posted 10-20-2015 02:22 PM               

Blue Gemini: A Thriller
by Mike Jenne

The year is 1968: The Cold War is far from over, nuclear annihilation is always only a heartbeat away. America is racing the Soviet Union to land men on the Moon, a war is raging, and a pivotal presidential election looms on the horizon. A child of the early space age, Lieutenant Scott Ourecky joined the Air Force with aspirations of going to flight school. A brilliant engineer, he repeatedly fails the aptitude test to become a pilot but is selected to work on a highly classified military space program — the innocuously named Aerospace Support Project — in which Air Force astronauts are slated to fly missions to intercept and destroy suspect Soviet satellites.

When one of the astronauts in training abruptly falls out of the project, Ourecky is asked to fill in for the two-man simulated missions and survival training only, serving with a headstrong and abrasive test pilot, Major Drew Carson, until another astronaut can be assigned. By far the most proficient pilot assigned to the project, Carson has a dangerous propensity to engage in "pick-up" dog fighting sessions while on cross-country training flights. And although Ourecky was only a temporary "place holder," not destined to fly in space, he soon finds himself much more involved than he ever anticipated—and in deepest peril.

Based on a real secret space program, Blue Gemini combines high-altitude action with edge-of-your-seat storytelling to create a modern Cold War thriller.

• Hardcover: 568 pages
  
• Publisher: Yucca Publishing (May 5, 2015)
  
• ISBN-10: 1631580477
  
• ISBN-13: 978-1631580475

Blue Darker Than Black: A Thriller
by Mike Jenne

In the second book of the Blue Gemini trilogy, Air Force Majors Scott Ourecky and Drew Carson continue to fly highly classified missions to intercept and destroy suspect Soviet satellites.

But after experiencing numerous close calls in orbit, the astronauts soon discover that not all perils reside in the sky. With his marriage already at risk because he cannot explain his frequent absences and strange activities to his wife, Ourecky learns that his unborn child may be in grave danger as a radiation consequence of his flights into space.

Even as the Ourecky and Carson accumulate successful mission after successful mission in space, other crucial events occur much closer to home. Interservice rivalries reach new heights as a caustic but highly influential Navy admiral schemes to steal control of the Project from the Air Force. Realizing that a Soviet GRU agent is operating in their midst, a shadowy team of counter-intelligence operatives scramble to shield the Project's secrets from discovery, leading to a confrontation that bears fatal consequences.

As they train to accomplish more difficult missions against complicated targets, Ourecky and Carson are asked to volunteer to risk their lives one more time in an extremely hazardous rescue mission. The stakes are high; even as they leave the launch pad, there is no certainty that either man will return.

• Hardcover: 592 pages
  
• Publisher: Yucca Publishing (January 5, 2016)
  
• ISBN-10: 1631580663
  
• ISBN-13: 978-1631580666

posted 10-20-2015 02:31 PM               

Tim Gagnon, who has designed mission patches for NASA flights and the ISS expedition crews, was kind enough to create a commemorative crew patch for Blue Gemini.

In the patch design, two cowboys (Carson and Ourecky) ride hard along their orbital trajectory, in pursuit of their elusive prey — the "Devil's Herd" — represented by the steer skull with the red eyes. Carson's whirling lasso denotes their IIK (Intercept-Inspect-Kill) mission.

A "Blue Gemini" symbol (at the bottom) is "ghost stitched" with the same thread as the background, to signify the highly classified nature of this project.

posted 10-21-2015 01:33 PM               

Anyone who's served can easily picture the environment the author describes. It's almost like you're reading a first-person historical book and not a novel. Can't wait to get to the 2nd book!

posted 10-21-2015 09:44 PM               

I was inspired to build a model of the Gemini and have shared on the Blue Gemini Facebook page.

posted 06-03-2016 07:30 PM               

Let me state up front, I've never enjoyed a series more. This trilogy is as good as anything I've read from Tom Clancy, James Michener or Ian Fleming.

Like those other writers Mike Jenne "paints" a richly detailed triptych. Forgive the artist metaphors but I'm a fine and graphic artist. In fact Blue Gemini inspired me so much that I reached out to Jenne to ask if I could design the official Blue Gemini patch.

I remember the first explorations off the planet, my Dad was career Army and my older brother served in Vietnam so I remember that period of history very well. Mike Jenne recreates the time and "feel" very accurately. His attention to detail, his pacing of the story and his realistic ending are welcome and satisfying. You just know he writes from a foundation of truth.

posted 10-03-2016 08:16 PM               

This book, frankly, went on and on, way longer than it needed to be. Jenne does a good job wrapping up what seemed like completely random loose ends from the second book, but I felt like it was a good 50+ pages longer than it needed to be.