Mark R. Chartrand

In the Golden Guide, Planets, by Mark R. Chartrand, the reader is sent on a journey across the solar system, learning of nine planets (now eight and one “classical planet”) and several minor planets (those things between Jupiter and Mars).

While the content is dated by its 1990 publication year, a lot of the information is definitely worth reading, including the discoveries of the different planets as well as their moons and supposed makeup and possible geologic activity.

This book does provide the same sort of “field guide” aspects as other Golden Guides, but is more for the armchair astronomer, providing facts on the planets more than how to actually find them in sky (which it does provide, but only up until the year 2000).

Ultimately, I found Chartrand’s writing voice to be much more condescending than the usual tone of the Golden Guides, saying things like “astrology is the false belief that...” and other things that completely discount anything remotely “supernatural” in origin; though he’s not afraid to use the zodiac as a reference point for the bodies in the sky.

While it’s my belief that a study of our neighboring planets and planettes is probably left to larger books, and possible standalone books on each body, this book can provide a quaint overview of Sol to Charon. Granted, I would strongly recommend refreshing on something more recent once complete, so you don’t still believe something that was disproven by Voyager half a decade ago.… (more)