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Our Universe: An Introduction by Patrick Moore
01/04/2007 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: Facts, Figures & Fun/AAPPL. 128 illustrated page small hardback. Price: £ 6.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-904332-41-1. Buy Our Universe: An Introduction in the USA - or Buy Our Universe: An Introduction in the UK  check out website: www.ffnt.co.uk
This is the third 'Facts, Figures & Fun' book I've reviewed but this one is the most useful and a heartily recommend for any SF reader and writer to have on their shelves. This is really a pocketbook of all the trivia you really need to know about our solar system from the planets and moons to the major asteroids and comets.
You can also crib off which planets have been visited by unmanned space vessels. Patrick Moore puts things over in a fluid way, not to mention displaying a little wicked humour about mistakes and errors that have shaped how people saw the universe at large and naming names. Its also small enough to slip in a coat pocket for you to peruse on trips, confident that you will know a lot more than when you started.
If I have to be critical is that poor planet Venus gets tacked on to the end of the Mercury chapter and doesn't even get a mention in the chapter titles. The place might be hell to live on but it seems an odd way to treat the system's best example of global warming that the Earth is now trying to emulate.
Having said that, don't let that deter you from reading this practical guide. Its even left me pondering and speculating about the asteroid belt and the four major moons of Jupiter might actually have belonged elsewhere but that's a different story.
GF Willmetts
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