The Best Book On Mars

[herbhighstone]

Hello to all the folks --

I recently found a book on Mars that is excellent for both beginners and long-time Mars fanatics. It's called "A Traveler's Guide To Mars" by William K. Hartmann. It has 468 pages, and it's copyright 2003, so it's quite recent and incorporates a vast amount of excellent imaging from Mars satellite cameras.

At first the title turned me off. A traveler's guide? Was it some kind of a satire or humorous book, maybe? But finally I ordered it, and I'm sure glad that I did. I've been interested in Mars for four decades, but this is the book that really pulls it all together. Unlike the "pretty picture" coffee-table books, this book digs deeply into the WHY of the Martian landscape.

One sign of the truly professional nature of this book is the scale information in the photos. Every picture has a scale bar that says 30 km, or 100 meters, or whatevers. And the photos showing similar land forms on Earth really blew me away. There were a lot of special moments when I began to feel that I was understanding Mars for the first time.

This book is packed with goodies. For example, just inside the front cover are two foldout maps of Mars. The first map is the albedo map of what Mars looks like from Earth, and the second map shows the detailed features from recent satellite imaging and laser altimetry. It's fascinating to compare these two maps.

This is a 5 by 8 inch paperback book, printed on excellent glossy paper so all the photos show superbly, and there are photos on just about every single page. The whole Mars story is here, from Lowell's canals to the present time. As just one example, the search for water on Mars is described from the very beginning. This is valuable if you want to place Spirit and Opportunity in the full context of Mars research. The rovers are truly wonderful, but they're only one small part of a much bigger picture. And the inside information that this book gives on the politics of Mars research is very revealing.

How much does this book cost? No more than a cheeseburger with fries! If you go to Amazon, you'll find eight "used" sale listings (most of which are actually brand new copies) at prices less than $2.00. The total cost of this book including $4.00 shipping will thus be only $6.00.

Is your interest in Mars worth $6.00? It is? Okay, then get on the Internet right now and order this book. I can absolutely guarantee that you'll be delighted.

Best wishes from Herbert Highstone

[dciobota]

Excellent review Herb, that is a basement bargain price for such a book imo. I'll go check it out, I especially would like to see the landform comparisons with Earth. Seeing as I'm not bound to get any decent images of Mars this year, I might as well enjoy a good book.

Daniel