These days it seems like everyone is doing books about past asteroid and comet impacts on the Earth, and the possibilities for future impacts. Because of this popularity it's vital that each book stand out by approaching the subject a little differently and provide a new point of view on the subject. John and Mary Gribbin do succeed at this, in a limited way, in their book Fire on Earth.
     The Gribbins focus their book on what previous impacts have done to the Earth, like the Chicxulub impact in the Yucatan 65 million years ago which likely wiped out the dinosaurs any many other species, and the Tunguska event in Siberia in 1908 (which has been attributed to the explosion of a small stony meteor in the upper atmosphere, although the Gribbins describe the impacting body as a comet). From there they look at other extinction events in the history of the Earth, and the plausibility of impact explanations for these.
     The Gribbins' book provides a history of research into the field of explaining impacts not easily found elsewhere, as they look at the research done over many years to explain the evidence of impact events on the Earth. Their book does have several minor errors, though. They dismiss volcanism as a possible alternate explanation for the dinosaur extinction, noting that a massive volcanic event in India known as the Deccan Traps may have been caused by the impact itself, something which is widely doubted today since the Deccan Traps may predate the impact by up to a few million years. They also mistakenly credit the Clementine spacecraft with a flyby of the asteroid Geographos: while such a flyby was planned, an error in the spacecraft caused a loss in attitude control which canceled the flyby.
     Overall, the book provides an interesting look at the evidence of past impacts on the Earth, while also paying some attention to the threat of future impacts. While Fire on Earth is a good book, I still find John Lewis's Rain of Iron and Ice and Duncan Steel Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets the two best recent books in the field.

The Soviet, now Russian, space program has been conducted behind a veil of secrecy for many years, a veil which only recently has lifted as the Russians now work closely with the United States and other countries to help keep their cash-strapped program alive. Thus, the intentions of the Soviet space program could only be guessed, and the history of the events themselves was somewhat uncertain. British historian Brian Harvey provides a concise yet complete and detailed history of Soviet and Russian space efforts in The New Russian Space Programme.
     Despite the book's title, it does not merely discuss recent space efforts. The book starts with the works of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and works forward from there, covering the origins of the Soviet space efforts after World War II. Both manned and unmanned missions are covered in the book, and the history covered in the book goes up to the beginnings of the Mir-shuttle docking missions.
     One of the most interesting concepts discussed in the book is the fact that a Soviet program for a manned mission to the Moon started much later, not earlier, than the American program. While the United States committed itself to a manned mission by the end of the decade in 1961, the Soviets did not commit themselves to such a program until August 1964, by which time the American program was already in high gear. The fact that the Soviet program got as far as it did, including the development (but unsuccessful launch) of the N-1 moon rocket, speaks volumes about the quality of Soviet engineers.
     The only gripe I have about the book is the presentation of its contents: information about the details of the program, including the launch facilities, rockets, and unmanned spacecraft, is placed in the middle of the book, splitting the discussion of the manned program in half between the early years of the program (including the abortive Moon race) and the era of Salyut and Mir space stations. Otherwise The New Russian Space Programme is an excellent book. Published in Great Britain, it may be a little difficult for Americans to find, but the effort to find a copy will be worth it to anyone interested in the history of Soviet/Russian space efforts.