Living Among Giants (PDF)

Springer author/artist Michael Carroll received the AAS Division of Planetary Science's Jonathan Eberhart Award for the best planetary science feature article of 2012, an article based on his Springer book Drifting on Alien Winds. He lectures extensively in concert with his various books, and has done invited talks at science museums, aerospace facilities, and NASA centers. His two decades as a science journalist have left him well-connected in the planetary science community. He is a Fellow of the International Association for the Astronomical Arts, and has written articles and books on topics ranging from space to archeology. His articles have appeared in Popular Science, Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, Astronomy Now (UK), and a host of children's magazines. His twenty-some titles also include Alien Volcanoes (Johns Hopkins University Press), Space Art (Watson Guptill), The Seventh Landing (Springer 2009), and Drifting on Alien Winds (Springer 2011). His latest coauthored book is Springer's Alien Seas: Oceans in Space (2013).

Carroll has done commissioned artwork for NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and several hundred magazines throughout the world, including National Geographic, Time, Smithsonian, Astronomy, and others. One of his paintings is on the surface of Mars-in digital form-aboard the Phoenix lander. Carroll is the 2006 recipient of the Lucien Rudaux Award for lifetime achievement in the Astronomical Arts.

“The book is divided into three parts, all of which are excellently illustrated. … Living Among Giants is a fascinating book with excellent detours into what some planetary scientists would like to visit on different moons – what views would be the coolest? What sort of cruise to take to have the best views of Saturn’s rings, or what kind of crater, chasm, cryovolcano or any other feature would be interesting to explore.” (Astro Madness, AstroMadness.com, July, 2016)