The science gift book of the year, a stunning blend of words and images that shows once again why Timothy Ferris has been called today's greatest science writer. Twenty years ago, Timothy Ferris enjoyed his first enormous success with his now-classic picture book, Galaxies. Since then, he has published other bestsellers, produced award-wining films and won numerous honours. But not until Life Beyond Earth has he created a book that can rival Galaxies in visual splendour. Celebrating the search for life on other worlds, this sumptuously designed work, printed to art book standards, is a treat for the eye and for the mind. Drawn from an original documentary produced for KCTS/PBS, it strikingly juxtaposes Hubble Space Telescope photographs with cover art from pulp science fiction books, and hand-drawn maps of Mars's canals by astronomer Percival Lowell with the crystal-clear images of the Viking lander. There are more than 200 illustrations in all - given rich, thought-provoking context by Ferris's brilliant text, and by observations from such scientists as Freeman Dyson, Richard Gott and Stephen Jay Gould.