson, Comet in Moominland (Ernest Benn Ltd., 1946)
It is one of the great travesties of literature in translation that of the fourteen legendary Moomin books written by Tove Jansson, three of them have, as far as I have been able to tell, weathered over half a century without being translated into English, despite the great success of the other eleven. It's a twist of the knife that The Little Trolls and the Big Flood, the first of the series, is one of the three. (Note: the book has, in fact, been recently translated, but it only available, as of this writing, in Finland.) Thus, for over fifty years, English children delving into the Moomin books (and they have been legion) have started their journey here, with the second book, Comet in Moominland. And while it's a decent book, it's not the highlight of the series by a long shot. Would it be better if we had access to the first? I've no idea. I hope to find out eventually.
Moomintroll and Sniff are young, and they do love a good adventure. During a wild storm, they meet the Muskrat, a philosopher who foretells the end of the world. Sure enough, not long after, astronomers spy a comet rushing towards the earth, and Moomintroll, Sniff, and their new friend the Silk-Monkey head off to find astronomers to consult with. A grand adventure, indeed.
Back when I was a kid devouring the Moomin books, Comet in Moominland was my least favorite of the series. I'm not terribly sure why, rereading it, now, because it's got pretty much everything a kid could want-- fantastic creatures, grand adventure, the fate of the world hanging in the balance, all that stuff. I really did like it a great deal this time round. If I find the rest of the series that much better in rereads as I did thirty-odd years ago, I'm in for a wonderful series of re-reads. This is great stuff. *** ½
Yea for Moomintroll & Friends.......2006-03-27
The first time I came across this book, I had to read it for a college class on children's lit. It was such a fantastic story that I couldn't believe I had never heard about it in my childhood. My children, however, are more fortunate to have made the acquaintance with Jansson's wonderful characters. For the past month, I have been reading this story a chapter at a time to my 3 year old twins and they love it! They have developed a great affection for Moomintroll, Sniff and Snufkin so much so that their reading comprehension has soared. From night to night they can tell me every detail of what was read in the previous chapter. This isn't done with all books - just the ones that they really take to heart. And this story has a lot of heart. Essentially it's a tale of what fear does to people (or in this case creatures). Friends Moomintroll and Sniff go out on an adventure to find out about a comet and meet up with a traveler named Snufkin and then later with a Snork Maiden and her brother, as well as many other imaginative characters. I highly recommend this book to read to your preschoolers until they can read it for themselves (and they will want to). Even the seemingly odd phrasing to the American child (that comes with most books in translation) is a learning experience. The vocabulary surge with this book has been amazing. It will be a favorite for years to come.
Excellent.......2006-03-19
Poetic, emotionally moving and poignet portrayl of what fear of war/unknown can have on individuals. I love all of Tove Jansson's Moomin books and read them with great delight. There is humor, sensitivity and thought...something that is used not enough or heavy handed by other children's authors.
I cannot wait until my children are old enough to read these books on their own and I will read them the stories in the mean while. You cannot go wrong with Jansson's books.
Book Description
Newly discovered scientific proof validating the legends and myths of ancient floods, fires, and weather extremes
• Presents new scientific evidence revealing the cause of the end of the last ice age and the cycles of geological events and species extinctions that followed
• Connects physical data to the dramatic earth changes recounted in oral traditions around the world
• Describes the impending danger from a continuing cycle of catastrophes and extinctions
There are a number of puzzling mysteries in the history of Earth that have yet to be satisfactorily explained by mainstream science: the extinction of the dinosaurs, the vanishing of ancient Indian tribes, the formation of the mysterious Carolina Bays, the disappearance of the mammoths, the sudden ending of the last Ice Age, and the cause of huge underwater landslides that sent massive tsunamis racing across the oceans millennia ago. Eyewitness accounts of these events are chronicled in rich oral traditions handed down through generations of native peoples. The authors’ recent scientific discoveries link all these events to a single cause.
In The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes Richard Firestone, Allen West, and Simon Warwick-Smith present new scientific evidence about a series of prehistoric cosmic events that explains why the last Ice Age ended so abruptly. Their findings validate the ubiquitous legends and myths of floods, fires, and weather extremes passed down by our ancestors and show how these legendary events relate to each other. Their findings also support the idea that we are entering a thousand-year cycle of increasing danger and possibly a new cycle of extinctions.
Customer Reviews:
Have we passed our "Extinct By" Date?.......2007-04-17
This book is about the "Event" that took place about 12,000 years ago that is recorded in myth and legend variously as the Fall of Atlantis and Noah's Flood. Plato describes a destruction that occurred in a day and a night, and the Bible recounts the story of torrential rains and an immense flood in which most of the life on earth perished. There is also a rich body of Native American literature about a worldwide cataclysm of fires, followed by floods and death raining down from the skies. As many as fifty different cultures around the globe record versions of this story, and physicist Firestone, along with his geologist co-authors, have put together a book, based on hard scientific evidence, describing a cosmic chain of events that they believe culminated in the global catastrophe of circa 12,000 years ago. They believe that the Event was triggered by a nearby supernova that occurred 41,000 years ago.
Firestone et al propose that we are still traversing an "extinction cycle" related to that event and that may very well be so, but it may also be true that there is more to the matter.
On March 13, 2005, the UK Observer published an article entitled "Bad news - we are way past our 'extinct by' date" which tells us:
"After analysing the eradication of millions of ancient species, scientists have found that a mass extinction is due any moment now.
"Their research has shown that every 62 million years - plus or minus 3m years - creatures are wiped from the planet's surface in massive numbers. Even worse, scientists have no idea about its source.
"'There is no doubting the existence of this cycle of mass extinctions every 62m years. It is very, very clear from analysis of fossil records,' said Professor James Kirchner, of the University of California, Berkeley. 'Unfortunately, we are all completely baffled about the cause.'"
This part of the article is actually quite disingenuous. It is well known that there are other major extinctions and the cycle is not ONLY every 62 million years! There is also a very strong signal for a 26 million year extinction cycle. The different estimates of the number of major mass extinctions in the last 540 million years are due mainly to what the individual researcher chooses as the threshold for naming an extinction event as "major" as well as what set of data he selects as the determinant measure of past diversity. As it happens, the 62 million event data stems mainly from marine fossil evidence. The article goes on to say:
"But what is responsible? Here, researchers ran into problems. They considered the passage of the solar system through gas clouds that permeate the galaxy. These clouds could trigger climatic mayhem. However, there is no known mechanism to explain why the passage might occur only every 62m years.
"Alternatively, the Sun may possess an undiscovered companion star. It could approach the Sun every 62m years, dislodging comets from the outer solar system and propelling them towards Earth. Such a companion star has never been observed, however, and in any case such a lengthy orbit would be unstable, Muller says.
"Or perhaps some internal geophysical cycle triggers massive volcanic activity every 62m years, Muller and Rohde wondered. Plumes from these would surround the planet and lead to a devastating drop in temperature that would freeze most creatures to death.
"Unfortunately, scientists know of no such geological cycle.
"'We have tried everything we can think of to find an explanation for these weird cycles of biodiversity and extinction,' Muller said. 'So far we have failed."
