Mystery novels have become one of the best sub-genres of science fiction. Think, for example, of the classic Asimov The Caves of Steel, Alastair Reynolds' own Prefect Dreyfus books , or Adam Roberts' Real Town Murders . We've also had the gritty gumshoe noir version, arguably kicked off by Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and hence Blade Runner , but also superbly done in Nick Harkaway's Titanium Noir.   Now, Alastair Reynolds has also embraced gumshoe noir, but with some characteristically clever twists. Here, the put-upon detective (who almost inevitably gets beaten up early on in the narrative) is Yuri Gagarin. Yes, that Yuri Gagarin (sort of). He may not be familiar to younger readers, but to anyone of a certain age, the first man in space was a big name. However, the story is not set in the early 60s Soviet Union, but rather on a generation starship called Halcyon, seemingly around 400 years in the future. Gagarin has not only to work out what has happened in ...

The title tells you exactly what this book is about, if a little cryptically. The ‘pale blue dot’ is our own planet Earth, seen from a cosmic viewpoint – and, as far as astrobiology is concerned, it’s actually the only data point we have, counterbalancing centuries of theorising, speculation and fantasy. The book’s scope is summarised in less poetic terms in the subtitle: ‘An Earth-Based Perspective on the Search for Alien Life’. Over the years we’ve reviewed quite a few books about astrobiology on this site, but while many of these have made the point that useful things can be learned about the subject by studying our own planet, it’s generally only been a few tantalising comments in passing. So a whole book on this topic is long overdue and very welcome. Having been interested in space and astronomy for over 50 years now, it irritates me how some misconceptions just refuse to go away, generation after generation. One example is the notion that the Earth and space are two completely s...

Michael D. Gordin is Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Contemporary History and Dean of the College at Princeton University. A specialist in the history of modern science, he has published books on nuclear weapons, Albert Einstein, and debates over pseudoscience. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation, and is a member of the Leopoldina, the National Academy of Sciences of Germany. Along with Diana Buchwald he is co-author of Free Creations of the Human Mind. Why science? Science is one of humanity’s most impressive activities, and like all human activities it has a history. Both Diana and I entered the field of the history of science through sustained fascination with physical sciences. Why this book? Einstein is the subject of so many studies that one might reasonably ask why there needs to be another book on him. There were two main features we found lacking in the extant biographical literature. First, they are most...

Jim Baggott is one of the most reliable hands in the business when it comes to exploring complex physics and cosmology issues in an approachable but never over-simplified fashion, so a new Baggott on the shelves is always a treat. For reasons I'll go into in a moment, while the explanation here is as lucid and interesting as possible, I found the topic a little underwhelming. The topic Discordance covers is the Hubble tension - the reality that there are two ways of measuring the Hubble constant that describes the rate of expansion of the universe, both of which are based on solid science, but which don't agree. Admittedly, the distinction is only seven per cent, but in theory they should converge, and as Baggott makes clear, although both of the measurement methods have potential issues, if the tension proves genuine, it puts the most widely accepted version of the Big Bang theory in jeopardy.  The book starts with historical material on how we measure distances in space, the...

‘When One Universe Isn’t Enough’, it says on the undeniably eye-catching cover of this book. But why should anyone feel short-changed by the universe we happen to live in? The most obvious answer is if they’re fans or creators of science fiction, who may be distinctly unimpressed by the un-SF-like reality we’re lumbered with. As Brian Clegg points out early in the book, even now  – almost 70 years after the invention of the space rocket – only a tiny fraction of astronauts have ever travelled more than 300 miles from the Earth’s surface. If we’re looking for all those ‘strange new worlds’ that Star Trek promised us, we’re not going to find them that way. What we need is a portal to a parallel universe – or, preferably, a whole collection of them. Since this is a non-fiction book, I hope I’m not spoiling any surprises by saying that we never actually get to this point, or anywhere near it. Like so many other science-fictional ideas that are claimed to have parallels in modern physic...

