Planet of Science: The Universal Encyclopedia of Scientists

by Antonio Fischetti

Explore the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time through the fascinating lives of the people who made them. Some are well known, such as Darwin, Einstein, and Da Vinci... Others are more obscure, like Van Leeuwenhoek, the draper who discovered microorganisms, and Alfred Wegener, the meteorologist who revealed continental drift. Combining incredible discoveries and amusing life stories, these 37 portraits of exceptional scientists will amaze you. Science is both a human and social adventure, and these geniuses from the days of antiquity to the present, whether behind the scenes or on the world stage, are the living proof.

84 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 7, 2011

Reviews

[Ioana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley for a digital copy in exchange for an honest review :)

This book has a great premise: presenting scientists in an accessible and funny way. The descriptions were easy to understand and informative. It also has one page for each scientist that presents an event from his/her life in a funny way through comics. Some of the comics were interesting, but they were not my type of funny content unfortunately.

I believe that the title is a little to generous for the book. It claims to be "The Universal Encyclopedia of Scientists" but it presents just 37 scientists and most of them are Europeans ones, which did not make me very excited. I expected more diversity.

[Theediscerning · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a big surprise for me – a book from Europe Comics I would not really declare a comic. And certainly I might not wish it was a comic. We look at 37 great minds of history, from Thales and Pythagoras through Einstein and beyond, with the help of nice, readable, succinct little biographies, that tell us just what we might want to know. The comic bit comes from one trivial detail of the biography being blown up cartoonishly, and extrapolated on to try and get a yuck out of it. Inevitably they fail; they're not visually appealing, they're not humorous or particularly surprising, and all they serve to do is to brighten up the spreads in this worthwhile primer for science history students. The written content is fine – worth exploring and keeping. But every second page, with its full-sized scrawl, is just off-putting junk.

[DoodlesandBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Planet of Science: The Universal Encyclopedia of Scientists

I got this book today itself, as I was done with my stuff for the day. I opted for this book as yesterday itself I have read a wonderful graphical novel which was the biography of Charlie Chapline from the same publisher. It is a good book for children only.

The book is an encyclopedia of about 37 revolutionary scientists from around the time and world. To be mentioned few of the very old names are Pythagoras, Thales and the well known like Darwin, Einstein, and Da Vinci. There also some who are not much talked about. The book narrates about the basic information about the scientist and there work so as to introduce them to the kids. The graphical party of the book is good for the kids, and it is good to go with the kids only.

Thanks to Netgalley and Europe Comics for the book.

[David Gallagher · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book features 37 scientists from every era and part of the world - introduces them with a page full of information which is accompanied by a single comic strip. The strip is a "funny" story or incident from each scientist's life, but otherwise entirely indifferent. Not extremely informative for a "universal encyclopedia" - maybe a simple way to introduce children to the subject? As an adult, I found it unfunny, uniformative and badly developed. But the drawing style of the comics themselves is not bad.

[Rex · Rating 1 out of 5]

Highly biasly concentrated on the old-school Canon which only emphasizing Europe-centered Scientists. But shamelessly called a universal guide. How on Earth could this kind of discrimination still happen in the 21st century. It should be called "A Tiny Snapshot of Europe-Centered Scientists"

[Andréa]

Note: I received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.