The Apollo Murders is a historical speculative science fiction story set in the Apollo era of American space flight.
As a former NASA astronaut, Hadfield is intimately familiar with the workings of the space agency and this story is chock full of references to operations in both the US and Soviet space programs. While some may find these references a little distracting and even think those references are unnecessary to the story itself. I found the book well written and highly entertaining and am happy to say it is one of the best crafted stories I've ever read. The principal characters are fictitious and are fascinating, but one of the things I really appreciated were references to many real-life personalities that lived and worked in the space program during the 1970s. Names such as Chris Kraft, Gene Kranz, and Alan Shepard play major parts in Apollo Murders and they add authenticity and credibility to the tale.
It is the height of the Cold War, and the end of the Apollo program. Funding for the US exploration of the moon is going to move to other projects after the last moon landing. However, when US intelligence finds the Soviets have landed a rover on the moon and are planning to have a manned orbital spy platform, plans are made to fly Apollo 18, a military mission with two objectives. The first objective is to disable the spy platform in orbit before it is crewed, and the second is to land on the moon to learn what the Soviet rover has found or is looking for.
The prime crew is trained and ready to go a month before the mission, but a helicopter accident kills the mission commander, who is replaced by the backup. Further investigation finds the helicopter crash was not an accident. It was an extreme negligence of maintenance or sabotage.
As the mission moves forward, things go badly when a Soviet spy ship disguised as a fishing trawler notices the trajectory of the Saturn V launch vehicle is flying to the north of the normal path. The Soviets realize the Americans intend to rendezvous with their new space station. With that, the entire mission seems to off the rails.
The Soviets always seem to be a step ahead of the Americans. The question is, why? Or better yet, who is helping the Soviets win this chess game in space?
Hadfield includes a large cast of characters in this tale. Many of them are people we, who are familiar with the Apollo era, are familiar with. There are several characters who would appear 'behind the scenes' during coverage of a spaceflight during those times. One of the most prominent of those characters is Kazimieras Zemeckis, more commonly known to his friends as Kaz. He is a former test pilot who was on his way to becoming an astronaut until an accident cost him his left eye. In this story, Kaz becomes a consultant for NASA for the Apollo 18 flight. His persona is well developed and getting to know him is a pleasure. He is all business when on the job, but knows how to relax. Kaz is the main character the story follows from the ground during the flight.
When the story moves into space, the character that sets the tone is Chad Miller, the backup commander for the Apollo 18 mission after the prime commander was killed in a helicopter crash a month before launch. He is an interesting character who takes his responsibilities seriously. He, as any commander should, sets the tone for the flight, which differs from the original commander’s style. As the story unfolds, we learn Miller has more than a few skeletons in his closet. Miller is the character most responsible for adding intrigue and conflict to the story, making him the center of attention for all off-world activities.
While Kaz and Chad are the most central characters to the tale, there are others that add even more to the ill-fated mission that would be Apollo 18. Hadfield does a great job giving enough background information to make this an engaging story a real page-turner.
Spaceflight isn't easy. No matter how routine NASA made it look, there are always little things that can go wrong. On the Apollo 13 mission, it was the failure of a tiny capacitor that nearly doomed three astronauts to death on their way to the moon. In more modern times, the failure of a seal on a solid rocket booster, or even a piece of foam hitting the wing of a space shuttle have been causes of disaster. With The Apollo Murders, it is the failure of the human component serving as the main plot point.
It was also fun to go back in time and remember those glorious days of project Apollo. At least they were glorious to me as I watched men walk on the moon at the age of eleven. It was nostalgic for me, but for the modern reader, if you enjoy a good murder mystery that reaches from the Earth to the Moon, this is the book for you.
My takeaway from The Apollo Murders is how one overly ambitious character can put many people in harm's way. Chad Miller is a fictitious character who has divided loyalties and I'm sure he would never actually become a NASA astronaut for many reasons. He is not a team player. He is a loner with a shady background who would probably not have made it through the first round of astronaut selection in the real world. But he sure is an intriguing character in this story.
This book is a spectacular work of historical fiction. I enjoyed it in all aspects and highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys stories based on historical and scientific fact. There is some technical jargon to work through, but the author was kind enough to give brief explanations of the NASA language of science and engineering. I enjoyed this aspect because I felt it added to the authenticity of the adventure Hadfield takes the reader on. The Apollo Murders is a well written, well edited, fast-paced, and entertaining story that is not to be missed by fans of history, intrigue, and edge of the seat reading.
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An amazing alt-history of Apollo crafted into a sci-fi thriller by an astronaut hero
I read a pre-release copy and loved it! Apollo Murders is an alternate history of Apollo 18, written by an incredible polymathic astronaut — so it has the engineering detail of The Martian set in the Apollo era, minus the mistakes. It is much more compelling than the alternative Apollo history seen in Apple TV’s For All Mankind.As an Apollo space artifact collector, I was also delighted to see 16 of these historic treasures reborn in an action thriller, written by my favorite astronaut no less!For example, one of the characters in the book, Vladimir Chelomei at the OKB-52 design bureau, promoted Almaz as a response to the US Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) project. MOL had been widely publicized in the US press in the early 1960s, which provided Chelomei plenty of material to use to lobby for a Soviet response. I have the Almaz sighting visor for spying on the U.S. It was real, and it really did fire a machine gun in space taking out a target satellite.During the Cold War, the Soviet Union flew nine space stations before Mir. In 1971, Salyut 1 was the first space station to orbit the Earth. Salyut 2 and 3 were actually military programs, which after some failures, were used to spy on U.S. military sites. They developed the analog film on station and deorbited the film cannisters to Earth to be caught mid-air as they descended.Even more amazingly, the space station was armed with a 23mm machine gun, and they fired it in space, destroying a target satellite in 1975. To aim the rapid-fire cannon fixed on the forward belly of the station, the entire station would be turned to face the threat.The Almaz space stations are the only known armed, crewed military spacecraft ever flown. The fourth build was to feature two rockets instead of the cannon, but the program was cancelled before it flew.
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Dieda
Unglaublich spannend - und man lernt noch was
Reviewed in Germany on April 23, 2023
