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stephenmeansme's review
3.0
This is a funny little book. It's sixteen essays written by Willy Ley, who wrote a lot of pop-science articles and really led the charge for rocketry in its early years. As pop-science articles per se they're quite good, with some reminiscent of the television series "Connections" in how they bounce around the history of science in service of some overarching theme. As pop-science articles in the light of $CURRENT_YEAR science they can verge on the quaint, especially when it comes to the articles on astronomy. Ley is a careful writer with solid reasoning, he also wrote many of the essays in the decades before anyone had put anything up into space, and scientific knowledge in that arena has revealed a reality far stranger than what was suspected before.
Overall this is 2.5 stars. Don't try to learn much about science from this because the facts are probably all outdated, some badly. But if you are familiar, it's a charming and quick read.
Overall this is 2.5 stars. Don't try to learn much about science from this because the facts are probably all outdated, some badly. But if you are familiar, it's a charming and quick read.
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