Space Station Down

by Ben Bova, Doug Beason

Overview

Hugo Award-winning author Ben Bova joins forces with Nebula Award finalist Doug Beason for an action-packed technothriller with Space Station Down.

“Think Die Hard happening two hundred and fifty miles above the earth...Will have you watching the skies overhead much more closely.”—Steve Berry

When an ultra-rich space tourist visits the orbiting International Space Station, NASA expects a $100 million win-win: his visit will bring in much needed funding and publicity. But the tourist venture turns into a scheme of terror. Together with an extremist cosmonaut, the tourist slaughters all the astronauts on board the million-pound ISS—and prepares to crash it into New York City at 17,500 miles an hour, causing more devastation than a hundred atomic bombs. In doing so, they hope to annihilate the world’s financial system.

All that stands between them and their deadly goal is the lone survivor aboard the ISS, Kimberly Hasid-Robinson, a newly divorced astronaut who has barricaded herself in a secure area.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250307453
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/20/2021
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	666,786
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Ben Bova (1932-2020) was the author of more than a hundred works of science fact and fiction, including Able One, Transhuman, Orion, the Star Quest Trilogy, and the Grand Tour novels, including Titan, winner of John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the year. His many honors include the Isaac Asimov Memorial Award in 1996, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation in 2005, and the Robert A. Heinlein Award “for his outstanding body of work in the field of literature” in 2008.

Dr. Bova was President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past president of Science Fiction Writers of America, and a former editor of Analog and former fiction editor of Omni. As an editor, he won science fiction’s Hugo Award six times. His writings predicted the Space Race of the 1960s, virtual reality, human cloning, the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), electronic book publishing, and much more.

In addition to his literary achievements, Bova worked for Project Vanguard, America’s first artificial satellite program, and for Avco Everett Research Laboratory, the company that created the heat shields for Apollo 11, helping the NASA astronauts land on the moon. He also taught science fiction at Harvard University and at New York City’s Hayden Planetarium and worked with such filmmakers as George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry.

Doug Beason is a Nebula Award finalist whose fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, as well as an expert on National Defense Security and a retired Colonel in the Air Force. His novel The Trinity Paradox was the first novel ever reviewed in Physics Today and the first work of fiction nominated for the American Physical Society's Forum Award.

Editorial Reviews

Think Die Hard happening two hundred and fifty miles above the earth... will have you watching the skies overhead much more closely.” —Steve Berry

“One hell of a fine suspense novel.” —Stephen Coonts

“An awesomely realistic thriller.” —Larry Niven

“Begs for the big screen!” —Ward Larsen

"Rips through your imagination at Mach 25, a suspense-filled rocket that hurtles off the pad and never, never slows down. This hyper-realistic tale is the stuff of space nightmares.” —Tom Jones, veteran shuttle astronaut, spacewalker, and author of Sky Walking: An Astronaut’s Memoir

“A smart, gripping thriller.” —Terry Virts, NASA astronaut, International Space Station commander, Author and Speaker

“Thrilling... It surely captures the close working quarters and challenges of isolation while keeping readers on the edge of their seats wrapped around this story of intrigue, espionage and human terror.” —Sean O’Keefe, former NASA Administrator

“Wow! I found myself feeling like I was flying through the space station.... And I should know—I’ve been there!” —Nicole Stott, ISS & Space Shuttle Astronaut, spacewalker, and aquanaut

“A tense, claustrophobic, space-bound thriller.” —Library Journal

From the Publisher

05/25/2020

Bova (the Grand Tour series) and Beason (Kill Zone) misfire with this uninspired sci-fi thriller, which reads like a mash-up of Die Hard and Apollo 13 set in the near future. Kimberly Hadid-Robinson is the senior ranking American astronaut on the International Space Station when it unexpectedly comes under attack. Kazakhstani cosmonaut Farid Hazood and Qatari space tourist Adama Bakhet arrive on the ISS determined to seize it for themselves. The pair slaughters everyone on board except Kimberly, who learns their plan to crash the ISS into New York City, killing millions. When news of their attack reaches the ground, the U.S. president considers proactively destroying the ISS, creating a frantic race against the clock for Kimberly and her ex-husband, NASA Lieut. Col. Scott Robinson. Scott and Kimberly’s relationship forms a poorly integrated romantic subplot that feels especially out-of-place given the high stakes. The reader’s suspension of disbelief will falter when Kimberly is forced to use sriracha sauce as a weapon and fall apart completely in the face of the authors’ odd choice to jump forward two days in the middle of the action. This disappoints. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

07/01/2020

Astronaut Kimberly Hasid-Robinson has been on the International Space Station long enough not to get too excited about new arrivals, even when one is an astronaut returning to the station for a second tour and the other a "tourist" paid to be there. Keeping one eye on the viewer showing the new crew members on board, Kimberly concentrates on running her experiment in her module. But a fairly routine process is thrown into disarray when the unsuspecting newcomers murder the astronaut greeters and everyone else on board except Kimberly. Trapped with the killers, she has no idea what they want or how to survive. To save the space station, she will have to use every ounce of ingenuity, courage, and creativity she possesses. VERDICT "Grand Tour" series author Bova and Kill Zone coauthor (with Kevin J. Anderson) Beason join forces on a tense, claustrophobic, space-bound thriller that while thin on characterization, particularly in regards to the villains, is just plausible enough to keep readers on edge and compulsively turning the pages.—Jane Jorgenson, Madison P.L., WI

Library Journal