EARTHRISE (ePub)

"We want to get a real, fully-functioning, true-to-life replica of a Saturn V up into the sky and save a couple of astronauts, yeah?”"

- Bill Leeb

When Susan Malacarne and her team are forced to make an emergency landing on the Moon, veteran astronaut, Jim Borman, is called out of retirement for this last mission — to fly the only rocket on Earth capable of immediate launch - America’s Moon Rocket Saturn V.

Obsessed billionaire, Bill Leeb, has built a replica and is willing to put it at NASA’s disposal for the rescue. But on one condition — a condition that places Jim Borman in a moral dilemma and will force a terrible choice on the spaceship’s crew. As preparations go ahead for the rescue, the stranded astronauts make earth-shattering discoveries on the Moon.

PRAISES:

"Very good Plot!" - Astronaut Richard 'Mike' Mullane (Space Shuttle Missions STS-41-D, STS-27, STS-36)

"Like a very good Single Malt!" - AndromedaAlpha (Amazon Customer)

EXCERPT:

The steel colossus weighed 3,000 tons and its three stages contained nearly 900,000 gallons of fuel. When all three stages had been fired after several orbits, the third would be fired again to take them towards the Moon at a speed of 25,000 miles per hour.  

The elevator took them higher and higher and Jim could see the coast. It was almost like back then. Leeb had even had the white room built as a perfect replica. In his bulky spacesuit the smiling billionaire stomped towards the Apollo capsule that looked like a conical, white funnel, its silver capsule glittering in the morning sun.

As Jim Borman looked upwards he saw three swallows circling above the capsule and he thought that when the rocket took off those swallows would be the most surprised birds in the world. And he smiled when he saw the host of people waiting for the launch along the coast, just like back in 1968. And 69. His wrist hurt, the beginning of calcification that no-one should know about. Although he would in any case die soon and it no longer made a difference.

"Commander, are you ready?”

Jim gave a light start as the crystal-clear female voice reverberated in his helmet. So Eileen was the Capcom. Actually she wasn’t an astronaut at all. But he didn’t mind. Better Eileen than some Space Shuttle veteran who had as much idea about the Apollo program as a mole knew about archery.

"Ready, Capcom.”

Award-winning Top Ten science-fiction mastermind Gabriel Namara blends epic adventure, evocative drama and american history into an intense old school astronaut rescue mission thriller rooted in one of the biggest events in human history.

EARTHRISE is the first new full-length Science Fiction novel from Gabriel Namara in almost two years. The product of extensive research, EARTHRISE takes readers inside the NASA and successors of the legendary Space Race of the 1960s.

Translation: Steve Gander