The planetary panoramas
snapped by machines may or may not be art, but their evocation
of nature's profuse diversity inspired awe and wonder.
-- John Noble Wilford, The New York Times, October 22, 2003
[for article, click here;
for PDF of printed article, click here]
An armchair tour of our planetary neighbors, Michael Benson's Beyond is not
only a tribute to an era of discovery more grand than Galileo's, but it is
also an aesthetic revelation. These color and black-and-white images of the
sun, the planets (except Pluto, of which we know and have seen so little),
their moons and the main asteroid belt -- taken from the unmanned spaceflights
from 1967 to 2002 -- are a spectacular melding of science and art, and their
publication could not be more inspired or timely. Never have the remnants of
creation seemed so beautiful in all their fiery, icy and imperfect splendor.
-- Thomas Curwen, Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review,
January 11, 2004
[for
article, click here; for PDF
of printed article,
click here]
Beyond will let you see what a dust storm on Mars
looked like to Viking Orbiter 2 in 1977. It looked spacey indeed.
-- Janet Maslin, The New York Times, November 21, 2003
Never before seen pictures of fantastic worlds! An unheard-of kaleidoscope… a
large-sized volume of stunning quality. (*****)
-- Stern, Germany, May 25, 2004
[for
article, click here]
The recognition that these miraculous images
(supremely reproduced) are nothing less than works of art is
the impetus for this
resplendent volume, and discerning
writer and documentary filmmaker Benson did, in fact, serve as the book's curator,
searching through tens of thousands of digital images to find the most striking
and beautiful scenes of the solar system, many never published before. Each
sequence of finely detailed portraits of Earth, the Sun, the Moon, and our
sister planets is sublimely exhilarating, particularly those of the volatile
Jovian system, blue and serene Neptune, and elegant Saturn, which Benson describes
as "cosmic perfection."
-- Donna Seaman, *Starred Review* in Booklist, December 2003
[for
article, click here]
Much like paintings of America's Wild
West commissioned by government surveyors became icons that
redefined American culture in the 19th century, photographs
of alien landscapes taken by the Voyager spacecraft have shaken
our sense of self today... To be profoundly humbled, one need
only view the dizzying variety of moons in our solar system,
like riotously volcanic and sulfuric Io and icy and oceanic
Europa… A sense of the tremendous scale of space can
be seen in what may be Beyond's centerfold pinup.
It's the mesmerizing blended mosaic of Voyager 1 images of
Europa – "simply a pearl in space", Benson
calls it – serenely floating over the swirling eddies,
bands and Great Red Spot of Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere.
-- Erik Baard, Wired News
[for
article, click here]
Dust storms like caramel cream, volcanic plains like golden
honeycombs, the dune-scapes of Mars’s surface, a tracery
of craters. The cosmos – a feast for the eyes.
--Die Zeit, Germany, February 26, 2004
[for
article, click here]
Although the book is limited to shots of the
solar system, taken by the robotic spacecraft that humankind
has scattered
across interplanetary space over the
past four decades, every photo was indeed stunning. But this is more than
just a well-produced glossy picture book. Michael Benson
has created not only an
ode to the Lunar Prospectors, Voyagers, Vikings, and many other picture-taking
space probes, but also a tribute to the availability of the images via the
internet.
-- Stuart J. Goldman, Sky and Telescope, February 2004
[for
PDF of printed article, click here]
Michael Benson stumbled upon some of the most expensive pictures ever taken:
Otherworldly images sent back by the spacecraft humankind has launched over
the past four decades in an effort to capture the heavens. In a new book, Beyond:
Visions of the Interplanetary Probes, Benson collects nearly 300 of these
photographs, snapped over an area of nearly 3 billion miles. The vistas are
strange and beautiful -- from the fiery arcing prominences of the sun to the
celestial dance of Io floating above Jupiter.”
-- Scott Simon, web
introduction to his NPR Weekend Edition interview
with Michael Benson, October 18, 2003
Books about our planetary system and its nine planets are a
dime a dozen, but Michael Benson’s book “Beyond” enters
virgin soil. Even experts will hardly know most of these pictures
of the Sun and moon, Venus and Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus
and Neptune, the mini-planet Mercury and the even smaller asteroids.
