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Whoa. The Smithsonian Magazine gave a really nice review to the paperback edition of Death from the Skies!
This book should be on the shelf of every disaster flick screenwriter. Perhaps we would then get movies with plots that are even more terrifying for the possibility that they could really happen.
Yup. Hey, Hollywood, you listening? I know some of you are…
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The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking, movie reviews, and all that) can be found here.
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 | Bad Astronomy was chosen as one of Time.com's Best Blogs of 2009. |
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August 26th, 2009 at 7:35 am
You wrote a book?
August 26th, 2009 at 7:36 am
Congratulations.
August 26th, 2009 at 7:40 am
All hail the great scientests of earth.
What, they waited for the paperback version?
August 26th, 2009 at 7:44 am
Dr. Plait, if you need a consultant for military affairs for your movie, I know a guy…
August 26th, 2009 at 7:50 am
This thing seems to be catching on, Phil… I keep hearing about these “Death Panels” (book reading clubs, perhaps?) and even talk now about the “Death Book”… Wow, you are getting lots of free publicity! Death is everywhere!
August 26th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Oh, man!
I went and got the hardback version, which doesn’t have the endorsement of the Smithsonian!
August 26th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Ivan3man (1) said:
One day, that joke’s gonna get stale.
But one day, apparently, the Earth will get swallowed by the sun. It says so in this book I read by some astronomer guy.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:29 am
Book 3 Idea – “Death In The Skies!”
Plot? Describing – in rather horrific but tongue in cheek detail – what would happen to our future space adventurers if they were to encounter various astronomical objects up close and personal.
Neil loves talking about what would happen to an astronaut that falls into a Black hole. So do that (but you can describe it better than him….I think…), but then also what would happen to an astronaut that falls into a neutron star, a magnetar, a massive star, a super giant and hot “Jupiter” planet we have detected, etc.
Grim? Yep ya bet. Interesting and science-riffic? Yea that too.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Finally had to buy a copy! It’s the paperback cover that got me: it will look great in my Airstream next to my backyard astronomy book and binoculars.
Thanks, Phil
August 26th, 2009 at 9:56 am
“Neil loves talking about what would happen to an astronaut that falls into a Black hole.”
That show’s been done already
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farscape
August 26th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Quite right…. the recognition this book deserves.
Although, I would advise those of you who have recently bought a copy, or are thinking of it, to avoid doing what I did…. namely, walking onto a 767 flight from London Heathrow to Tampa, FL whilst holding the book open and reading. Suffice to say that the bold print title on the front cover raised more than a few eyebrows on a commercial flight into the USA. Jeez, talk about paranoia!
August 26th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Read it on the Kindle. Part way through Bad Astronomy now. That has not changed my plans to stay out of smokestacks.
August 26th, 2009 at 10:17 am
I wanna see a disaster flick with all of the scenarios crammed into the plot. Probably impossible but just imagine the special effects.
August 26th, 2009 at 10:21 am
“I wanna see a disaster flick with all of the scenarios crammed into the plot. Probably impossible but just imagine the special effects.”
Don’t be giving Roland Emmerich ideas…
August 26th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Sadly, I doubt it will help. I just did a break down on a script last week that had a black hole’s gravity working like a flashlight…”a beam of gravity sweeps across the land sucking buildings and people into the air…” Sigh
PS. I want the military consultant job
August 26th, 2009 at 11:08 am
> a beam of gravity sweeps across the land sucking buildings and people into the air…”
Finally! Gravity waves proven!
August 26th, 2009 at 11:13 am
The fact that Smithsonian reviewed a paperback says a lot about your book–they don’t do that often! It convinced me; I just placed my order for it. Congrats on the review (and the paperback reprint of your book)!
August 26th, 2009 at 11:53 am
I already have Death on my Kindle. The cover of the paperback is so kool, I think I’ll get serveral of those and pass them around my classes.
August 26th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
@Joe Meils
Wait…so Phil is a Nazi?
August 26th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
I havent read the book yet but I think Hollywood won’t get the message because makeing up ther own bad astronomy brings in the boxoffice big bucks and they can’t let a little thing like facts interfear with profits . Still Phil should keep on trying
August 26th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
@Brando, I asked first. Maybe we put it up on rank/seniority?
August 26th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I was in B&N today and they have the book on the New Arrivals table up by the front door.
Gosh, I feel like I was ahead of the wave on this one. I’ve been reading Phil’s writing for a while now.
August 26th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Sigh, crowing all hours of the night there will be, no sleep to be found.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Too bad you can’t sell the rights to non-fiction. You could have included one hoax catastrophe of your own invention, baiting Hollywood into adapting it without attribution. Then you could sue the pants off ‘em.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Urr, Mike B -
The problem is they don’t make up their own Bad Astronomy… They keep remaking the same old Bad Astronomy again and again, just like they keep on remaking the same old Bad Movies again and again. At least if they made movies with new Bad Astronomy errors each time, it would be interesting, and there would be new things for BA to debunk.
August 26th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
19. Todd W. Says:
Wait…so Phil is a Nazi?
He’d have to be a Socialist Nazi who appoints Czars after being born in Kenya, with a Time Machine to go back and plant phony birth announcements in Hawaii newspapers.
Sorry, too much time on political blogs…..
J/P=?
August 27th, 2009 at 2:50 am
I just got the hardback for my birthday. Even though I know a fair bit about astronomy there are some facts in your book that I didn’t know ( bromium and chlorine from a megameteorite would damage the ozone layer for instance), and I’m enjoying reading it. I can’t wait to get to the chapter on supernovae.
Phil, if you write some more books on astronomy I’ll keep buying them, hint hint!
August 27th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Why did they change the subtitle for the paperback edition?
August 28th, 2009 at 8:36 am
http://weblogs.clarin.com/podeti/archives/065851.php
…even the red shirt…