Book ’em

Sometimes I read books… and sometimes I write them

I have a rather big announcement, and one I am very, very excited to make:

I wrote another book!

Yay!

The title is Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe, and pre-orders are now open!

Wait. To be more clear and obvious: CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER!

Under Alien Skies, is, at its heart, the answer to a simple question I get all the time: What would all those gorgeous cosmic objects we see in astronomical photographs really look like if we were there?

Easy to ask, and so much fun to answer.

What would you see if you were inside the Orion Nebula? Or standing on a planet orbiting twin suns? Or cruising over Saturn’s rings? Or a planet orbiting a red dwarf, or inside a globular cluster or — gulp! — falling into a black hole?

In Under Alien Skies, I’ll show you. 10 chapters, ten different spots in the Universe, from the Moon — which is surprisingly alien despite its familiarity — to the Point of No Return that defines a black hole… and beyond.

I read dozens of research papers, hundreds really, to make sure I had the best and most current understanding of what you would experience if you were there. I did a lot of math — a lot, oh my god, so much math — to make sure the sizes and temperatures and views you’d experience were as accurately depicted as possible (but don’t worry, the math was all behind the scenes, though I do plan on writing about some of it for future issues of the BAN once the book comes out because it’s awesome).

I picked the ten places I’d like to see most. Sunrise on Mars, the surface of a comet, a solar system being born… it’s a big Universe, and there’s a lot to see. I’m very much looking forward to showing it to you.

Under Alien Skies is published by the good folks at W. W. Norton, and comes out on April 18, 2023.

And oh, did I mention YOU CAN PRE-ORDER THE BOOK HERE?

I’ll have more info on why I wrote this particular book, and how, in future BAN issues. I’m working on a public lecture based on it, and have plans to do radio interviews and the like closer to the publications date (April 18th!).

My very first event will be a free Zoom panel for librarians as part of the Library Journal Day on October 20. I’m honored to be a part of this — the speaker list is quite something — since I love libraries and librarians are amazing people who in many cases bear the weight of our civilization.

If you want to pre-order the book, let’s see, where did I put that link?

Oh right:

HERE IT IS.

I’ll be talking about this more later, but pre-orders are very important, because it tells the publisher how much the audience wants the book, and could have ramifications for getting on some rather helpful lists.

I hope you have as much fun with it, and learn as much from it, as I did writing it.

* The first three are Bad Astronomy, Death from the Skies!, and Nerd Disses (co-written with Zach Weinersmith of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and illustrated by Jess Fink) [affiliate links to books]

Et alia

You can email me at [email protected] (though replies can take a while), and all my social media outlets are gathered together at about.me. Also, if you don’t already, please subscribe to this newsletter! And feel free to tell a friend or nine, too. Thanks!