The Apollo Murders

I am really, really enjoying this historical/adventure novel about the Apollo program and a fictional military mission to earth orbit and the moon in the midst of the Cold War. Fans of works like Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff” and Andrew Chaikin’s “A Man on the Moon,” or the films based on those works, or films like “Apollo 13” and “Space Cowboys” are in for a treat.“The Apollo Murders” is not a quick, easy-to-read murder mystery or an out-of-this-world science fiction fantasy. It’s more of a Tom Clancy techno-thriller like “Red Storm Rising” or “The Hunt for Red October.”Author Chris Hadfield is a retired Canadian astronaut, the first to walk in space, and a former commander of the International Space Station. He’s also the author of several non-fiction works. So, he writes having gained a great deal of knowledge and experience. He clearly enjoys explaining how things work and his novel is rich in technical detail, covering a wide variety of disciplines—everything from piloting helicopters and high-performance jets, to how the earth and the moon came to be formed, to earth and moon geology, to rover and satellite technology, to NASA and Apollo culture, to 1970s history, to the American-Soviet rivalry of the era. He even manages to include a number of historical figures as characters. Readers will get to meet NASA astronauts Alan Shephard, Pete Conrad, and Alan Bean, NASA Flight Director Gene Krantz, and CIA Director James Schlesinger, to name just a few.Mr. Hadfield is a good writer whose prose is clear, accessible, and easy to understand--which helps a lot when you're reading about something as complicated as flying a helicopter or "the flying bedstead" (and if you don't know what that is, you'll just have to read the novel to find out. No spoilers here!). The characters he's created are a bit thin, IMO, but he makes up for it by pitting the Soviet Union vs. the United States in space. That's where all the tension lies and what keeps us turning the pages.All in all, a treat for anyone interested in America’s voyages to the moon or adventures in space.

There is a good book here, it just needed a couple more revisions. There are some continuity errors in the story along with characters that do things that make 0 sense. The biggest downside is the ending. The book ending makes me mad I wasted my time reading it. The ending makes 0 sense and reads like a airport paperback fight scene.SpoilersSo the astronaut Chad killed to get to the moon. He is out for himself and only cares about being the best. That's his motivation. So when the soviets blackmail him he should do what they want in order to cover up him taking money from them.Instead he follows their plan to land the capsule off course but then refuses to give them the stone. Why? He has no reason besides he "wanted to give it to the americans." But if he wanted to give it to the americans why did he land off course? It makes no sense. He had no plan. And then when they soviets asked for the stone he refused, when he knew that would cause them to kill his brother and expose him as a spy. Then they threaten his life and he still holds out. Why? He is selfish and only cared about going to the moon. Why would he care the russians got a stone? He definitely wouldn't sacrifice himself to protect it.They made it out that he had some plan. The whole novel led to this moment. Then you find out his plan is to land by the soviets then refuse to give it to them. So not only would NASA know he was a spy and his brother is dead but he looks even more guilty by landing next to them.

From the opening chapter until the end you will feel like you are in the middle of a blockbuster movie. Warning: Once hooked you will not want to put it down!

I guess nothing too good could possibly follow that first line.But it is absolutely true, so here we are.Let me begin by saying this: you can be cool, but you will never be "singing Mayor Tom with my guitar, floating IN SPACE" cool.Cnel. Hadfield is the coolest guy there is. Period....but......I just couldn't finish his book. It is THAT bad.Let's dissect this part by part:-The characters: Soulless. I just couldn't engage with any single one of them. I couldn't care less if any one of them survived the ordeal...at that is a SERIOUS problem in a novel that is, in essence, about survival. Their motivations are somewhere between silly and random.-The dialog: It is OK, I guess. A bit of techo-jargon sprinkled here and there, which is nice, but there seems to be an abuse of russian sentences that end up being seriously annoying.-The worldbuilding: Boring. Yes, I know the guy is one of the very small group of people that experienced space flight first hand, but that is no guarantee he could put the experience in evocative terms. Let's put it this way: I never ever—not for a single paragraph—felt any closer to space than in any other space fiction book. and I have rear a lot of them.-The Plot: having crossed out Worldbuilding, Dialog, and Characters, we are left with the Plot. Unfortunately, there is not much to say about it either. The story is dull. Yes there is a mystery, some plot twists but nothing that made me think: "gee...I really want to know how this thing ends !"So, no...this IS NOT Tom Clancy, Dan Brown, Michael Crichton, or anything remotely close to that.It is, as some other fellow reviewer said: "a good first draft"I cannot give it, in all fairness, more than 3 stars.