This masterwork is worth its proud price.
-- Stuttgarter Zeitung, Germany, February 27, 2004
[for
article, click here]
For months, Benson scoured public websites,
downloading particularly stunning "visions" prized
by the space probes and creating his own collage of such marvels,
which he then began
to share with others. With Lawrence Weschler, for example,
with whom he'd first begun corresponding when Weschler was
covering the Balkans for the New Yorker. And with Arthur C.
Clarke, the great science-fiction master...
-- The Believer, San Francisco, October, 2003
[for PDF of printed article,
click here]
This is the kind of book that makes reviewers indulge in hyperbole.
A stunning visual feast, Beyond is the labor of love
of author Michael Benson who amassed, and digitally processed,
images taken by NASA's unmanned space probes throughout
the solar system.
-- Charlotte's Creative Loafing, Charlotte, North
Carolina, December 2003
[for article,
click here]
A serene image from Voyager of the crescent of Neptune with
its moon Triton in tow is one of the best and rightly appears
on the book's cover. Contrast
that with furious ultraviolet eruptions on the sun and violent volcanoes on
Jupiter's spotty moon, Io. It is baffling to think that nature has built these
diverse worlds from the same huge, bland cloud of gas and dust. Beyond is
a breathtaking reminder that our solar system is a beautiful and strangely
disturbing
place.
-- Hazel Muir, New Scientist (UK), December 2003
[for article, click
here; for PDF of printed article, click
here]
An eye-opening cinematic art book… Titled Beyond: Visions of the
Interplanetary Probes, it is one of the most detailed and aesthetically
compelling looks at the solar system ever published. Benson spent several years
researching the
images that pack the book, which, at 11.5 x 11.5 inches, is both large-format
and luxuriously long, with 320 pages of stunning color and black-and-white
photographs.
-- Steve Gallagher, Filmmaker magazine, winter 2004
[for article,
click here; for PDF of printed article, click
here]
A close-up tour of the solar system, with sumptuous and extraordinary
photographs.
-- San Jose Mercury News, November 30, 2003
Buckminster Fuller probably would have been thankful if he could
have leafed through Michael Benson’s Beyond. In this exciting
journey to the borders of our solar system one can discover what
our space probes have photographed over the decades.
-- St. Galler Tagblatt, Germany, February 19, 2004
[for
article, click here]
Compiled by writer/photographer/filmmaker Benson
- whose work has appeared in the Atlantic monthly and
the New York Times --
this collects 295 stunning photographs (color and b&w)
of our solar system, taken by an assortment of interplanetary
satellites since the l960s."
-- Margaret
F. Dominy, *starred review* in Library Journal,
November 2003
[for article, click here]
Today, every planet but Pluto (including even cloud-enshrouded
Venus), most of the larger satellites, and a few asteroids
have been surveyed in detail.
Journalist Benson illustrated these wonders in full; the close-ups of planets
and moons are of the kind that inspires young readers into a career in astronomy
and the space sciences. -- A.R. Upgren, Choice magazine ("current reviews for academic
libraries"), February, 2004 [for
article, click here]
People usually associate squads of bespectacled engineers and scientists as
being the sole guardians of space. Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary
Probes by Michael Benson is the type of book that rationalizes and moreover encourages
the inclusion of other specialists, especially those in the arts. Containing
295 photographs chosen both for their artistic, awe inspiring impact as well
as their voluminous scientific content, the reader will want to quickly put
aside numerical calculations about orbital mechanics and let their eyes float
across the vistas of other planets. It is easy to imagine that only a thin
visor of a helmet separates them from the visions in the book.
-- Mark Mortimer, Universe Today online, January 29, 2004
[for article, click
here]
A wondrous caravan of photos (often enhanced) from the interplanetary probes.
Our own Earth, powdered by clouds, our stippled old moon and variegated Martian
'scapes are followed by bone-stone asteroids and exquisitely deco-pure rings
of Saturn, then way out to the white egg of Uranus and blue marble of Neptune.
