The Blue Planet is a companion book to the Discovery Channel series of the same name. And yes, the book is expensive, but all books like this are. A lot of effort went into creating this guidebook to the mysterious ocean. The authors accumulated a wide range of information for this project and when you read it, even little bits at a time, the ocean truly comes alive. It certainly defines Earth. Beginning with that definition—The Water Planet—readers cruise the “borders” (shores), and different seas (tropical, temperate and frozen), before heading out to the open ocean and down, down, down to hydrothermal vents. Diagrams also help you navigate this vast frontier. On all pages it’s evident that the seas are laden with all kinds of life—from cute harp seal pups to the jagged-toothed anglerfish. The seas, however, are about more than animals. A network of ridges and valleys, volcanoes and continental shelves gives this wet wilderness a tantalizing shape scientists are itching to exlore close up.The only problem with The Blue Planet is how it looks—the book just lacks that certain pizzazz, that style that says, “This is a DK book”. Yeah, yeah, great pictures. But just about every image is rectangular and the illustration colours are so muted. Still, The Blue Planet is a great guide for armchair oceanographers.

(Originally published in the Sept/Oct 2002 issue of YES Mag.)