The Tranquility Alternative - Softcover

Steele, Allen

3.6

229 ratings by Goodreads

9780441004331: The Tranquility Alternative

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0441004334 ISBN 13: 9780441004331

Publisher: Ace, 1997

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Six inactive missile silos on the dark side of the moon are at the focus of a volatile story when they are taken over by corporate interests and then activated. Reprint.

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From Kirkus Reviews:

Extending his sequence of Robert Ludlumlike titles, Steele's latest jaunt (The Jericho Iteration, 1994) is set in an alternate world where America's space program, despite the establishment of a Moon base, a visit to Mars, and other successes, has run out of credibility and money and is being sold off to a German concern. One problem remains: A US silo on the Moon contains nuclear missiles that must be deactivated before the Germans take over. So the US Space Agency organizes one last mission, comprising pilot Gene Parnell, co-pilot Cris Ryer (a lesbian and thus despised by most of her colleagues), flight engineer Jay Lewitt--plus one British and two German astronauts, a couple of video journalists, and computer whiz Paul Dooley. As the ship nears the Moon, Parnell discovers that ``Paul Dooley'' has been replaced by a double, and that a treacherous plot is unfolding. The prime suspect is, of course, Ryer--but, disastrously, Dooley's partner turns out to be Lewitt. In the ensuing shoot-out, the journalists are killed by the Germans (the latter are both plotters) while the Brit gets blown away helping Parnell and the loyal Ryer. Behind all the shenanigans is a North Korean attempt to steal the missiles--which the CIA, in its usual efficient fashion, has known all about for months. Impressive in the hardware department, though with disappointingly stereotyped characters--and yet the generous padding, with reportage both real and imaginary, can't disguise the paucity of plot . . . or that Steele's real purpose is more propaganda than entertainment. -- Copyright �1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Booklist:

Hard-sf veteran Steele takes America's faltering space program for a wry spin in this clever, suspenseful alternative-history novel. After 50 years of extraordinary progress that includes manned spaceflight in 1944, a giant orbiting station called the Wheel, and a 1976 Mars expedition led by Neil Armstrong, the U.S. space program is dying out. NASA's final moon mission takes place in 1995, and the crew must dismantle a nuclear missile base, deemed unnecessary thanks to the cold war's thawing. Veteran astronaut Gene Parnell and crew are instead sent, along with computer hacker Paul Dooley, to turn the base over to the rising European space program and to launch the missiles into the sun. Shortly before liftoff, though, Dooley is replaced by an impostor, and at least three other crew members have a hidden agenda that includes retargeting the warheads toward Earth. Alternative history rarely works without some oblique commentary on our own times, which Steele slyly delivers in snippets from skewed news reports in one of his best efforts to date. Carl Hays

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