The fact is, the above article doesn't even mention the Pleistocene extinction which is the subject of "The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes," yet a mountain of evidence points to the fact that this extinction was global and catastrophic.
Back in the 1940s Dr. Frank C. Hibben, Prof. of Archeology at the University of New Mexico led an expedition to Alaska to look for human remains. He didn't find human remains; he found miles and miles of icy muck just packed with mammoths, mastodons, and several kinds of bison, horses, wolves, bears and lions. Just north of Fairbanks, Alaska, the members of the expedition watched in horror as bulldozers pushed the half-melted muck into sluice boxes for the extraction of gold. Animal tusks and bones rolled up in front of the blades "like shavings before a giant plane". The carcasses were found in all attitudes of death, most of them "pulled apart by some unexplainable prehistoric catastrophic disturbance."[Hibben, Frank, The Lost Americans (New York: Thomas & Crowell Co. 1946)]
The killing fields stretched for literally hundreds of miles in every direction.[ibid.] There were trees and animals, layers of peat and moss, twisted and tangled and mangled together as though some Cosmic mixmaster sucked them all in circa 12000 years ago, and then froze them instantly into a solid mass. [Sanderson, Ivan T., "Riddle of the Frozen Giants", Saturday Evening Post, No. 39, January 16, 1960.]
Just north of Siberia entire islands are formed of the bones of Pleistocene animals swept northward from the continent into the freezing Arctic Ocean. One estimate suggests that some ten million animals may be buried along the rivers of northern Siberia. Thousands upon thousands of tusks created a massive ivory trade for the master carvers of China, all from the frozen mammoths and mastodons of Siberia. The famous Beresovka mammoth first drew attention to the preserving properties of being quick-frozen when buttercups were found in its mouth.
What kind of terrible event overtook these millions of creatures in a single day? Well, the evidence suggests an enormous tsunami raging across the land, tumbling animals and vegetation together, to be finally quick-frozen for the next 12000 years. But the extinction was not limited to the Arctic, even if the freezing at colder locations preserved the evidence of Nature's rage.
Paleontologist George G. Simpson considers the extinction of the Pleistocene horse in North America to be one of the most mysterious episodes in zoological history, confessing, "no one knows the answer." He is also honest enough to admit that there is the larger problem of the extinction of many other species in America at the same time. [Simpson, George G., Horses, New York: Oxford University Press) 1961] The horse, giant tortoises living in the Caribbean, the giant sloth, the saber-toothed tiger, the glyptodont and toxodon. These were all tropical animals. These creatures didn't die because of the "gradual onset" of an ice age, "unless one is willing to postulate freezing temperatures across the equator, such an explanation clearly begs the question." [Martin, P. S. & Guilday, J. E., "Bestiary for Pleistocene Biologists", Pleistocene Extinction, Yale University, 1967]
Massive piles of mastodon and saber-toothed tiger bones were discovered in Florida. [Valentine, quoted by Berlitz, Charles, The Mystery of Atlantis (New York, 1969)] Mastodons, toxodons, giant sloths and other animals were found in Venezuela quick-frozen in mountain glaciers. Woolly rhinoceros, giant armadillos, giant beavers, giant jaguars, ground sloths, antelopes and scores of other entire species were all totally wiped out at the same time, at the end of the Pleistocene, approximately 12000 years ago.
This event was global. The mammoths of Siberia became extinct at the same time as the giant rhinoceros of Europe; the mastodons of Alaska, the bison of Siberia, the Asian elephants and the American camels. It is obvious that the cause of these extinctions must be common to both hemispheres, and that it was not gradual. A "uniformitarian glaciation" would not have caused extinctions because the various animals would have simply migrated to better pasture. What is seen is a surprising event of uncontrolled violence. [Leonard, R. Cedric, Appendix A in "A Geological Study of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge", Special Paper No. 1 ( Bethany: Cowen Publishing 1979)] In other words, 12000 years ago, something terrible happened - so terrible that life on earth was nearly wiped out in a single day.
Harold P. Lippman admits that the magnitude of fossils and tusks encased in the Siberian permafrost present an "insuperable difficulty" to the theory of uniformitarianism, since no gradual process can result in the preservation of tens of thousands of tusks and whole individuals, "even if they died in winter." [Lippman, Harold E., "Frozen Mammoths", Physical Geology, (New York 1969)] Especially when many of these individuals have undigested grasses and leaves in their belly. Pleistocene geologist William R. Farrand of the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, who is opposed to catastrophism in any form, states: "Sudden death is indicated by the robust condition of the animals and their full stomachs ... the animals were robust and healthy when they died." [Farrand, William R., "Frozen Mammoths and Modern Geology", Science, Vol.133, No. 3455, March 17, 1961] Unfortunately, in spite of this admission, this poor guy seems to have been incapable of facing the reality of worldwide catastrophe represented by the millions of bones deposited all over this planet right at the end of the Pleistocene. Hibben sums up the situation in a single statement: "The Pleistocene period ended in death. This was no ordinary extinction of a vague geological period, which fizzled to an uncertain end. This death was catastrophic and all inclusive." [Hibben, op. cit.]
This is the event that Firestone, West and Warwick-Smith discuss in their book, The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization. They suggest that, as a result of the above mentioned supernova, Planet Earth encountered a massive "swarm" of cometary bodies that nearly destroyed every living thing on Earth about 12000 years ago. They write:
"Until recently, the astronomical mainstream was highly critical of Clube and Napier's giant comet hypothesis. However, the crash of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter in 1994 has led to a change in attitudes. The comet, watched by the world's observatories, was seen split into 20 pieces and slam into different parts of the planet over a period of several days. A similar impact on Earth, it hardly needs saying, would have been devastating."
Readers of my Cassiopaea website and the experiment in superluminal communication that I began in 1992 are aware that this experiment finally bore fruit in 1994 on the very day that the fragments of Comet Shoemaker Levy began impacting the planet Jupiter. We find it amusingly synchronous that one of the themes of the Cassiopaean experiment is planetary destruction via a Comet Cluster that cycles through the solar system every 3,600 years as a consequence of the orbit of our Sun's solar Companion, a smaller, dark, Twin Sun. I discuss this and the Carolina Bays in "The Secret History of the World and How to Get Out Alive".
With the idea that there is a Cometary Bombardment Cycle, we have naturally been alert to the fact that the last few years have brought increasing evidence that this theory is the correct one. This evidence includes the fantastic increase in the number of "moons" attached to Jupiter that have so recently been "discovered", as well as the increase in frequency of comets over the past few years, along with the astonishing increase in meteorites and fireballs entering Earth's atmosphere and falling to earth. In some cases, these events have resulted in damage to human beings and property, and one recent case even resulted in death.
The third edition of the university textbook Exploration of the Universe, by George O. Abell, published in 1975, informs us that Jupiter has 9 moons as of 1974. It says:
"The outer seven, however, have rather eccentric orbits, some of which have a large inclination to Jupiter's equator. The four most distant satellites revolve from east to west, contrary to the motions of most of the other objects in the solar system. They may be former minor planets captured by Jupier. [p. 324]"
Please note that Abell is suggesting that some of Jupiter's moons have been captured by Jupiter's gravity.
