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Reviews of Shooting the Sun, by Max Byrd:
"How to capture an eclipse of the sun," by Ron Charles. The Christian Science Monitor, 30
December 2003;
"Arctic paradise, mordant wit, Irish troubles," by Victoria Brownworth. The Sun, 28 December 2003.
These book reviews praise this historical novel about British mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage, a brilliant mathematician and photographer named Selena Cott, and a fictional expedition to the American Southwest to photograph a complete solar elclipse. Most of the plot revolves around the long and arduous wagon trail adventure from Washington to near Santa Fe, but the premise involves Babbage's annnouncement that the expedition will prove true a prediction of his "Infant Engine" (a miniature version of his "Difference Engine's"). The engine made an accurate predicition of the total eclipse at 2:15 p.m., September 5, 1840, in the American Southwest.
--- Annette Emerson
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