(2021) A little sci-fi but mostly Cold War spy novel about Apollo 18 (the next in line of missions that was scrubbed in real life due to budget concerns) and how it gets involved in disabling a Soviet Spy station and then going on to the moon to disable a Moon rover and find out why the Soviets were so interested there. Somehow they wind up with one of the 3 astronauts dead and a woman cosmonaut aboard. Also the commander of the flight is assigned after he causes the death of the original commander. Almost Tom Clancy style of book without as much of the endless detail that ruined his books. Pretty good.KIRKUS: A vast Cold War space thriller from astronaut Hadfield.Incorporating real-life characters and events, spanning decades and distances both terrestrial and translunar, this NASA-heavy thriller has everything, including perhaps a bit too many meticulously reported technical procedures. The story opens with not one but two aircraft episodes�a bird strike wrecks an F-4 Phantom and a Cessna 170B is taken out for a rhapsodic spin¥then follows the developing career of Kaz Zemeckis, who, until the bird strike cost him an eye, had been a military astronaut with good prospects of going to the moon. Repurposed as a crew liaison for NASA, Zemeckis is involved in both the training for and the mission of Apollo 18. Hadfield's use of real people brings historical authenticity to the novel, and there are many tidbits of NASA lore that only an insider could provide, but the devotion to technical facts has some drawbacks. There are more moving parts to this novel than there are in a Saturn V, and Hadfield is careful to give each part a complete description: provenance, purpose, design, and in-use characteristics are all faithfully recorded. This makes the first part of the novel so technically focused that it seems the action will never get off the launchpad, though doubtless there are readers who will revel in these details. In the event, Apollo 18 is a complex mission. Initially charged with collecting geological samples and sabotaging the new Russian moon rover, the three astronauts are then told to sabotage the Russians' new spy satellite, which is thought to be unmanned but is not. The crisis created by this bungled attempt at space vandalism establishes the main narrative thread, with Zemeckis back at Mission Control in Houston struggling to keep the mission going. There is a murder and other deaths as well as injuries, vomiting, and space brawls, all reported in close detail. Though the climax is somewhat over-the-top, the basic bones of a good thriller are here even if the beginning is a slow burn.Space nerds will geek out, and everyone else eventually gets a pretty good ride.

No one could be better qualified than Chris Hadfield to write fiction based on an alternate history of the Cold War space race. Hadfield was nine years old when Neal and Buzz landed on the Moon. He grew up to fly fighter planes, pilot the Soyuz, and help build Mir. He was the first Canadian to walk in space and command the International Space Station. He has recorded music while in orbit and delivered a TED talk on what it is like to go blind during a spacewalk.
Now in his mid-sixties, he is writing the Apollo Murders series of thrillers. The Apollo Murders, set in 1973, envisions a conflict between Russian Cosmonauts and an Apollo crew on the way to the Moon. The story is not a James Bond fantasy but a plausible, if improbable, speculative fiction. Many of his characters are historical figures, as is much of the technology he describes. He is especially good at creating experiential details of liftoff, weightlessness, and piloting a fighter plane. He knows the engineering, and you believe him when he tells you what buttons need to be pushed at any moment.
Enjoyable. ( )

This is a fascinating mystery, set in the 1970s. It evokes the American space program with wonderful realism. This follows Apollo 18 towards the moon. Note that in our world, Apollo 17 was the last mission to actually land there. So while I recognized many of the names - Alan Shepherd, Gene Kranz, etc., the crew for this thriller was fictional.

One little detail brought home to me how much a particular part of the world has changed since then. At one point, the subject was photos taken in space and how one had to return the film to earth to see those pictures. Photos now are transmitted digitally in a downlink. I think of the James Webb telescope, and how it wouldn't be possible to see those wonders if we'd had to send back physical, exposed film. A small detail, but a telling one. Google tells me that the first digital cameras were in 1975. We know that pictures were transmitted from the moon as Armstrong stepped on, because I watched it. But references here in the book to film, and sending photos and film to the earth with parachutes …. Just brings home how much has changed, even from then.

And yet - today, Sept 24, 2023 - a package parachuted to earth from the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, with rubble/regolith dug up from the Bennu Asteroid. As film drops were formerly made from orbit, we are still physically returning items to earth from orbit for analysis here. The book and the event resonated in my mind.

Hadfield does a stunning job evoking what it feels like to train for, and go into, outer space. His experiences as an astronaut help him bring that front and center. He is also a skilled storyteller. Highly recommended, particularly to those who want to be immersed in the experience of spaceflight. ( )

Tell me a story about an Apollo mission, even a fictional one, and I'm there for it. This book does that and ups the ante by wrapping it in a murder mystery and international intrigue. I already knew Colonel Hadfield could write. Now I know that he can write a thriller that keeps me turning pages. What really shines through for this space geek are all the mission details that made it all seem plausible. Recommended. ( )

Quite the swashbuckling adventure, set in a world where Apollo 18 went ahead with stiff competition from the Russian space agency. As you would expect from this astronaut author the story is full of real procedural and lifestyle details about now their lives and their missions must have been. However, the good guys are a bit too nice and the bad guys a bit too unlike able. I would probably read another Chris Hadfield book if he wrote one though. ( )