HOW I KILLED PLUTO AND WHY IT HAD IT COMING

 

This REMARKABLE LITERARY ACHIEVEMENT -- combining popular science, memoir, history, true crime and THE SURE AND CERTAIN HOPE OF DISCORD -- bears International Standard Book Number 978-0-385-53108-5.  Mike Brown is the author.  Took me forever to get to this one.  I APOLOGIZE, PROFESSOR BROWN!

ERIS FLICKED ME ON THE HEAD AGAIN AND AGAIN AS I SOUGHT OUT THIS BOOK.

I went to my library's online catalog.  The site said the book was currently available and allowed me to put a hold on it, informing me that it would be waiting in the NO-CONTACT BOOK HOLD AREA.  That's one of the local artifacts of the pandemic.  In 24 to 48 hours, the book would be mine to borrow.

I went in after 24 hours, and behold, it was not there.  I knew that due to nationwide understaffing and shorter working hours, there might be a delay.  So I patiently waited for 48 hours to pass and went back.  

As if by magic...the book had not appeared.  I asked at the desk and the librarian looked it up.  "It's in transit," she said.  "But it says on your website that the book is here in this building."  "It says it's in transit," quoth she, ensconced in her government bureaucracy and thus safely protected from HAVING TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING TO ME.  I understood IMMEDIATELY that I was safe in the arms of Discordia.  The book might be on its way.  Then again, it might not.  There was nothing I needed to do -- or indeed could do -- to change the course of events. 

THE BLESSINGS OF GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACY ARE ALL PART OF THE DEAL IF YOU'RE A DISCORDIAN.

ON THE THIRD DAY IT CAME TO PASS.  A different librarian noticed me stumping away from the NO-CONTACT ON HOLD AREA and shouted out "WHAT HOLD!?" (I never heard librarians yell until I moved here.)  "Who, me?" quoth I.  "Yes, I'm processing some holds now," she said.  I named the book and she happened to have it in her hand.  She said it looked very interesting and she might want to check it out herself.  I encouraged her to make this move, then checked out the book and brought my quarry home.  Sure enough, the book was NOT from my local library but had been shipped in from Hamtramck, Michigan.  I DIDN'T EVEN ASK.

I dove in immediately, AND OH, THE WONDERS I BEHELD.

The author of this book proves to be the guy who's discovered MORE NEW HEAVENLY BODIES THAN ANYONE IN HUMAN HISTORY.  And, frankly, he makes it sound like a real GRIND.  It seems that most of this task involves searching out MISFILED PHOTOS OF THE SKY and squinting at them in dimly-lit rooms, hoping that one of the dots of light in one of the photos will have visibly MOVED between, say, 1957 and 1992.  He gets to take new photos of his own, of course, but that's kind of a crapshoot and if you want one to use of the better telescopes, you have to write a proposal to the dark overlords, then TAKE A NUMBER AND WAIT.  So he relied quite a bit on existing photos.

But soft!  Here's how he described the very first hint that something was up:

"But after a few minutes, I stopped my quick flipping through images, because I had found one that confused me." (Italics mine.)   

He hadn't found Eris yet at this point -- this was a different space rock entirely -- but he was already starting to feel confused, am I right?  THIS SPACE ROCK WAS ONE OF THE HERALDS OF ERIS.  THERE WERE SEVERAL in the course of this story, changing not only their visible positions in the sky but their names and their intellectual ownership.  Pluto, of course, wasn't KILLED as stated in the title of the book, but in the eyes of his followers DEMOTED in the course of this book, from a true PLANET to a mere Kuiper Belt Object.  You can still buy T-shirts complaining about this change:

And there was much more going on here than confusion and job changes for space rocks.  There was TRUE DISCORD in the shape of what may amount to theft of an intellectual property, or space-rock poaching, or SCIENTIFIC ESPIONAGE.  Right before he was about to announce the discovery of one of his new rocks, someone else announced having discovered the same item. It's a long story and I'll let you read the book yourself to find out about it.   Mike Brown took the role of Detective Lieutenant Frank Columbo and found out some very interesting fingerprints at a very unexpected crime scene.  YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE THIS PART.

Part of Mike Brown's stated quest was to get a firm answer to the question "What is a planet?"  He'd harbored doubts about the question for ages and he returns to it again and again in these pages.  I'm pleased to report that he NEVER CLEARED THIS UP and in my opinion SPREAD MORE CONFUSION ABOUT THIS QUESTION THAN EVER.  He also reported the casting of SUBLIME DOUBT on the definition of a moon, and a number of other pretty basic definitions about space terminology.  

Here's another quote from much later in the book which I think captures a great deal of the gist:

"Sure, perhaps I was a bit on the exhausted side at this point and inclined to believe that the secret committee had also conspired to assassinate President Lincoln, Archduke Ferdinand, and Julius Caesar, but just because I was being paranoid didn't mean I was wrong." 

If that's not straight out of the Book of Discord, I don't know what qualifies.

I don't want to tell you too much about this Galilean-in-scope quest, but suffice to say that this is a WILD RIDE for a science book, very well written and at times hilarious.  And Eris finally made her appearance.  And the author was the one who chose the perfect name...

NO DISCORDIAN SHOULD MISS READING THIS ONE.  FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, YOU GET TO MEET ERIS IN THIS BOOK!