In this superbly-written book, Oliver Morton takes us through the history of the mapping of Mars. Starting from early attempts to map features on the planet and leading up to the latest maps of Mars derived from space probe data, Morton takes us on a tour of the people, science and events. In the process we get to learn a lot about geology - both terrestrial and Martian - and the painstaking, meticulous work required to tease meaningful data out of spacecraft images.

Overshadowing all is the scrupulous scientific honesty required to interpret those images: it's all too easy to look at a formation on Mars and interpret it as an Earth-type feature, whereas it may have been formed by processes completely different and totally unknown on this planet. That danger was ever-present for the men and women who have mapped Mars.

 But above all, Mapping Mars is the story of how talented and tenacious mappers changed Mars from being a completely unknown planet into a place, in the same way that mediaeval cartographers changed the unknown territories of our own planet from a series of mythological locations into a real and living world.

If you are at all interested in the exploration of Mars, or geology/cartography in general, this book deserves a place on your shelf. Superb.