This book is just fun as hell. Especially when you pair it up with the glorious NASA Atlas of the Solar System, which I just happen to have a copy of. I now crave the MOLA (Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter) globe of the red planet. This book refers often to old NASA maps that I used to see when Dad was working at TRW during the old Viking projects, and also to the Kim Stanley Robinson "Mars" cycle, which I understand will be a SciFi Channel miniseries next year. As I finished this book, two or three new Mars probes lifted off from Earth, a fitting coda to a fascinating story of cartography and geography.