John Ward, billionaire and presidential candidate, has a plan to enable the planet's population to survive the results of climate change. Instead of trying to colonize Mars which is completely uninhabitable, he thinks it would be a great idea to go to Titan, a moon of Saturn, as it seems to have surface water. He finances the building of a spaceship to make the trip to Saturn in two years, and to drop off a satellite that can measure Titan's ability to one day sustain life. Working with NASA, he has finished the ship and has three astronauts lined up to make the space voyage; Mike, a tested pilot who tempers his readiness and abilities with a drinking problem, Della, a black woman who has assisted on several flights and has a cheating husband and seven year old twins, and Alonso, a young Hispanic spaceman who is not sure of his sexuality. Each is flawed in some ways, but are ambitious and want to make this historic flight. Rounding out the crew are three civilians; Padma, scientist and expert on the mission, Stitch, a young graffiti artist who won the trip in a national lottery, and Ryan, the latest selection. When Ward came out of a press conference promoting the mission, they were almost murdered by someone carrying a gun. Ryan is a Washington DC cop who happened to be at the right place at the right time to take the gunman down. Ward's support with the national police was in the toilet, so he convinced a reluctant Ryan to join the team with an enormous amount of money which he and his family could really use.
They find that their training time to prepare themselves for the mission is only five weeks, and they begin to form a competent team, despite their differences. They survive their first year, but on launching the satellite there are two explosions that they can't explain, but it seems things are not damaged. When they return to earth, they are separated for extensive questioning and then are able to rejoin their families and their lives. All of the team finds that their circumstances have changed in subtle and unsubtle ways, as if they've entered a parallel universe. They are also under surveillance to make sure there is no contact among the travelers. By this time, they know that Ward has some kind of unknown agenda that will put them all in danger-and time is running out...
The reader gets immediately swept up into the action and the characters, as the team of misfits tries to make some sense of this new situation. After a relatively quiet two years in space travel, they are dropped into a fast-paced pressure cooker which they have to navigate on the fly, and can only trust each other. Wow-this is sure a ride! One would be surprised if it wasn't, as it is written and produced by Jeff Rake from the Manifest TV series and co-written by Rob Hart, author of The Warehouse and the Assassins Anonymous books. It is the beginning of the series and the action stops right in the wrong place-but will be exactly the right place for Book Two to begin...5 4 3 2 1 Blast-off!
Reviewed by Donna Ballard
January 13, 2026
Reserve a physical copy - Coming soon
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