STUART CLARK is a former editor of Astronomy Now. He has a PhD in astrophysics and until 2001 was director of public astronomy education at the University of Hertfordshire. In 2001 the Independent ranked him alongside Stephen Hawking and Sir Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, as one of the ‘stars’ of British astrophysics teaching. A regular contributor to such magazines as New Scientist and BBC Focus, he is the author of several books, the most recent of which is DEEP SPACE (Quercus/Barnes & Noble, 2008). But it was his first work of narrative nonfiction,THE SUN KINGS, that established him as a popular science writer par excellence. Without fail the reviews, ranging from Nature to Bookslut.com, remarked on his exceptional storytelling ability and sheer verve of his writing. Links Stuart Clark's website
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THE SUN KINGS
The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began
2007 Professional and Scholarly Publishing Award for Excellence in Cosmology and Astronomy
Shortlisted for the 2008 Royal Society Science Book Prize
I found myself captivated by the characters, the colossal problems they tackled, and the stunning conclusions they finally reached. I commend Clark for combining so many interesting ideas into a single, fast-paced, beautifully crafted story – Dava Sobel, author of LONGITUDE
Undoubtedly the most gripping and brilliant popular science history account that I have ever read. It is informative, accurate, and relevant. The author’s ability to write so vividly makes me seethe with jealousy – Owen Gingerich, Professor of Astronomy and of the History of Science, Harvard University, author of THE BOOK THAT NOBODY READ
In September 1859, the entire earth was engulfed in a gigantic cloud of seething gas, and a blood-red aurora erupted across the planet from the poles to the tropics. Around the world, telegraph systems crashed, machines burst into flames, and electric shocks rendered operators unconscious. Compasses and other sensitive instruments reeled as if struck by a massive magnetic fist. For the first time, human beings began to suspect that the earth was not isolated from the rest of the universe. But nobody knew what could have released such strange forces upon the earth – nobody, that is, except the English amateur astronomer Richard Carrington.
In this riveting account, Stuart Clark tells for the first time the full story behind Carrington’s observations of a mysterious explosion on the surface of the sun and how his brilliant insight – that the sun’s magnetism directly influences the earth – helped to usher in the modern era of astronomy. Clark brings to life the scientists who rejected the significance of Carrington’s discovery of solar flares, as well as those who took up his struggle to prove that the earth could be touched by influences from space. Clark also reveals new details about the sordid scandal that destroyed Carrington’s reputation and led him from the highest echelons of science to the lowest reaches of love, villainy and revenge.
THE SUN KINGS transports us back to Victorian England, into the very heart of the great nineteenth-century scientific controversy about the sun’s hidden influence over our planet.
Publisher: Princeton University Press (UK/US)
Pub date: 30 March 2007
Length: 224 pages
All rights available excluding:
World English Language (Princeton), Greece (Travlos), Italy (Einaudi), Taiwan (Goodness Publishing)
COSMO-THRILLER
A Trilogy of Novels
Where are you mother? With father in heaven or with that devil Smith, atoning for your abandonment of me? Well, God cannot help you there. Only I can forgive you of that sin – Newton
Inspired by real events and grounded in fact, COSMO-THRILLER fictionalizes the three wholesale revolutions in astronomical thought that have punctuated human history. Stripped of arcane technicality and presented in dramatic terms, the stories open up a new world for many who are curious about the defining events in our understanding of the cosmos but are scared off by the scientific baggage that invariably accompanies nonfictional accounts.
The book has been conceived so that the three individual parts may be published either as stand-alone volumes or together in a single omnibus edition. The parts cover Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe, who in the sixteenth century precipitated the modern study of the universe; Newton, who in the seventeenth century performed his great synthesis of earthly and heavenly motion; and Albert Einstein, who in the twentieth century finally revealed the nature of space and time.
Apart from the scientific discoveries, what really drives these stories is the human characters, which Stuart Clark brings to life while wearing his own knowledge lightly. For these scientists were all flawed men of passion and belief, simultaneously capable of the loftiest philosophical thoughts and the pettiest of jealousies. They understood the power of the mind, and worked tirelessly to prove their visions of reality, even when buffeted by external events. Wars, persecution, religious belief, political instability, sexual scandal and royal readjustments all had their role to play in shaping the breakthroughs that transformed our perception of the universe.
COSMO-THRILLER paints these brilliant men in their true colours and, in so doing, sparks the public imagination as never before.
Publisher: TBC
Delivery: Book 1: The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth – delivered; Book 2 – December 2009; Book 3 – May 2010
Status: Proposal and sample chapters; complete manuscript of Book 1: The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth
Length: Each volume, 60,000–70,000 words
All rights available excluding:
Greece (Travlos), Japan (Kobunsha), Korea (Sallim)
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