-- Union Tribune, San Diego, November 30, 2004
Absolute visual genius. An unbelievably awe-inspiring collection of photos
that promises an adventurous trip. A spectacular kaleidoscope, a technically
masterly photographic achievement and a book that is both distinguished and
exclusive in its appearance.
-- Barbara Wegman, Titelmagazin, Germany, March 22, 2004
[for
article, click here]
(…) The other books on this list offer photographs taken
by humans, but these breathtaking images were taken by robots.
Magnificent pictures of asteroids,
the sun, the
planets and their moons have been sent to Earth over the past four decades
by interplanetary probes. Many of them are reproduced here with a foreword
by Arthur C. Clarke and a thought-provoking essay by Lawrence Weschler. As
coffee-table books go, it's one of the best - you'll look at it again and
again.
-- Anne Stephenson, The Arizona Republic, December
7, 2003
Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes is
a collection of 295 photos of the Earth, Sun, Mars, and other
planets taken by unmanned space probes. Photographer
Michael Benson culled thousands of archived images for the ones he found
most
striking and awe-inspiring, then digitally rendered them into otherworldly
landscapes.
-- Business Week online, December 8, 2003
Beyond is not just a collection of pretty pictures; it presents stunning images
from our solar system as inspiring pieces of art themselves.
-- John J. Miller, The National Review, November 6,
2003
[for
article, click here]
Take a trip to the far parts of our solar system in this spectacular selection… Writer/photographer/filmmaker
Benson chooses fire and ice and craters and mountains that stretch to the orbits
of Uranus and Pluto.
-- Dick Holland, Austin Chronicle, December 12, 2003
If you browse websites such as those of NASA, you may have seen some of these
images, but never with the breathtaking immediacy and detail of these reproductions,
each clearly identified. There's enough text, including a foreward by long-time
SF writer/seer Arthur C. Clarke, to put it all in perspective.
-- Neil Barron, Gale's What Do I Read Next? (“a hardcover guide to popular
fiction aimed at public libraries”), Volume 1, 2004
[for article, click
here]
Benson sees these images of other worlds as dramatic landscapes no less wonderful
than those in Ansel Adams’s photographs. And he's right, some of these
images are every bit as moving as an Adams photo.
-- American Scientist online, December 2003
[for article, click here]
Michael Benson's "A Space in Time," [later published in Beyond -
ed], a meditation on satellite imagery available on the Internet, is one of
the most sublime, captivating essays on our solar system and beyond since the
late Carl Sagan hung up his pen.
-- Clay Risen, Flak Magazine (http://flakmag.com), reviewing the Atlantic
Monthly August 2002 issue
If this book isn't on your coffee table this holiday season you'll be nominated
for the Grinch awards… The Bottom Line is that this is the coolest coffee
table book to have sitting around your flat, mansion, apartment, or in the
words of Samuel R. Delany's The Star Pit "two glass panes with dirt between
and little tunnels from cell to cell: when I was a kid I had an ant colony." (*****)
-- CitizenJones (“Where SciFi and Librarians Meet”) December 2003
[for article, click here]
Beyond is an especially cool book… Benson has compiled and processed
the best images he can find from NASA’s space probes. The result is an
eye-popping combination of art and science.
-- Steven Robert Allen, Alibi (http://alibi.com),
November 20, 2003
Presenting photographs from the history of robotic space exploration, this
oversized book provides an awe-inspiring visual narrative of the solar system's
planets, moons, and asteroids. From the vantage point of unmanned explorers,
the book shows Venus's veil of clouds lifted by Magellan's high-resolution
radar; Mars as viewed by the Viking orbiters of the 1970s; and unambiguous
signs of life on Earth revealed by Galileo's flybys en route to Jupiter. The
striking high- resolution images form a body of art created in equal parts
by scientists, by the probes themselves, and by the curator Michael Benson.
Benson (a writer, filmmaker, and photographer) includes 295 color and black-and-white
photographs, and essays explaining the stories behind the photos, and how and
why the probes were built.
-- Book News, Portland, OR
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