Five Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars

The New York Times Book Review
- Dennis Overbye
…[Billings's] graceful new book on the history, meaning and personalities behind the search for life among the stars…is the best book I have read about exoplanets, and one of the few whose language approaches the grandeur of a quest that is practically as old as our genes.




Publishers Weekly08/12/2013
In his efforts to put a human face on the grand hunt for "life among the stars"—or at least a planet where life could exist—science writer Billings loses sight of the search and gets caught up in historical asides, profiles of scientists, and distracting poetic musings. His approach is novel, but all too often the results resemble just that—that is, a novel: Billings relies on interviews with researchers—including Frank Drake of the SETI ("search for extraterrestrial intelligence") Institute, MIT's Sara Seager, and the preeminent discoverer of extrasolar planets, UC Berkley's Geoff Marcy—conducted in relaxed settings: a home in Santa Cruz, a Pennsylvania farm, a family evening in Concord, Mass.