Now let's time travel back to the future, and see what the latest information tells us about Jupiter's moons:
"Jupiter is now given 63 satellites." Forty-seven of those satellites have been discovered since 1999. What if they weren't there before?
What about Saturn. Our 1975 text tells us that Saturn has 10 satellites. In 2007? Well, there are so many that one source declines to give a precise number!
However, counting the named satellites on the Timeline of discovery of solar system planets and their natural satellites gives us a count of 62, with 41 being discovered since 2000 and another ten in the 80's and 90's.
Moving outward, we come to Uranus, given five satellites in 1975, it now has 28, with ten being discovered in the 1980's, six in the 90's, and 7 since 2000.
Neptune had two satellies in 1975, now it has 13.
The explanation given most often to explain this surge in the numbers of satellites for these planets is that telescopes have gotten better. That is, we can see further, with greater detail, and can therefore find things that we couldn't see before. It is an explanation that makes sense. One small problem with this theory is that the "new" moons of Neptune and Uranus showed up before the new moons of Jupiter and Saturn. One would think that powerful telescopes capable of finding moons as far away as the seventh and eighth planets would have found the hard to see moons of the fifth and sixth first.
Another possible explanation, and one which fits with new moons appearing around Nepture and Uranus prior to appearing around Jupiter and Saturn, is that these new moons, or some of them, are objects that have been trapped into orbits around these planets only recently, that they were captured by the gravity of these planets and removed from the incoming comet cloud. Passing the orbits of the outer planets first, they would arrive at the inner planets afterwards.
We also note that the much derided Immanuel Velikovsky, in his book Worlds in Collision, gives a time frame of nine years as the time it would take for a comet to cover the distance between Jupiter and Earth. The new Jovian moons were discovered beginning in the late nineties.
Do the math.
Anybody with eyes and ears and a bit of scientific knowledge can look around and see that something is going on "out there". The problem is, of course, that the masses of humanity are so distracted by all the concerns of everyday life - many of which are quite serious nowadays, especially the threat of nuclear war brought to us by George W. Bush and the Ziocons - that most of them haven't got a clue that they probably don't have to worry about Global Warming. (And just because I say that people don't have to worry about Global Warming doesn't mean they don't have to worry!)The evidence that is all around us nowadays even helps us to realize that there was nothing really magical or mysterious about the story of Noah.
When I read Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision" that I realized that the "plagues of the Exodus" was very likely a description of a bombardment of the Earth by rocks and bolides from space. Velikovsky, of course, attributed it to an errant planet Venus that came careening into the solar system just as Firestone et al attribute it to a supernova 41,000 years ago. The Cyclic Comet Cluster related to a Companion Sun explanation is a better fit to all the data, though a supernova could also be involved as well as a "Newcomer" to the Solar System.
In any event, what is perfectly clear is that the story of the Exodus and Noah and the story of Atlantis are apocryphal: many groups of people survived the event of 12,000 years ago here and there, and very likely many of them survived because they realized what was coming. As Firestone, West and Warwick-Smith write:
"It begins with meteors failing like raindrops, a few here and there. Perhaps a few hit the sun, provoking large solar flares. The solar flares provoke colourful auroras even in the daytime sky. Then the day of the comets arrive. From horizon to horizon, growing larger every second, they streaked into the atmosphere, lighting up brighter than the sun."
In the final pages of the final pages of The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization, Firestone et al write:
"If you want more evidence for what happened to the mammoths, you need only to look up at the clear night sky. In almost any month, you can see shooting stars from one of many meteor showers. Nearly every fiery streak you see is the tiny remnant of some giant comet that broke up into smaller pieces. Of course, most of those pieces are microscopic, but their parent comet was not - it was enormous. Astronomers know that, even today, hidden in those cosmic clouds of tiny remnants, there are some huge chunks of comet pieces. We pass through their clouds every year like clockwork, so eventually we will collide with some of bigger pieces.
"In 1990, Victor Clube, an astrophysicist, and Bill Napier, an astronomer, published The Cosmic Winter, a book in which they describe performing orbital analyses of several of the meteor showers that hit Earth every year. Using sophisticated computer software, they carefully looked backward for thousands of years, tracing the orbits of comets, asteroids, and meteor showers until they uncovered something astounding. Many meteor showers are related to one another, such as the Taurids, Perseids, Piscids, and Orionids. In addition, some very large cosmic objects are related: the comets Encke and Rudnicki, the asteroids Oljato, Hephaistos, and about 100 others. Every one of those 100-plus cosmic bodies is at least a half-mile in diameter and some are miles wide. And what do they have in common? According to those scientists, every one is the offspring of the same massive comet that first entered our system less than 20,000 years ago! Clube and Napier calculated that, to account for all the debris they found strewn throughout our solar system, the original comet had to have been enormous.
"So was this our megafauna killer? All the known facts fit. The comet may have ridden in on the supernova wave, [or was knocked into the solar system by the Companion Sun - LKJ] then gone into orbit around the sun less than 20,000 years ago; or, if it was already here, the supernova debris wave may have knocked it into an Earth-crossing orbit. Either way, any time we look up into the night sky at a beautiful, dazzling display of shooting stars, there is an ominous side to that beauty. We are very likely seeing the leftover debris from a monster comet that finished off 40 million animals 12 to 13,000 years ago.
"Clube and Napier also calculated that, because of subtle changes in the orbits of Earth and the remaining cosmic debris, Earth crosses through the densest part of the giant comet clouds about every 2 ,000 to 4,000 years [or 3,600 years?]. When we look at climate and ice-core records, we can see that pattern. For example the iridium, helium-3, nitrate, ammonium, and other key measurements seem to rise and fall in tandem, producing noticeable peaks around 18,000, 16,000, 13,000, 9,000, 5,000, and 2,000 years ago. In that pattern of peaks every 2,000 to 4,000 years, we may be seeing the "calling cards" of the returning megacomet.
"Fortunately, the oldest peaks were the heaviest bombardments, and things have been getting quieter since then, as the remains of the comet break up into even smaller pieces The danger is not past, however. Some of the remaining miles-wide pieces are big enough to do serious damage to our cities, climate, and global economy. Clube and Napier (1984) predicted that in the year 2000 and continuing for 400 years, Earth would enter another dangerous time in which the planet's changing orbit would bring us into a potential collision course with the densest parts of the clouds containing some very large debris. Twenty years after their prediction, we have just now moved into the danger zone. It is a widely accepted fact that some of those large objects are in Earth-crossing orbits at this very moment, and the only uncertainty is whether they will miss us, as is most likely, or whether they will crash into some part of our planet. [...]
"We are years away from being able to control our own destiny as it relates to supernovae and giant comets and asteroids, but scientists are working on solutions. This is not a high priority with the world's governments, however, which typically prefer to confront terrestrial threats rather than cosmic ones. To prevent one of those giant objects from smashing into us, collectively, we spend about $10 to $20 million annually, an amount less than the cost of one or two sophisticated fighter jets. Almost no money is spent trying to detect imminent supernovae [or comets or asteroids].
