As I write this review, New Horizons is just under a half-million miles from Pluto, already used to making headlines for its ground-breaking imagery and other discoveries. NASA's website says, "If New Horizons is successful, it will allow the U.S. to complete the initial reconnaissance of the solar system." Embedded in this somewhat boastful statement is an implied defiance of what the International Astronomical Union declared nearly a decade ago: Pluto is not a planet.

In his highly entertaining and enlightening book, Caltech professor (and Huntsville native!) Mike Brown tells his side of the story of Pluto's "demotion," which is connected with his discovery of many other icy distant worlds. Along the way we learn a great deal about how professional modern astronomers work, including their extensive use of computers, databases, and hand-written programs, as well as increasingly limited use of older technologies such as photographic plates. Politics and even intrigue is involved, as Professor Brown shows again and again, especially in the CSI-like case of the almost stolen discovery of Haumea.

I enjoyed his level-headed discussion of the "what's a planet?" controversy. We humans have been writing our stories on the stars and planets from the dawn of man, and we continue to do so. Pluto is one of the more recent chapters. As Professor Brown shows by comparing the growth of the known Solar System with his own young family, these abstract wanderers of the sky can take on very personal symbolism. Perhaps that is why some people feel so strongly about Pluto being a planet.