I received a courtesy copy of David Harland's latest book:

Cassini at Saturn: Huygens Results
by David M. Harland
Springer Praxis Books (2007)

I've only had a chance to thumb through it but it looks interesting, much like his earlier Cassini book.

I have that book. There is one aspect to it that I find somewhat dissapointing. Roughly half (or perhaps more) of the book deals with events before Cassini gets to Saturn. There is chapter after chapter of Voyager 1-2 history and results, for example.


Then when you get into the chapters dealing with Cassini, they are not focused primarily on Huygens as the title would suggest. Huygens gets appropriate treatment, but Icy Satellites, Saturn, and the rings all get their due as well. There are a fair number of Cassini images in the book of all the satellites and so on, including a nice color section. It is really the last half of the book that made it worthwhile for me.

I came away with the feeling that I was looking at a book that had been written 5-10 years ago, and then had a bunch of new chapters added at the end to update it with the Cassini mission's first two years at Saturn.

I'm not sorry I bought it, but I was able to flip through it at a bookstore before I plunked my money down. If I had ordered it through the mail I might have felt a bit mislead.

I totally agree with Mariner9. The book is interesting and well documented but the part about the Huygens mission and its results is quite disappointing. According to the cover and the title of the book, I expected a little bit more about the Huygens mission.
Marc.