Hoagland's Dark Mission...

OK-- Granted that i've only read the first chapter and flipped through
all the pictures, but this is a horrible book.

You know... The publishing industry throws together a few thousand
children's books every year, and they are usually, very poor sellers.
Even adult BEST Sellers actually sell only a few thousand copies to be
a really good seller-- It's just that most people don't read. A tiny
fraction of the population is even functionally literate.

But my point is: These children's books, of which, very few are sold,
are made with a very high degree of quality considering that each page
is a full colour combination of text and graphics, Then the excuse
given by Feral House Publishers that they didn't expect to sell enough
of these books to make it of the highest imaginable quality; is just
hooey.

This book: Dark Mission, is essentially an analysis of hundreds, if
not thousands of extremely interesting, mysterious, troubling and
suspicious photographs brought back from lunar missions or sent to us
from interplanetary probes.

Why then: Is this book of such AMAZINGLY POOR QUALITY...!!!
The Pictures; first of all, are of amazingly poor quality, even the
colour ones, on shiny paper.
And i'm not talking about the deeply suspicious ameliorations of the
pictures, No-- i'm saying that nearly all of them are washed out
puddles of unarticulated grays.
And given that all publishing is now done with computers, and NOT
typeset, there is NO reason to have these 'Photo Inserts'... All the
pictures should have been integrated into the chapters with the
text...!!!

Second Problem: It would be totally Fawking Wonderful if some of the
vocabulary &/or terms were explained or elaborated on...
Specifically; It wouldn't be necessary to provide an appendix
containing all the programing that went into some of these
photographic "Enhancements", But a sidebar or column box giving us a
ball park idea of how the photo was being modified to bring out hidden
details would be enlightening.

Third: There are about a million zillion totally fascinating pictures
of crazy *** on Mars, and this book doesn't include any of them...!!!
( Maybe a few, But hardly any... )

Just basically; i'm principally annoyed with the very shoddy quality
of the book itself.
i would expect from Hoagland; to include all his nutty theories &
elaborate conspiracies, but i was hoping for a better presentation of
them.

One Star out of Seventeen.
.