"Our politicians are seriously underestimating these severe threats, which are capable of ending our species, just as they snuffed out the mammoths a mere 13,000 years ago, only an eyeblink in cosmic terms. There are few threats of that magnitude facing us today. The survival of the human race is not seriously threatened by the avian flu, Al Qaeda attacks, the end of the Age of Oil, monster hurricanes, giant earthquakes, or enormous tsunamis; if any of those occur, most of us will continue with our lives. Furthermore, nothing on that list is broadly accepted as having caused worldwide extinctions in the past. The same cannot be said about supernovae and massive [cometary] impacts. Those two cosmic events are implicated in many of the largest extinctions on our planet over the last millions of years. Fortunately, we survived them, but many of our fellow species did not. Humankind might not survive the next one. It seems reasonable to forgo several of our military fighter jets each year to decrease our chances of being" nuked" from space by a supernova or a comet."
So, indeed, perhaps humanity has passed its "extinct by" date and, just as it was in the days of Noah...
"They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
"Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all."
More like 3.9 stars--generally liked 2/3 of it.......2007-03-17
Gad I love/hate books like this. I think these guys are 75% clearly onto something but the book is not the best-written (my guess as to one reason why it ended up with a dinky New-Age-ish publisher), some of the linking ideas are a bit muddy, and I'm not thrilled with the logic of supernova radiation bath (OK), followed by supernova debris wave (OK), followed by (a stretch to me) comet impacts.
Much better linkage needed to be established between the supernova and the comet appearances other than "they were knocked out of orbit" by the supernova--that's kitchen table physics; the kind of thinking about how the "out there" physical world works based on small scale home observation. If that was in fact the case, then the comet(s) could have come from nearly any direction, but the authors make minor hay of the idea that the comet(s) came from the same direction in the sky as the alleged supernova. The physics of orbital dynamics is not the same thing as the physics of making shots in a game of pool (meaning if you get your pool cue, the moon, and the Earth all in a line, and tap the orbiting moon with your cue, it's not going to sail straight at the Earth).
Oddly, the book by a certified expert in orbital dynamics, astronomer Tom Van Flandern ("Dark Matter, Missing Planets, and New Comets" from another metaphysical rinky-dink press) maintains that the comets are debris produced by the explosion of a gas-giant planet within our solar system. All comet orbits, he claims, roughly trace back to a single point of origin. His is yet another frustrating book full of stupendous insights and appalling credibility-blowing observations (he doesn't rule out the possibility that aliens blew up the planet!). Do some of these writers intentionally sabotage their own work?
Otherwise, the authors of this book make note of a lot of in-the-face oddities that other scientists should have been all over ages ago, like the Carolina bay "craters" (the accepted theories for their formation almost sound like pseudo-science) and the "Black Mat"--a layer of organic material that, beneath a certain level in the soil, seems to blanket nearly everything in North America, and dates to the extinction of the mega-fauna 13,000 years ago. We all know mainstream scientists are conservative, but to ignore this "Mat" and its potential implications one would have to be fossilized.
So you should probably pick this up and add it to the stack of variable-quality outsider Ancient Catastrophe books. It's better and more straight-up than nearly all of them. The authors need to push the supernova of 40,000 years ago theory; it's well-argued and palatable for stone-sober science types. They're over their heads on the comet impact idea for 13,000 years ago, though. Something big happened back then (at least that's what all the natives tell us), and it may have been a comet, but other ideas need to be examined and worked out more comprehensively.
To conclude on a sour note, few legit scientists seem to read these things (most won't jeopardize their reputations by even being seen with copies), and they'll instead get read and critiqued generally by people looking for Atlantis, or ley lines, or ancient astronauts. In other words the biggest fans will probably contribute to keeping the material at the margins of acceptance or consideration. The atrocious cover and title alone will keep this forever out of the hands of academics--it's up there with Chris Dunn's "The Giza Power Station," an amazing and thought-provoking book with cover art so insufferably knuckleheaded that I'm ashamed to show it to people.
Marketing.
You can tell a "soft science"..........2007-03-16
You can tell a "soft science" when it's central dogmas can be permanently disrupted by a physicist messing around in his spare time. The best example is how you can still detect the "post-traumatic-stress" in the voices of paleontologists even decades after "Comet Alvarez" crashed their party. Hey, they had a century head-start and like Ted Turner says, they should be prepared to "Lead, follow, or get out of the way..."
Firestone and his colleagues may be initiating a repeat along the same lines as Walter Alvarez and his stalwarts did with the K/T extinction back in the 1980's. While this book has it's minor flaws, there seems to be enough evidence here to foresee the demise of the overkill theory of megafaunal extinction. And not a minute too soon. As a big fan of Vine Deloria's Red Earth, White Lies, I found this both predictable and highly entertaining. So, just as Dr. Alvarez found pieces of the "smoking bullet" spread around the planet, so also Firestone and his colleagues have found impressive evidence sprayed out onto vast areas of North America at the exact end of the so-called Clovis era. Mark your calender and start counting how many decades it takes the overkill advocates to die off...
Yet, evidence, and interpretation-of-evidence are two different things. The evidence convinces that the Clovis era and it's embattled beasties came to a sudden demise by an extraterrestrial cause. But what was that cause? Firestone and crew interpret the evidence in ways that suggest a nearby supernovae set the whole deadly chain of events in motion. Even if the evidence is solid for a group of related cataclysms, is a supernove, per se, the best or only explanation? I have only gotten 3/4's of the way through the book and I am not yet wholly sold on that. One can take a leisurely look at pictures of the Crab nebula and ponder the 6 light year diameter remnant, 6300 light years distant, as it expands at 600 miles per second. Would such an event deliver enough mass in particles to fill the entire expanding spherical shell so densely that, after traveling hundreds of light years.... it could still plausibly deliver swarms of impactors to earth to form the Carolina Bays? It seems that the surface area of the spherical shell would be too great. Could smaller particles enter the atmosphere fast enough to embed themselves in Mammoth tusks, without also having had enough velocity to burn up much higher above ground before they could reach the surface? It seems there is something wrong here, but perhaps the explanation is that the particles found embedded in the tusks were like secondary cosmic rays: just fragments of much larger chunks of hypervelocity bodies that did detonate at high altitudes. Who knows? Maybe the particles found embedded in the tree trunks at the Tunguska ground zero will be instructive here.
If a supernovae did the dirty deed, we should be able to find the remnant, or at very least a huge cavity in the interstellar gases within our neighborhood of the Milky Way. If, on the other hand, it is implausible that a supernovae could deliver such mass and disruption to our solar system at Firestone's proposed distance of hundreds of light years, than perhaps a more modest cataclysm at closer range might better explain the evidence. Is there anything in the solar sytem that suggests such an explosive event? Perhaps, but the time scales do not jive. Pardon the digression but I refer to Thom VanFlandern's theory on the origin of comets. If Thom VanFlandern is correct, something very interesting happened in the solar system about 3.2 million years ago. Whatever could have caused that event, could also have deposited alot of hell on earth, but again, the time scales do not jive.
So, the book is an A+ for the evidence it presents, and a solid "A" for the theory of causation. This is a must-read book. It is another wonderful proof of the notion that the difference between dinosaurs and men might turn out to be due to the work of physicists. Not to suggest that "soft" scientists are like dinosaurs...but you know, it might just turn out that way....once again.
