Maps For The Overhead: World Geography Book

Apollo's Fire is structured as a day in the life of the sun, told from the perspective of the earth. It's really lots of little stories strung together from night, to dawn, day, noon, dusk and darkness. Along the way, we learn a bit about many things, some of which are directly related to the daily journey of the earth as it turns on its axis, and some only tangentially related. Some of the topics are clouds, bats, circadean rhythms and Galileo and his telescopic observations.

Some are well known and mundane, while others are obscure and odd. Some are quite fascinating, falling into the category of "who would have known?" A prime example is the little known fact that Edgar Allen Poe came up with an elegant solution to the perplexing puzzle known as Olbers' Paradox (Why is the night sky dark if there are billions and billions of stars out there?)

While the daily journey of the earth was supposed to be the glue that gave this book a unifying theme, somehow all the pieces didn't really seem to come together all that well, and the inclusion of some seemed artificial and forced. Overall, the concept of the book was better than its execution. So although it is well written, even beautiful at times, it was a bit disappointing.