Even as someone who rarely gets on with 'bitty' books, I was captivated by this collection of articles based primarily on objects in or relating to the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. After some introductory material introducing the observatory, the Astronomers Royal and the search for means to identify longitude that was instrumental in the setting up of the Royal Observatory in the 1670s, Louise Devoy splits her history across the first ten Astronomers Royal, taking the reader from 1675 to 1955. Each of these sections starts with a pen sketch of the relevant astronomer, from nazmes likely to be known by popular astronomy readers such as Flamsteed and Halley to the more obscure Pond and Spencer Jones. We then get an illustrated guide to a host of objects that are located in the observatory, picture it, or are relevant to it, such as the magnificent-looking Longitude Act of 1714. Inevitably some of the objects are more interesting than others, so, for instance, I couldn't g...

Michael Banks is a science writer and author and is currently news editor of Physics World magazine. As well as Physics World, he has written for Nature, BBC Focus and Science Uncovered as well as appeared on BBC Radio 4 and at science festivals. His first book The Secret Science of Baby was published in 2022 and his new book is Physics Around the Clock . Why science? I only became really interested in science when I was around 15 years old - and to be honest I don’t really know why I preferred physics over the other sciences. I think I saw it as a challenge given the perception that the subject is difficult. But the more I studied physics, the more fascinating it became. I then chose to study physics at university and that’s when I became really hooked. I found it particularly captivating how mathematics could be used to describe and understand the natural world. It could not only describe various phenomenon but also be used to predict things that then subsequently went on to be disco...

This is, to say the least, an oddity, but a fascinating one. A translation of a French bestseller, it aims to put forward an examination of the scientific evidence for the existence of a deity… and various other things, as this is a very oddly structured book (more on that in a moment). In The God Delusion , Richard Dawkins suggested that we should treat the existence of God as a scientific claim, which is exactly what the authors do reasonably well in the main part of the book. They argue that three pieces of scientific evidence in particular are supportive of the existence of a (generic) creator of the universe. These are that the universe had a beginning, the fine tuning of natural constants and the unlikeliness of life.  To support their evidence, Bolloré and Bonnassies give a reasonable introduction to thermodynamics and cosmology. They suggest that the expected heat death of the universe implies a beginning (for good thermodynamic reasons), and rightly give the impression tha...

At first glance this might appear to be yet another book on how to deal with climate change deniers and the like, such as How to Talk to a Science Denier.   It is, however, a much more significant book because it addresses the way that universities, government and pressure groups have attempted to undermine the scientific process. Conceptually I would give it five stars, but it's quite heavy going because it's a collection of around 18 essays by different academics, with many going over the same ground, so there is a lot of repetition. Even so, it's an important book. There are a few well-known names here - editor Lawrence Krauss, Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker - but also a range of scientists (with a few philosophers) explaining how science is being damaged in academia by unscientific ideas. Many of the issues apply to other disciplines as well, but this is specifically about the impact on science, and particularly important there because of the damage it has been doing...

Sarah Bearchell is a science writer and educator who has created educational activities for charities, learned societies and science centres, and who writes regularly for Aquila. The Future of Agriculture is her first book.  Why science? I’ve always been curious. When I was little, I used to make mud pies with different ingredients like stones, grass and sticks. When they had set into hard bricks, I would turn them out and see if they collapsed when I stood on them. It was a long-running and very unscientific investigation which resulted in joy and mess in equal measures. Formal science was the next step…which resulted in more joy and mess as I moved towards ecology, agriculture and horticulture!  Why this book? I’ve always wanted to write a proper book, and by that, I mean a book produced by a proper publisher, in hard copy, to be sold in a bookshop and be purchased (and hopefully read by!) people who I’ve never met. One day, I saw a call-out for agricultural writers for a p...

In his subtitle, Tim Lenton makes a daring claim: this book is going to tell us how to fix the climate crisis. This is surely very timely when there has never been such scepticism about the need to take action that can damage economies. Lenton takes it for granted that things are bad, opening with statements like 'We are beginning to realize that we need to change course fast if we are to avoid catastrophe, and that we are not changing fast enough.' It's certainly true that some people realize this, but it's also fair to say that many don't, including notable major world leaders - there's always a danger of the academic 'we' being assumed to be representative of humanity as a whole. The solution that Lenton proposes (the title is a bit of a give-away) is that we 'find and trigger positive tipping points that accelerate change in our societies and technology towards sustainability and social justice.'  The book proper begins with an exploration of...