A "must-read" book on a massive cosmic event.......2006-12-16
"The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes" is a must-read for any thinking and aware person. First, the evidence amassed is overwhelming that an ET/ELE (extraterrestrial/extinction level event) took place at some point in the past, culminating in a massive event at about 12,500 yrs BP. The authors of the book, most specifically Allen West and Richard Firestone, and I all totally agree something happened that was cosmic, catastrophic, and sudden. Firestone and I do not disagree, but rather are dealing with different levels of causality. For instance, whatever happened started with the Big Bang. Much later in time, there is no question but that supernovae did take place relatively near our solar system and those supernovae, or even one, must have had some effect on our sun ranging from ~ 0.1% to X%. I am focused on the immediate causation for what happened at about 12,500 yrs BP, and personally I see no way out of concluding that that event involved a massive and lethal neutron event, as you can read on a paper entitled, "Response to Comments" on Bob Kobres website, which makes the evidence clear.
Considering all of the available evidence that involves a massive neutron event, inverse radiocarbon resets from 14C being produced in situ, and the worldwide pattern as noted in the piece above, my own conviction is that only a giant solar flare could have done or caused all that happened, and it was over in one very, very bad day. If readers take some time to investigate giant solar flares, they will find the necessary conditions: antimatter to obliterate much of the atmosphere, entrapped neutrons in the flare's magnetic field, and a relatively short time span of less than one earth day which fits the evidence completely.
There also is a tantalizing clue in the book that indicates "they saw it coming" and got out. I believe my own view, which is that Paleo-Indians travelled by boat (probably skin), now is the prevailing view which would explain the lack of any human remains at all, particularly teeth. About the only thing they could have seen coming was a giant flare manifested by greatly increased solar activity. Flares arrive at varying speeds.
Radiocarbon dating does work, but the evidence at hand strongly suggests (if not proves) that before ~ 12,500 yrs BP nobody can say much of anything at all about "real dates" because of the production of 14C in a younger direction. This raises the interesting possibility, suggested as far back as the 1960's, that Paleo-Indian actually is a Mousterian (European) tradition. Mousterian toolkits remained virtually unchanged for about 200,000 years (depending on which sources indicate what dates) while later prehistoric toolkits persisted (in terms of style) for perhaps ~ 500 yrs. Most importantly, again as noted in the web-published piece, if the dates for Lewisville are as old as the most recent radiocarbon dates suggest, and lignite was NOT in the firepits), then as two world-class scholars have concluded that the only difference between European Solutrean and American Paleo-Indian are identical with the once exception of "fluting" not present in Solutrean, then the most logical conclusion is that European Solutrean derived from a longstanding American Mousterian tradition when those American Mousterians (and I am NOT saying Neanderthals) crossed back across the North Atlantic. In that event, which I believe to be the case, we (or I) are/am ruffling feathers but so be it.
One thing is certain about this book. The evidence at hand did not come from dedicated work and enormous salaries and expenditures at laboratories and universities, but rather from a dedicated and somewhat obsessive small group of people both professional and avocational who spent many years and very much of their own monies at this project. In and of itself, this is a "must read" for anyone in the world who wants to know how much, if not most scientific discovery, actually comes about.
William H. Topping, Ph.D.
This well-written book reads like a captivating detective story and, in my view, is the best available popular account of the gr.......2006-10-15
Availing themselves of various sciences and mythology, the authors of this volume postulate a cosmic event--a supernova--that occurred 41,000 years ago and culminated some 13,000 years ago in sudden warming and the fifth mass extinction. Like other investigators, they believe that humanity remembers this catastrophe in its legends.
They present the available evidence in a systematic fashion, which makes it easy to follow their argument. This well-written book reads like a captivating detective story and, in my view, is the best available popular account of the great ice-age calamity that significantly shaped humanity's cultural evolution.
Copyright ©2006 by Georg Feuerstein. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in any form requires prior permission from Traditional Yoga Studies at www.traditionalyogastudies.com
Average customer rating:
- Must Have Book to Understand Asteroid Impact Consequences
|
Comet/Asteroid Impacts and Human Society: An Interdisciplinary Approach
Manufacturer: Springer
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ASIN: 3540327096 |
Book Description
In 1908 an atmospheric explosion in northern Siberia released energy equivalent to 15 Mton of TNT. Can a comparable or larger NEO affect us again? When the next NEO strikes Earth will it be large enough to destroy a city? Will the climate change significantly? Can archaeology and anthropology provide insights into the expected cultural responses with NEO interactions? Does society have a true grasp of the actual risks involved? Is the Great Depression a good model for the economic collapse that could follow a NEO catastrophe? This volume provides a necessary link between various disciplines and comet/asteroid impacts.
Customer Reviews:
Must Have Book to Understand Asteroid Impact Consequences.......2007-04-20
The Bobrowsky edited book is an excellent must-read book for anyone conducting serious intellectual inquiry into a potential asteroid impact with the Earth. The articles are a wonderful collection on a very serious topic. The reader gains multiple insights on the varied interdisciplinary issues related to asteroids. This is a fine contribution to the current state of knowledge. The book would make for an excellent university text in either astronomy or public policy agenda-setting and formulation. I highly recommend the investment in this book if you have serious interest in the history of asteroid/comet impacts as well as what humans may do to mitigate such a disaster in the future. I believe this book to be the best I have read on the topic of asteroids impacts. I am pleased to have added it to my personal library.
Average customer rating:
- WOW
- Good luck - these aren't easy
- Disappointing
- Either know how or learn fast!
- Excellent!
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The Artful Vegan: Fresh Flavors from the Millennium Restaurant
Eric Tucker ,
Bruce Enloe ,
Renee Comet , and
Amy Pearce
Manufacturer: Ten Speed Press
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Tanita BC533 Glass Innerscan Body Composition Monitor
ASIN: 1580082076 |
Book Description
Anyone who says haute cuisine, big flavor, and vegan cooking can't go together hasn't been to San Francisco's famed Millennium Restaurant. Since 1994, Millennium has created a sumptuous vegan experience, which was first made available to home cooks in the revolutionary MILLENNIUM COOKBOOK. Now, Chef Eric Tucker brings us another collection of his mind-blowing vegan fare in THE ARTFUL VEGAN. Bringing the farmers' market to fine dining, these 140 new recipes are fresh, impassioned vegan interpretations of traditional and contemporary global cuisine—and they're nutritious, meat- and dairy-free, and all organic to boot. Spanning influences from the Pacific Rim to the Deep South, THE ARTFUL VEGAN showcases an expanded repertoire of flavors, methods, and ingredients that are on the cutting edge of healthful taste and nutrition.
Customer Reviews:
WOW.......2007-09-02
This is the best vegetarian/vegan cookbook ever. I am a collector of cookbooks and it is always great to find one with new creative recipes and this one surpassed my expectations. I would not consider this book for beginner cooks the recipes are lengthy, not 30 minute meals. It also has in quite a few recipes hard to find or expensive ingredients. Although, if you are a creative cook or live near quality stores it shouldn't be too big of problem. When I bought this book, I bought another at the same time for my sister.
