Shooting the Sun

December 1, 2003
In this languidly paced historical set in 1840, Selena Cott is a young astronomer on a mission: to be the first scientist, man or woman, to photograph (or rather daguerreotype) a total solar eclipse. She joins an expedition setting out along the Santa Fe Trail, its stated purpose to prove that the eccentric genius Charles Babbage's "difference engine," a mechanical computer prototype, can reliably calculate the exact latitude of an eclipse. Selena is an American, but she was raised a tomboy in France by her sea captain father, and she brings to her frontier adventure a cultured European manner coupled with progressive attitudes about a woman's place in the world. This sets her at odds with the chauvinistic explorers on the expedition, chief among them William Henshaw Pryce, Charles Babbage's financial adviser. Pryce has a secret (and nefarious) plan to locate the remains of Babbage's fabulously wealthy great uncle Richard and claim the inheritance that remains intestate in England years after the old geezer's disappearance in America. Selena braves desert rigors, the condescension and perfidy of her colleagues, and savage Native Americans in her race toward the first scientifically recorded total eclipse in the American Southwest. While Byrd tacks on a mystery and thriller subplot at the end to create a semblance of tension, the book is mostly an engaging travelogue along the old Santa Fe Trail, served up with plenty of authentic frontier detail and enough lessons in early 19th-century navigation to satisfy the most clueless bushwhacker as to his or her exact longitude and latitude.

December 1, 2003
Historical novelist Byrd (Jefferson; Jackson; Grant) abandons the U.S. Presidents to tell the tale of a scientific expedition to New Mexico in 1840. Joining the group as its official daguerreotype photographer is blond, talented, emancipated, and very well connected Selena Cott (she's part of scientist Charles Babbage's social circle in England); her job is to catch the total eclipse of the sun in a series of images that will validate the mathematical genius of Babbage's Difference Engine-the first mechanical computer. Unbeknownst to her, the true purpose of the trip is to find Babbage's rich uncle, who had gone to America years before and wound up living with the Kiowas; if his death can be proven and recorded, his vast estate will finance the completion of Babbage's machine. Although well planned and equipped, the expedition runs into great difficulties, making for an absorbing and interesting story reminiscent of Larry McMurtry's Berrybender novels (e.g., Sin Killer). Both authors cover the same place and time period and even share a character (St. Vrayn). Byrd does a better job of contrasting a decadent English society with the raw reality of the American West, while McMurtry's Europeans are simply a foolish group of madmen who get themselves killed. Byrd sometimes loses his perspective and slips into anachronistic historical minilectures, but this is still a fun read. Recommended for most public and academic libraries.-Ken St. Andre, Phoenix P.L.

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.