Booklist Review

This title, like others in the Navigators series, takes a high-interest topic and breaks it down into two-page spreads stuffed full of arresting 3D imagery and peppered with a smattering of relevant information. Obviously, there's no way to sufficiently cover a topic this broad. Instead, Kent presents an array of somewhat random techie stuff perched at the cutting edge of innovation, from things that just sound sci-fi (wave farming, solar sailing) to things that, as of yet, remain purely speculative (the space elevator). Some subjects might seem included more for their aggrandizing prefixes (megatunnels and superbridges) than their actual appeal, but they manage to stack up just fine next to the more inherently alluring novelties of bullet trains and nanobots. The flashy, digital artwork is at its best exploring cutouts of nuclear submarines or ecohomes, and is occasionally supported by smaller diagrams and photographs. While there's not a lot of information on any one thing, taken together these bite-size chunks could help foster a passion for exploring the ever-expanding limits of technological potential.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2009 Booklist