Good luck - these aren't easy.......2007-01-09
Great inspiration in the recipes, but many of them have ingredients you'll have to work hard to find, or have more complicated processes involved (like smoking something) that simply make this book too difficult for the regular home cook. I got it as a gift and started looking through it excited to make some of the dishes, but then when I got to reading the ingredients in detail I started giving up and turning the next one. And then the next one, and the one after that. Halfway through I think I got maybe 2 or 3 things I'd be able to do without spending a fortune just to make one meal. We aren't in the restaurant business, the authors jobs should be to set up a recipe to be made at home. Even in the intro they say that they don't typically even write these things down, but just wing it through inspiration. From this it doesn't surprise me that some people say that some recipes just don't work.
Disappointing.......2006-04-17
This is one of the most expensive cookbooks I have (and I also have Millenium). I love cooking and will do whatever it takes to make great dishes. However, when the recipes don't turn out, it's not worth my time or effort. I have found this to be the case with Artful. Two recipes completely did not work, even though I followed the directions exactly.
I will try a few more and write an update if I come across some decent recipes, but I can't help but wonder if these were even tested.
Either know how or learn fast!.......2006-03-07
This is the book that answers all those redundant questions us vegans have to endure constantly! "So what do you eat? Don't you miss meat or cheeseburgers?" The general public has no idea how much money, effort and time THEY actually spend eating meat/dairy foods and/or how actually redundant THEIR diets really are. Not to mention the detriment to the health of not only their bodies, but our enviornment! I don't want to soap box here, but I see these same people make food such an occasion in every sence, but instead of shopping the farmers markets, hunting down the most exotic and freshest of produce... or hitting your local wholefoods market to experience a more fresh approach to groceries, I see these same people eating at every gas station, 7-11 or some curious looking stranger at a food cart! Either know or get passionate about knowing, it's going in your mouth, in your bloodstream and through every vital organ, intestine and exit pathway! Shouln't it be of the highest quality???
Excellent!.......2005-04-27
An excellent cookbook. Some of the recipies are time consuming -- but absolutely worth the effort. The ginger cookies, german chocolate cake, "oyster" appetizer are just a few of my favorites. NOT a Monday night, its 6 pm, what are we going to have for dinner book - but perfect for special occasions. Note, some of the ingredients can only be found in asian grocers - not a problem here in Hawaii, but may be for you. Also, some desserts rely on cocoa butter - which I can only get by mail order. YUM!
Average customer rating:
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Mitigation of Hazardous Comets and Asteroids
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0521827647 |
Book Description
This book presents the most recent research on the development of a reliable defense against objects that can potentially collide with the Earth. Large asteroids and comets can collide with the Earth causing severe consequences, and collisions are a random process that can occur at any time. To reduce the threat, it is necessary to understand these potentially hazardous objects.
Book Description
Why is Dilbert such a phenomenon' People see their own dreary, monotonous lives brought to comedic life in the ubiquitous strip. In the 23rd collection of Scott Adams" tremendously popular series, Don"t Stand Where the Comet Is Assumed to Strike Oil, suppressed and repressed workers everywhere can follow the latest developments in the so-called careers of Dilbert, power-hungry Dogbert, Catbert, Ratbert, the pointy-haired boss, and other supporting"but don"t you dare call them supportive"characters. Each "funny because it"s true" scenario bears an uncanny, hysterical, sometimes uncomfortable similarity to cubicle-filled corporate America. But the United States clearly hasn"t cornered the market when it comes to drone-filled offices: Dilbert appears in 65 countries in 25 languages and in 2,000 newspapers. The strip has 150 million fans worldwide.
Customer Reviews:
Don't Stand Where The Comet Is Assumed To Strike Oil: A Dilbert Book.......2007-03-26
Good Condition & Fast Shipping!
Fun times.......2005-09-16
Scott Adams brings an utterly human and sensible perspective to what is so often inhuman and insensible: the world, especially the office world. Adams' satire is sometimes so bizarre and abstract as to actually approach reality.
Adams' only trouble is that he seems to be running out of ideas, cycling some of the same basic jokes in different packages. But he's still a funny read, and one of the best comics out there.
A very hilarious book........2005-01-21
This latest Dilbert is witty, funny, and I give Scott Adams an A+ for putting greater details into his art works.
Not the strongest Dilbert collection but worth the read........2005-01-06
If you have ever read Dilbert and cracked a smile or saw where you worked in the joke then you need to buy the collected strip editions.
Profits Plummet.......2004-12-16
Dilbert and the cast of his wacky corporation are back for more satirical looks at our modern business life. Join our crazy characters for some of the following story arcs:
The company loses so much money a new number needs to be named
The perils of discount Irish dancing
The dreaded tunnel shark
Asok heads the office relocation
And more quick jabs and jokes than can be listed. If you work in an office, you will swear Scott Adams has been watching your coworkers.
Average customer rating:
- Too many characters, but I've always liked his inclusiveness
- Big book but worth the time.
- first time for mcdevitt
- A Must read!!
- Really 4 1/2
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Moonfall
Jack Mcdevitt
Manufacturer: Eos
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ASIN: 0061051128 |
Amazon.com
Over the last few years, Jack McDevitt has quietly been producing an outstanding collection of science fiction novels. Earlier works such as The Engines of God and Ancient Shores had a thoughtful, archeological-exploration bent, but with Moonfall he takes off the gloves to create a splashy, near-future science fiction thriller with a big cast of characters and a do-or-die attitude. At the center of the story is Charlie Haskell, the U.S. vice president, who in 2024--an election year--has arrived at the American Moonbase to cut the ribbon and declare it operational. But there's a problem, and it's a doozy: a "sun-grazer" comet, with immense mass and speed, is on a collision course with the moon. Haskell, with an eye to his public image, puts himself at the bottom of the evacuation list. But time grows critically short, and soon more than his political future is in jeopardy--broken chunks of moon will begin exploding outwards. If they reach Earth, some of the chunks are big enough to cause an extinction event. McDevitt pays attention to his science while revving the action, and the stakes couldn't be higher: Haskell's choices will decide who lives and who dies--if anyone survives at all. --Blaise Selby
Book Description
It's the 21st century, and all is right with the world. Or so it seems.
Vice President Charlie Haskell, who will travel anywhere for a photo op, is about to cut the ribbon for the just-completed American Moonbase. The first Mars voyage is about to leave high orbit, with a woman at the helm. Below, the world is marveling at a rare solar eclipse.
But all that is right is about to go disastrously wrong when an amateur astronomer discovers a new comet. Named for its discover, Tomikois a "sun-grazer,"an interstellar wanderer with a hundred times the mass and ten times the speed of other comets. And it is headed straight for our moon.
In less than five days, if scientists' predictions are right, Tomiko will crash into the moon, shattering it into a cloud of superheated gas, dust, and huge chunks of rock that will rain down on the earth, causing chaos and killer storms, possibly tidal waves inundating entire cities...or worse: a single apocalyptic worldwide "extinction event."
