A little over 50 years ago, American astronauts and the cosmonauts of the Soviet Union gathered in space for a ceremonial handful. This mission serves as a context for the latest space thriller of the former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, Final orbitwhich introduces an accident that kills half of the crew.
Meanwhile, Hadfield revives the Shuguang space program canceled from the 1960s in order to place the first Chinese astronaut in orbit almost three decades earlier than in reality. With these pieces in place, he tells the story of a three-way clandestine space conflict and perhaps gives us the most realistic representation of a “battle” between two spatial vessels never written.
As in his previous books, Hadfield has expertly weaves facts, fiction and its own orbit experiences to produce a novel that is both technical and entertaining. If you can’t stand Tom Clancy’s discussions about how you are seldoming a nitrogen reservoir on a spacecraft, it may not be for you, but I find that Hadfield is a master of the genre.
