The Northern Lights

"When I came across this book, I was already working on one about the Northern Lights and the solar storms that create them. My book The Sun Kings has almost become a bit of a prequel to Lucy Jago’s book. One of the things I loved about this whole subject was this dawning of understanding that the earth itself is not an isolated island in space. We are intimately connected with the processes that are going on in the solar system and even the universe. One of the most obvious ways that the connection manifests itself is through the Northern Lights. Whenever we see these lights in the sky we understand that it is because of colossal explosions on the sun and huge storm particles that are coming through space. I love the way that Birkeland was almost obsessive about trying to understand that and trying to see the bigger picture. But, sadly, he became a rather tragic figure because he died in uncertain circumstances in a hotel in Japan. And he is not triumphant in his science. He is remembered in retrospect. He never ever felt as if he had achieved something. He never had a sense of personal achievement. This was a bit of an experiment – having novels with science in them. I was interested in trying to tell the history of astronomy in a way that was not fully exhaustive. I wanted to pick out the key turning points and not bog people down with minutiae. If you only needed to know three things about the history of astronomy what should they be? I decided on understanding gravity. Every time we took a new leap in our understanding of movement and gravity so a whole new universe seemed to open up for us. The key figures associated with that are Galileo, Newton and Einstein. As I started to look into their stories I realised that these great moments of revolution in science also took place at tempestuous times in history as well – in the run up to the Thirty Years War for Galileo, in the Restoration and the collapse of absolute monarchy for Newton and then World War I for Einstein. In all three of these times the world order was changing and people were primed for new ways of thinking to make progress. The more I researched I realised that you didn’t need very much to make them into terrific novels. They had drama, not just from the science and drive and determination of the people to achieve something against improbable odds, but there were also vast social landscapes that these people existed in and great family dramas that were going on as well. For example, Johannes Kepler in The Sky ’ s Dark Labyrinth is a man trying to have a family life as well as being a Protestant mathematician in Catholic lands. And as a result he is constantly being hounded out of cities. The reviews of my first book, The Sun Kings , were talking about the narrative structure of it, which made me realise that it is a good idea to allow people to find out about science through novels. I have always wanted to write fiction so this was a good way to do it. May 10, 2012. Updated: January 14, 2026 Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected] Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you've enjoyed this interview, please support us by donating a small amount ."