In the meantime, the population of Moonbase must be evacuated by a hastily assembled fleet of shuttle rockets. There isn't room, or time enough, for everyone. And the vice president, who rashly promised to be last off ("I will lock the door and turn off the lights"), is trying to figure out how to get away without eating his words.
In Moonfall,McDevitt has created a disaster thriller of truly epic proportions, featuring a cast of unforgettable characters: the reluctant Russian rocket jockey entrusted with the lives of squabbling refugees; the woman chosen to be first on the moon; the scientist who must deflect the "possum" (POSSible IMpactors) knocked from orbit or witness the end science itself. And at the center of it all is Charlie Haskell, the career politician who discovers his own unexpected reserves of only himself and his country, but for all humankind.
Moonfall,is a spellbinding tale of heroism and hope, cowardice and passion played against the awesome spectacle of human history's darkest night.
Customer Reviews:
Too many characters, but I've always liked his inclusiveness.......2007-07-05
I have read many of McDevitt's books. I salute him for placing humans of various races in his books who are just people, no more no less.
As I deal with the insults against black women by prominent idiots in the popular culture, black and white alike, it is nice to know that there are artists out there who are giving strong roles to women of color in their stories, not to mention roles to women of character, period.
I cannot say I liked this story much, however. Too many characters! Too many displays of cranks and opportunists, just like those in "Ancient Shores." I prefer not to have to deal with the vast displays of human stupidity in my science fiction.
I prefer some of his other efforts and will continue to go back into his collection to read those I haven't gotten to as yet.
I found myself skimming most of the book, but reading all of the Haskell and Evelyn scenes, along with the Saber and Lee scenes.
Nevertheless, I say, keep them coming!
Big book but worth the time........2006-09-19
Its the year 2024, and the situation of the world could not be better. the opening of Moonbase is about to take place, and opening it is Vice President Charlie Haskell, the first ever manned mission to Mars is about to launch, and a rare solar eclipse is taking place.but as the eclipse passes by, an amateur astronomer discovers a comet. But this is no ordanary comet. At 100 times the mass and 10 times the speed of regular comets, this is the worst threat ever. It's about to hit the moon. As chaos ensues all over the planet, the population of Moonbase must be evacuated. every shuttle must be used, they must plan the rotation down to the minute, and it still may not be enough. The government must try to keep the nation calm while the people scramble to higher ground, scared to death of tidal waves caused by debris. The military starts to plan evacuations of major cities. Meanwhile, Moonbase realizes that it must leave behind 6 people. In those 6 is Vice President Haskell. The Mars shuttle prepares to launch them, but it will leave 20 minutes before impact. Every single person is trying to prepare for the catastrophy about to occur. The Mars shuttle gets ready to launch while its occupants prepare for the ride of their life. Finally, they launch 20 minutes before the impact. Will the shuttle survive the trip? Will the debris destroy everything Earth loves? Will we survive? Read the Book to find out. Personally, I enjoyed this book very much. it kept me in suspense, it showed what people really think about people in power, and has a very gppd plot. This is a great story, if you dont mind the length. Moonfall, by Jack McDevvit, is a great read.
first time for mcdevitt.......2005-06-17
first time i have read a mcdevitt novel, it was exceptional.
I enjoyed everything about this book, the characters, the story, etc. the authors ability to describe space travel was terrific, I strongly recommend this book to others.
A Must read!!.......2004-10-04
this book should have been made into a movie. Instead, they made Armaggedon and Deep Impact which are entirely forgettable. Moonfall has it all-a disaster that threatens Earth, people who are trying to fix it, fruitcakes crawling out of woodwork and of course, the Moon exploding(or breaking into pieces, to be exact). Oh, if only you could see something like that on the big screen I'd be first in line. I couldn't put it down. Fantastic book!
Really 4 1/2.......2004-05-28
Although the title may make you think the moon falls out of the sky, MOONFALL is actually a story of courage and daring to do great things even though they may lead to great failure (ala Teddy Roosevelt). In the early part of the next century the Vice-President of the United States travels to the Moon to officially open Moonbase to coincide with a total eclipse of the sun. During the phenomenon a comet is discovered heading our way from behind the sun. The comet is of unprecedented size and is traveling orders of magnitude faster than any comet previously known. Its trajectory will cause it to strike the moon and possibly shatter it.
As the catastrophe looms, occurs and continues in the aftermath, we are led through the decisions of a handful of people all over the country and in space. Their tales of bravery are what make the book so enthralling. The book does not move as quickly as say Armageddon but although there are times I would have liked for things to speed up a little the overall quality of the book would have suffered. In the Big Things From Space sub-genre, MOONFALL is the best that I have read to date. It is also the best Jack McDevitt book I have read to date. This is a book I heartily recommend for anyone who likes straight science fiction (no fantasy elements whatsoever).
Average customer rating:
- Two-fisted Tales of the Once and Future Raj
- High adventure tale set in a highly original alternate world setting
- should have been a 3-book series
- Steampunk Meets Bollywood
- Very Tedious...
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The Peshawar Lancers
S. M. Stirling
Manufacturer: Roc Hardcover
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ASIN: 0451458486 |
Book Description
A DIFFERENT PAST...
A spray of comets freezes human progress in the 1870s.
A STRANGE PRESENT...
Now the British Empire and All the Russias each rule half the world.
A DANGEROUS FUTURE...
Everyone predicts a showdown-but no one can predict the role that one man, spy and hero, double and triple agent, will play...
Customer Reviews:
Two-fisted Tales of the Once and Future Raj.......2007-03-11
This is the sort of story that a Brit (or Canadian) writes when he throws off the yoke of political correctness and unabashedly wallows in the glory of his mythic imperial heritage. It is also great fun. In this very detailed and believably crafted alternate history the British Empire never faded away. Instead it was forced to fight for survival in a post-apocalyptic world (multiple comet strikes in 1878 caused tidal waves and years of never-ending winter in the northern hemisphere.) In fact, I cannot help but wonder if the annihilation of both the United States and most of the continental powers doesn't represent a secret wish fulfillment in some Britons...
In any case, Victoria and her court, along with the top ten thousand families and their essential servants relocate to India. There they establish themselves as the true ruling caste in residence (much as the Moghul dynasty before them.) They slowly begin to merge with their new home thru constant contact and intermarriage with the upper castes. They speak Hindi as well, or better, than English. In fact, the tendency is to call on Krishna instead of Christ in a pinch.
The real action of our story is in the year 2025. The Empire, or Angrezi Raj, has finally clawed its way up beyond pre-Fall conditions. There are some interesting alterations such as electric arc lamps but no incandescent bulbs, and advanced steam engines but no internal combustion engines. Yet, they have developed practical giant airships (Sterling cycle hot air engines), as well as, massive difference engines (mechanical computers.)
It is in this world that Captain Athelstane King, his family and their faithful family retainers defend the Empire. They defend it against the Czar and his dark empire. While the British fled to the south during the never-ending winter of the Fall the Russians stayed put. They turned to cannibalism to survive (of non-Russian slaves.) In fact, long after it ceased to be a necessity, they kept the practice as a sacrament in their Black Church. Of course there are also more traditional enemies- the Caliph in Syria and the Mikado in Japan and China. You even have Afghan raiders and Thug cult murderers.
