This book seems largely constructed out of interviews rather than following people doing field work around. This is understandable to some extent, we can’t expect the author to fly to mars.
I really like the summary of Mars geology here, a lot more color than Wikipedia and also a better sense of what’s settled and what isn’t. Ditto for the Moon and Venus.
A lot of pop culture references, not the elevated reading experience of a McPhee or a Winchester. But the Rhode Island style sizing at least sticks in your head. Yellowstone has an upper magma chamber the size of Manhattan and a lower magma chamber the size of New York City. I think it’s best understood as a work of Science Communication rather than Journalism (or even Science Literature.) It takes pains to make sure you get good understandings of the conceptual stuff but also just as often loses itself in figures.
The color is nice though. By color I mean what you don’t get by reading Wikipedia-you get the candid takes of scientists saying what they think but can’t prove yet. Volcano hot takes, if you will.
