Ian's Reviews > Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe

2.5⭐
This is a book by a nerd, for nerds.
Science blogger and popularizer (and self described nerd) Phillip Plait has written an armchair space tourist's guide to the solar system and beyond. He starts with the "alien skies" you would see from the Moon, Mars, asteroids, Saturn, Pluto. This was the strongest part of the book for me because it describes things we know a lot about through years of observation and exploration. Each chapter has a little science fiction story, where you imagine yourself as a traveler or researcher in these places and the more detailed the scenario was, the better the story, imo.
As Plait moves farther afield, to a planet encircling a red dwarf star, or a binary star or the edge of a black hole etc, things become more esoteric and to me, less convincing, though no doubt Plait does his best, with the latest available information at hand. The astronomy and planetary science is serious and is presented in a cheerful " Gosh! Golly! Gee Whiz" style intended to keep the reader engaged but that I found, after a while, to be off putting. Some of his descriptions also seemed repetitive, likely because there are only so many ways to explain airless, lifeless, space rocks; low gravity; solar transits, etc.
This book is probably fine for serious astronomy fans. I being a mere dilettante in the subject, found it a hard slog in a heavy space suit. -30-