All in all, it is a good, rousing, old fashion adventure yarn- even if it is set in the future.
I only have one little nit picking, irritating complaint with the book. Both Metford rifles and Webley revolvers are mentioned- neither of these were developed until the 1880's.
High adventure tale set in a highly original alternate world setting .......2006-06-16
_The Peshawar Lancers_ by S. M. Stirling is an interesting alternate history by one of the most prominent authors of this sub-genre of science fiction. The setting is very unusual, one that I have never encountered before. In 1878, either a series of comets or one large comet that broke up impacted the Earth over a space of twelve hours, devastating Europe, the Atlantic Ocean, and North America, with millions dying from blast damage and tsunamis and later many more from starvation, disease, social breakdown, and banditry, all of which resulted not only from the immediate aftermath of the impacts but also as a result of greatly altered weather, as for decades afterward the weather was a good deal cooler due to dust in the atmosphere and temporarily altered ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream. While much of the world reverted to preindustrial if not prehistoric levels, the British Empire survived the impact to a degree. Facing tremendous problems due to devastated infrastructure, food shortages, and horrible weather, over the course of three years the upper classes, most of the middle classes, and many soldiers and skilled workers relocated to three main destinations. While half a million went to South Africa and a million went to Australia/New Zealand, a million and a half - along with Queen Victoria and the government - went to India. After enduring the continuing aftermath of the comet impacts on India as well as a decades-long Second Mutiny, eventually these new settlers and their local allies forged a new nation, Angrezi Raj. While the subcontinent's majority is still Hindu, Christians and those of European ancestry form a significant - and powerful and wealthy - minority. By the time of the events of the novel, the year 2025 (148 years after the Fall), Angrezi Raj has successfully become the dominant power in the world, governing 40% of the Earth's habitable surface and nearly 50% of its population, its domain including India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Malaysia, half of Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, most of southern Africa, and had begun to resettle the British Isles and parts of North America. Though other states existed, notably Japan (known as Dai-Nippon), the Caliphate, a France in exile (known as France-outre-mer and located in North Africa and on various Mediterranean islands), and a Russia in exile (largely restricted to Central Asia and based around Samarakand), Angrezi Raj is the dominant country in the world.
The book's main characters are the heroic Captain Athelstane King of the Peshawar Lancers, a soldier who was forced by the course of events in the book to become a secret agent, his scientist sister Cassandra, who works on a steampunk-esque clockwork-like computer, his trusted Sikh companion Narayan Singh, a Muslim companion known as Ibrahim Khan, and Yasmini, a Russian seer who can see alternate timelines and possible futures (an interesting ability that really felt more like magic than science fiction). Together they became embroiled in a plot that would have threatened not only the future of Angrezi Raj but also the future existence of the King family, as Yasmini and other seers who worked for the Russians discovered that one or more members of their family were going to be very vital in the future and that their deaths would please the god that the Russians worshipped (the Russians apparently worshipped the Devil, whom they called the Peacock Angel or Tchernobog or the Black God and whose chief representative in the book was the almost over the top evil Count Vladimir Ignatieff).
The book had some interesting parallels to another work of Stirling's, _Conquistador_ (which to my mind was the better book); both books had sections that were pretty much tours of their alternate worlds, both had main characters who had large, lovingly described family estates, both books went into great detail describing the often lavish meals the characters ate, finales that involved lots of native raiders attacking in the desert, and of course both dealt with very different Earths and were set in the early 21st century. However, I thought the characters in _Peshawar Lancers_ seemed too 19th century to me; that while some obvious merging of Western and Indian culture had occurred, at their heart they still seemed too Victorian to me with regards to views on duty, honor, gender relations, etc. though for the most part without the racist overtones.
It is an interesting question as to what degree millions of European refugees would have adapted Indo-Islamic culture, though from my limited understanding of the subject, at the time of the Fall, British culture was becoming or had become rather racist and condescending much of the time towards the natives of the subcontinent, so I don't know that they would have absorbed even the amount of Indian culture that they did. On the other hand though I can't imagine a few million immigrants failing to absorb large amounts of local culture, religion, etc. from a region that today in our world has a population of a billion people.
I also thought to an extent that many of the characters, while quite distinct, were somewhat stereotypical, though maybe that is reaction on my part to Stirling using such obviously Kipling-esque character types.
Another complaint was that technology didn't seem to have advanced terribly much since the Fall. In 2025 people are using steam engines for the most part, cars are very rare, airships are pretty common (and all of them apparently use hydrogen), I don't recall any mention of heavier-than-air aircraft, and the first computers have been built, immense, warehouse sized punch-card and clockwork like machines that seem to be a favorite (like airships) of alternate history writers.
Having said that, the book certainly wasn't bad and was a pretty good adventure story that was epic in its scope; while I would not place this book in the top tier of alternate history stories, it certainly wasn't a bad read. I did appreciate the work Stirling lavished on his world, detailed in several appendices.
should have been a 3-book series.......2006-01-03
An okay adventure story with a very interesting alternative-world premise, but the most interesting thing about the book was the appendix. I would have loved it had he brought it up through time from when the comets struck until ending it with this book. Instead you get dumped into an almost-over story (with his usual wonderful detail, of course) that you can't fully understand until you read the appendix. I did wonder, as someone else has mentioned, about the British going so 'native' in dress and food, and was rather appalled by the part of the appendix where he told how the English language had been so corrupted even among the well-educated British in India (glad the story wasn't written using it!). I guess I started with his high-spots, with the Island In The Sea of Time and the Dies The Fire series (eagerly awaiting the third in that latter series), both of which I really loved, and also Conquistador. I just wish Stirling had not left out what should have been the most interesting part of this story, that of the struggle in the U.K., the relocation, and the development of techology and customs in their new home--and the accommodations between the people of India and the U.K. in coming up with their new empire. He had it all there in the appendix--would have been great. A bit more global scope would have been nice, also.
Steampunk Meets Bollywood.......2005-12-19
This book is actually a favorite of mine on the shelves, partly for its exquisite research, and partly for the flair with which Stirling invests even his most peripheral characters with a distinct personality. The action scenes carry well, and the various subplots work together more or less seamlessly.
The appendices themselves are a fascinating read, and it is a shame that the rest of Stirling's post-Comet world can't be better explored in its pages. I for one consider the fusion of British and Indian cultures into the vision Stirling depicts to be a fascinating one, regardless of the plausibility. I also consider the depiction of Japan as the empire of Dai-Nippon as more or less on target with what would have happened should reactionary elements (pro-military, pro-modernist, anti-liberal, anti-innovation) seized the reins early and set forth on a policy of aggressive expansion.
It really is a good read; the research is on par with a work like Jack Dann's "The Memory Cathedral" and Stirling does a masterful job of making the world believable, the characters vivid, the storyline compelling. The other positive reviews should give you no doubt as to whether or not to spend a few days with this book.
Very Tedious..........2005-06-11
This was the first book I ever read that was written by SM Stirling. Now that I have read it, I wont buy any of his books again. The book was so long and dragged out to explain every minute detail that had absolutley no connection with the story at all. About half the book as explanation, and the plot was dry when it surfaced. Sace your money, don't by this horrid book!
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