Mercury (planet) Mercury (planet) Mercury is the smallest and innermost planet in the Solar System. Its orbital period around the Sun of 87.97 days is the shortest of all the planets in the Solar System. It is named after the Roman deity Mercury, the messenger of the gods. Like Venus, Mercury orbits the Sun within Earth's orbit as an "inferior planet", and never exceeds 28° away from the Sun. When viewed from Earth, this proximity to the Sun means the planet can only be seen near the western or eastern horizon during the early evening or early morning. At this time it
The Message to the Planet is a great novel, a merely interesting one, or an unclassifiable pandemonium". Another reviewer remarked that anyone "seeking an untroubled read and pat answers should seek them elsewhere". In his study of Iris Murdoch's fiction, Peter Conradi wrote that "The Message to the Planet" was a "lesser" novel, inferior to its predecessor "The Philosopher's Pupil", but with some memorable scenes. On the other hand, Suguna Ramanathan calls it "an extraordinary achievement" and "of all her 24 novels, the largest in scope and most powerful in thrust". The Message to the Planet The Message to the Planet is a novel by