Planetary Sciences: de Pater, Imke, Lissauer, Jack J.: 9780521853712: Amazon.com: Books

Speaking as both a science writer and lover of astronomy, I hate this book. The worst thing any text can do is turn students off its subject, a crime I consider all the worse given this thrilling and inspirational topic. I have a strong background in many of these subjects, plus a fundamental interest, yet this book makes me wonder why I am bothering. I consider it time stolen from my life rather than an investment in growth.

It's tedious, dull, and worst of all, absolutely passionless. Written mostly in passive voice, and completely full of very technical formulae, It's a tribute to everything wrong with scientific and university philosophy. There's almost zero explanation of what all these facts mean, little synthesis or global understanding. It provides no reason to care. This book is the worst kind of dry tome.

I acknowledge that it's a university text aimed at an advanced level, yet even by those standards the text is much more difficult to understand than it should be. Generally it lacks structural devices such as definitions, and topic overviews or summaries, and apparently works on the assumption that if the authors list every known fact about a topic then some kind of learning will eventually take place. This reflects an ignorance of how people actually learn. The book's existence is testament to the fact that most of its material will be new to most of its readers, yet it's completely incompetent at imparting that to someone not already familiar with it. You slog through it's long, dull sections and ask yourself: "what did I just learn from that?", and the answer will be "very little". Basically, the quintessential worst kind of university teaching distilled into book form. The professors who could write this are the same kind who would drone on to the blackboard for hours without noticing that the whole class had left.

The book also illustrates why my profession of science communication exists, because too few scientists (and professors) can make their subject interesting or clear. To express something mathematically is not the same as explaining it.

The book's award probably tells one all they need to know about the value of such awards, and the fact that science lecturers select texts on that basis rather than any real merit.

It's not totally worthless, and if you have the required extremely advanced mathematical background, and you're interested in formulae for their own sake, then you may get something from it. This is not so much a book about astronomy, as a reference about astronomical mathematics. The audience is the mathematical physicist. If you can't visualise formulae, and (like most people) need explanations in words, then this book is very nearly a waste of time.

Other books about the same subject ARE enjoyable to read and informative at the Tertiary level. By comparison I LOVE Universe, 9th ed.