MYTHOLOGY AND THE UNIVERSE

The sky brings us news of the Universe from ages past. But it also tells us some things about the hopes, dreams, and fears of the people who came before us, those who saw the sky as a great mural of legends, myths, and ideas about our place in the vast scheme of things. In this book, Isaac Asimov helps us learn about the wonderful imagery and meaning that Earth-bound stargazers have given the cosmos.

This is actually one of the more disappointing volumes in “Isaac Asimov’s Library of the Universe.” Sure, it has lots of pretty pictures—but given the incredibly rich material that Asimov might have used, culling the world’s folklore for wonderful stories about the stars, we get a bunch of factoids. The subject matter would better be a full-length book than one of these short-short little pieces. The book isn’t a total loss, of course, but it’s not as useful or as interesting as the other volumes in the series.