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Title: What If the Moon Didn't Exist?: Voyages to Earths That Might Have Been by Neil F. Comins ISBN: 0-06-092556-6 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 01 January, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.50

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Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (3 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Incredibly interesting
Comment: In this book, Neil Comins walks a fascinating tightrope between science and science fiction. He presents ten carefully detailed scenarios, in which intriguing astronomical "what ifs" are asked. Each scenario is alloted about 25 or 30 pages, on average. The title scenario, dealing with a posited Earth without a moon, is the longets essay, weighing in at 50 pages.

One of my favorite sections is the chapter pondering "what if" the Earth were struck by a black hole. Comins generously approaches this question from two completely distinct vantage points. First, he asks what would happen if we were hit by a stellar mass black hole. Second, he delves into how things might be if we were hit by a primordial black hole, formed at the beginning of the universe, with a mass about the same as that of the moon. Comins also asks great questions about how things might be if a local star went supernova; how the Earth might fare if the Moon's orbit was closer to us; and what Earthly life might be like if the Earth were tilted on it's axis perpendicular to its orbit, like Uranus.

This book is really interesting. It isn't exactly science fiction -- just speculation. Comins sticks very close to known science, with no departures at all. When necessary, he includes little essays about Stephen Hawking's theories, etc, to help us understand the sound foundation of his theorizing.

If you know any "absent-minded professor" children, or an adult with a bent in this direction, then I recommend the living daylights out of this book... To clarify that -- the highest praise I can give this book is that I wish I discovered it when I was about 10-13 years old. I remember my summer vacations when I was about that age, when my friends would plant me in deep, deep, deep left field during whiffleball games. I had to at least go out in the field, to save face, but I usually wanted to be thinking about science. Whichever team was actually at bat, I was the designated deep-cubed left fielder for the duration of the game. I'd sit there and daydream, and mumble to myself about astronomy or fantasy, until my friends eventually let me know when the game was over. One summer I spent those afternoons thinking about "The Lord of the Rings." Another summer it was Carl Sagan's "Dragons of Eden" (which I also recommend). Another summer it was the science chapters from "The Book of Lists." This book would have been just as fascinating, and would have kept me happily spaced out in dreamland for months. In my book that's high praise. I would also recommend this for science teachers, at any level from elementary school to high school. Two thumbs way up.

Rating: 5
Summary: An Interesting Exploration of a Little-Considered Subject
Comment: While, as a reviewer below noted, this book occasionally suffers from digression, the author's decision to take on subjects rarely talked about in popular terms more than compensates for that minor flaw. While much of what Mr. Comins discusses in this book has been covered in other works, those have been overwhelmingly targeted at people with a strong grasp of astronomy, while Mr. Comins has succeeded in producing a book that novices as well as the more experienced can enjoy.

However, the book is not solely limited to astronomical phenomena. It also contains a very enlightening chapter on the feasibility of organisms using forms of electro-magnetic radiation other than visible light for purposes of seeing. Superman's x-ray vision will never seem quite the same once you know that his eyes would have to be ten-thousand times the size of regular human eyes in order to be able to process an image at the same level of resolution.

I would also strongly recommend this book to people who like alternate histories, or who enjoy writing "hard" science fiction. I have found it to be a very valuable reference work for my own writing.

Rating: 4
Summary: Excessively elliptical, but very engrossing all the same!
Comment: (Formatted for 80-character lines. IBM newlines.) CRITIQUE OF: "What If The Moon Didn't Exist?: Voyages To Earths That Might Have Been" by COMINS, Neil F.; ISBN #0-06-092556-6. This is an informative and highly entertaining book, and one I find highly enjoyable. However, despite its title it is clearly intended to be more educational than speculative; and as a result it very often comes across as excessively digressive, and even pedantic. To be fair, the book DOES discuss what it promises to discuss: it does indeed explore what the Earth would be like without the Moon. Not only that, but also explores other scenarios in similar fashion: What if the Moon were closer to the Earth? What if the Earth had less mass? What if the Earth will tilted, like Uranus? What if the sun were more massive? And so forth. The problem is that the relevant material is very often accompanied -- sometimes even buried -- by other text which is simply irrelevant to the discussion at hand. This does not pose any problem for me, because I find this additional material quite fascinating. But I can easily see how others, less tolerant than myself, might be put off by it. A case in point is Chapter 2: "What if the Moon Were Closer to the Earth?: Lunholm". This chapter begins with utterly gratuitous discussions of how early man feared that the sun might cease to rise each day and the subsequent development first of the Earth-centered, and then the sun-centered, theories of the universe; the existence of both cyclic and irreversible changes on Earth; and the fact that the Moon is moving away from the Earth. Despite the subject matter of this chapter's title, this latter is very nearly the first mention of the Moon at all in almost three full pages (not counting "white space")! Next, Mr. Comins asks the question "*Could* the Moon be closer to the Earth [than it is] today?" and launches into an exhaustive examination of this issue. Now, there are two senses in which this question can be taken, and Mr. Comins explores both of them. And neither one is of any particular interest to the reader! If it is being asked whether it is physically POSSIBLE for the Moon to be closer to the Earth, then the question, while obviously relevant, is meaningless to the reader since if the answer were "no" then the entire chapter would not exist at all. The other sense it can be considered is, "Is it possible for the Moon to be closer to the EARTH than it is today" -- that is, might Earth's history have been such that the Moon might actually be closer today? Again, from the reader's perspective this is a meaningless question, since what we are discussing is not Earth: Earth is what it is what it is what it is, and all our speculations cannot change it. Obviously what is being considered an ALTERNATE Earth -- a planet "Just Like Earth", but with a Moon which -- for WHATEVER reason or cause -- orbits closer to it than our real Moon does. For the reader, exactly WHAT that "reason" or "cause" might be is simply not important. An exhaustive explanation of HOW or WHY it is possible to "move the Moon" is simply NOT necessary to the theoretical discussion at hand. So I can definitely hear some readers saying, "For God's sake, PLEASE GET ON WITH IT, Mr. Comins!!!" Now, I will grant that Mr. Comins discussions of Roche limits (the minimum distance a Moon can be to its planet) and gravitational tides makes for interesting, and dare I say fascinating reading; and his explanation of exactly WHY the Moon is spiraling away from the Earth is the most lucid and understandable I have yet encountered. But the plain fact of the matter is that for MOST readers, most of this will be pure *obiter dicta*. Chapter 2 begins on page 50; no actual discussion on what the Earth might be LIKE with the Moon closer to it -- which is, you will remember, the question asked by the chapter's title! -- begins until very late on page 66, almost 2/5 of the way into the entire chapter! This is entirely too much space to devote to what is, in the long run, a purely parenthetical discussion. Thankfully, none of the other chapters seem to suffer QUITE so badly from such excess! In conclusion, if you can get past the side discussions and irrelevant passages -- or if you are, like me, the sort who would be fascinated by such material -- then you should find this a engrossing and fascinating book. Just bear in mind that Mr. Comins' real purpose appears to be to EDUCATE you, rather than to confine himself to actual theoretical speculation; and while he's no Carl Sagan, he's very passable all the same. --Glennn P.,

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