Book Bites: Merlin's Tour of the Universe

Merlin's Tour of the Universe: A Traveler's Guide to Blue Moons and Black Holes, Mars, Stars, and Everything Far by Neil deGrasse Tyson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Merlin's Tour of the Universe is an updated edition Tyson's 1988 book, collecting questions and answers that originally ran in StarDate Magazine. The subject matter varies widely from the basics of the moon, stars and sun, to in-depth questions of angular momentum and planetary motion. The answers are brief to a detriment, sometimes only a single word, "No." There's humor in Merlin's voice and the occasional limerick is a nice addition, but nothing here elevates Merlin's Tour past the basic tier of science facts bathroom book. The material Merlin covers is better explained elsewhere, even within Tyson's own body of work.

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