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Author
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Topic: Schirra in the novel "Resurrection Day"
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stsmithva
Member Posts: 1933
From: Fairfax, VA, USA
Registered: Feb 2007
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posted 06-03-2007 06:17 PM
   
This novel is set in an "alternate" 1972, ten years after the Cuban Missile Crisis erupted into a nuclear war that killed tens of millions. You can read more details in the pasted review below, but I bring it up here because of a scene that has always haunted me: some Boston reporters are tossing bar trivia around, and someone asks "Who was the last American in space?" Only one person is able to answer: Wally Schirra, who orbited the earth just three weeks before much of Florida became a radioactive wasteland. That's a sad detail, showing one of the many things the people of that thankfully-fictional world didn't get to experience.
Brendan DuBois is an award-winning U.S. author of mystery stories: this alternate-world thriller is very much in the tradition of Robert Harris's Fatherland. Consider this striking blurb line: "Everyone remembered exactly what they were doing the day President Kennedy tried to kill them." History went awry in this world's Cuba crisis, leading to a 1962 nuclear war that devastated Russia, crippled America, and left Britain a major world power smugly giving aid to the USA. Cut to 1972 Boston and ex-soldier Carl Landry, now a newspaper reporter whose coverage of a routine murder is suppressed by military censors. He's unwisely curious, investigates further, and inevitably stirs up a hornets' nest. Attacks, deaths, and disappearances follow. With a new-found girlfriend--an English Times reporter who is not all she seems--Landry uncovers a succession of red-hot secrets about abandoned New York, perfidious British and military plotting, and crucial documents coveted by several factions with different beliefs about their contents. Is Kennedy unjustly despised for starting World War III? Is the rumor that he's still alive just this timeline's version of the Elvis myth? After building up terrific tension, DuBois delivers satisfying answers.
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Naraht
Member Posts: 232
From: Oxford, UK
Registered: Mar 2006
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posted 06-03-2007 06:43 PM
There's a Stephen Baxter short story where the Cuban Missile Crisis erupts into nuclear war while Wally Schirra is in orbit. After losing contact with Houston he continues through his checklist as planned, wanting to have done everything by the book even though he knows that he won't make it back alive. A very affecting story. |
ColinBurgess
Member Posts: 2031
From: Sydney, Australia
Registered: Sep 2003
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posted 06-03-2007 06:53 PM
Totally implausible: Those of us who knew Wally would know that he'd find a way to get back safely. Maybe not where he was supposed to, but he'd get back.  |
Gilbert
Member Posts: 1328
From: Carrollton, GA USA
Registered: Jan 2003
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posted 06-04-2007 07:43 AM
Naraht,
What is the title of the Baxter short story? I want to seek it out and read it.
Thanks. |
Naraht
Member Posts: 232
From: Oxford, UK
Registered: Mar 2006
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posted 06-04-2007 09:21 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Gilbert:
Naraht,
What is the title of the Baxter short story? I want to seek it out and read it.
Thanks.
The story is called "Pilgrim 7," first published in Interzone in 1993, and since then reprinted in "Traces," one of Baxter's collections of short stories. There are some other very interesting space program themed stories in there too.
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Gilbert
Member Posts: 1328
From: Carrollton, GA USA
Registered: Jan 2003
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posted 06-04-2007 09:44 AM
Thanks for the story title. I've read a couple of Baxter's novels, but none of his short fiction. His novels are very enjoyable, especially the alternate time line books. |
Naraht
Member Posts: 232
From: Oxford, UK
Registered: Mar 2006
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posted 06-04-2007 10:02 AM
While I have read and own Baxter's alternate timeline books, I do have some serious problems wirh them. So much of "Voyage" in particular--including whole phrases and sometimes even paragraphs--is taken from Murray and Cox's "Apollo: the Race to the Moon" that it can be really painful to read. It would have been nice if he'd cited his sources better and perhaps done a bit more rephrasing.
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