As a celebrity astrophysicist and witty host of StarTalk, Neil deGrasse Tyson has penned dozens of books over the years, but as they say, you never forget your first.
That designation belongs to an amusing volume compiled in 1989 when Tyson was a graduate student at Columbia University, titled “Merlin’s Tour of the Universe.” It’s a collection of over 200 questions posed to him by the general public for a column he wrote in the StarDate newsletter for The McDonald Observatory of West Texas. These varied queries ranged in topics from astronomy and planetary science, to gravity, black holes, and time travel that the young 20-something scientist would answer through the persona of an intergalactic sage named Merlin.
“All of those questions and answers first appeared in the McDonald Observatory’s StarDate Magazine at the University of Texas,” Tyson tells Space.com. “It was for the public and it was to make extra money on the side. Not much because it was a small publication. But anything more than zero is more than zero. I had a fun time turning the Q&A into an actual fictionalized entity, to turn Merlin into a character that’s lived through all of time and seen all the great discoveries of science. To do something fun with it just made it more interesting to me on the expectation that it would be more interesting to the reader. And it turned out that was definitely the case.”
Blackstone Publishing’s updated edition of Tyson’s first published book arrives on Oct. 29, 2024 and retains the old-fashioned charm and humor Tyson is best known for today alongside quaint cartoon illustrations drawn his brother, Stephen Tyson.
“In Neil deGrasse Tyson’s delightful journey through the cosmos, his fictional character Merlin responds to popular questions asked by adults and children alike,” the book’s synopsis reads. “With the help of intermittent humorous cartoons, Merlin clarifies the details of familiar phenomena like gravity, light, space, and time, and travels to distant stars and galaxies to describe what makes them tick, rotate, explode, and collapse.”
Upon reflection ,Tyson realizes that the joy in creating Merlin for StarDate’s column is what novelists feel when they create characters that persist throughout their novels.
“So there’s a joy to resurrecting this opus, to bring it into the 21st century, which is clearly necessary since it was written 35 years ago,” he adds. “And I laugh every time I see my brother’s illustrations. I don’t know why but they don’t get old to me. It’s a delicate touch, but they’ve got a bit of wit and many of the illustrations cue off of single words or phrases or sentences that are in the answer that Merlin has put in.
“In one of my favorite illustrations, someone asked, ‘Is everything in motion?’ So Merlin says, ‘Yes, the Earth is turning on its axis, we’re going around the sun, the sun goes around the center of the galaxy, the galaxy is ‘falling towards Andromeda, the Andromeda and galaxy are falling towards the center of a supercluster.’ And it ends with the sentence, ‘Such is the layout of this cosmic ballet.’
Then he draws these ballet dancers that each have like a galaxy head, but the rest of their body is anatomically accurate. There’s the tutu and the buttocks muscle on the male dancers. It’s just all there. I’ve seen it a hundred times, so why am I still laughing? That’s why I knew it was reaching something that’s deeply charming and resonating.”
Tyson considers himself privileged to have his brother as a part of this project since the simplicity of those drawings adds further levity and relevance with the readers.
“I think there are couple of new illustrations in there just because we needed to update things,” he notes. “Plus, I’m a better writer now than I was back then. But I was impressed how many answers I couldn’t touch because they were so carefully conceived at the time. They’re sharp and precise and pithy and I think they have a certain charm about them. That a big old complex question can be answered in a simple way. Those were the seeds of what would become pithy communication in my Twitter feed.
“In a way it was a proving ground for how to take what might be a long complicated answer and trim it of fat, but still keep it interesting, and maybe throw in something that might make you smile. To realize that a little bit of humor, and toss in a little bit of historical context, just helps flesh it out. Something that people can sink their teeth in.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “Merlin’s Tour of the Universe” arrives on Oct. 29, 2024.
