Book Review: Little Blue Dot by Katherine Dunn

Solid And Comprehensive (Ish) History Of GPS And Current Issues As Of Mid-2020s. This was the next book I read on my morning walks after Killed By A Traffic Engineer by Wes Marshall and which I'm following with The Grid by Gretchen Bakke... so clearly, I still (inadvertantly?) have a theme going with these books.

And what a tale this is. While the ending gets a touch more into the partisan realm re: so-called "climate change" and your mileage will absolutely vary there, it isn't so heavy as to warrant *serious* considerations of defenestration, more just an annoyance that such a great book to that point felt it *had* to bring that up for... reasons?

But before that point, Dunn does truly a remarkable job of showing how the titular "little blue dot" came to be from some of the earliest hurdles in navigation to the development in WWII of radar-assisted navigation (and the "Beam Wars" between England and Germany in particular that played key roles in the Blitz and the Battle of Britain, per Dunn) to the development of rocketry generally and from there the complications of using satellites as navigational beacon... and the realization that unlocked it all.

Divided into distinct sections of essentially "early development", "development", and "global domination", this is a more "introduction to these topics" level discussion than a true deep dive on any aspect of them, whether that be the science, the history, or any other. Yet Dunn covers every aspect in enough detail to keep the reader informed while also moving the narrative along nicely, including reserving an appendix for a bit of a deeper dive into the fight between the US Air Force and the US Navy as to which is the true origin of GPS.

Perhaps most striking of all is the extended discussion of more recent attempts of the last 20 ish years to disrupt, hack, or block global navigation signals (no matter their actual constellation), and here Dunn takes great pains to show exactly where and when these first began to be noticed and exactly why and what is being done both on offense and defense in this space... and where. Anyone who tries to claim that these issues are not discussed clearly has not finished this book, if they ever actually started reading it, as this discussion is *the* dominant discussion of the latter parts of the book before the epilogue ties a nice little bow on the entire narrative... while bringing up the aforementioned "climate change". Hell, Dunn even mentions the looming threat of AI enabled attacks... and the promise of equally AI enabled defense... even as this particular marriage of technologies is clearly the bleeding edge of this issue.

Overall truly a fascinating and informative book that is also readily approachable and readable, and one more people should read and understand the issues at hand.

Then, perhaps, go out and find a good magnetic compass within your price range and learn how to use it and paper maps once again... ;)

Very much recommended.

This review of Little Blue Dot by Katherine Dunn was originally written on September 24, 2026.