This well written novel kept me thinking back to the possibilities of this happening back during the Cold War. I loved the way real life astronauts were inter woven into the action. The characters of Kaz and Svetlana were very life like.Well done Chris, hope to see another novel written in the same vein bein published very soon.

This was an exciting, thrill-packed Cold War thriller. Its author, Chris Hadfield, imparts his extraordinary knowledge and experience, bringing atmosphere, authenticity, and credibility to the plot. The gripping, action-packed story is infused with science, technology, politics, espionage, space history, murder, and intrigue with vividly drawn believable characters. Author, Chris Hadfield, is a much-decorated Canadian astronaut, a former fighter pilot, engineer, spacewalker, served in both the American and Russian space programs, and Commander of the International Space Station. Readers who have not followed the history of the Apollo space program and the space stations may recognize Hatfield may recognize him from the video where he played guitar and sang David Bowie's Space Oddity while floating in 0 Gravity in the ISS. This was featured in news reports at the time and can still be viewed on YouTube. He was active in the space program from 1992 until 2013. I find it difficult to categorize this action-packed novel. This is not so much in the science fiction genre but a historical and suspenseful journey into an alternate past involving a fictional journey of Apollo 18 in 1973. The Apollo program actually ended with Apollo 17, but the story imagines what happens on a subsequent mission to the moon. The writing is filled with an overload of scientific detail and technical descriptions that will appeal more to the space enthusiast than to the casual reader of thrillers. However, the story is so suspenseful, intense, action-packed, and cinematic within a plausible, realistic storyline that it should keep most readers entranced. A leading character is Kaz Zemeckis, a flight controller at Houston. He is assigned to oversee the mission of three astronauts to the moon and ensure their safety from Mission Control. Kaz missed his goal for going into space when he lost an eye in a training accident. Shortly before blast-off, the astronaut in charge dies in an accident, or was it accidental? The leading backup astronaut replaces him. One astronaut is to stay in the vehicle, circle the moon, and await the two walking on the moon's surface. Due to unfortunate circumstances, this will not be the two originally assigned to the task. At the last minute, the scientific exploration is hastily changed into a military one. The Russians have placed a high-resolution spy satellite in orbit and also a moon rover looking for valuable minerals on the surface. The astronauts are now ordered to disable both items in order to keep the Russians from advancing in the space race. Kaz is suspicious that one of the astronauts is not what he pretends to be. Surrounding him in Mission Control are many real characters whose names I recognized from the past. Also, at the White House are actual historical people, all seamlessly blended into the story. At the end of the book, I was surprised that most of the characters, except for the fictional Kaz, were real people, and the Russian spy satellite and their moon rover were actually in place at the time. In the high-tension storyline, there are startling encounters, dangers galore from the Russians, and one aboard Apollo 18 may be a murderer. Events do not go as planned, and both the Russians and the Americans are determined to retrieve an exotic, rare mineral from the moon. The Russians are angry that Apollo 18 is trying to disable their space equipment. Back at Mission Control, the sheriff and others are helping Kaz investigate the astronaut's backgrounds and try to keep on top of the changing events in space. What will the outcome be? Will the crew of Apollo 18 succeed in their mission and get home safely? Recommended to those who want adventure, history of early space exploration and moon landings, espionage, and find the technical details enhance the reality of this dramatic story. I was glued to the pages, except for a short break to watch Captain Kirk returning from space in Jeff Bezos's space vehicle.

This book certainly kept my attention. Loved the interaction with real people, loved the detail about the mission (including those checklists - great reminder about how basic the equipment was that they worked in space with). The interactions between the US and Russia felt spot on for the era. Loved most of the characterisations but my only gripe was you never really understood the motivation of the 'villain' or even how he got where he was with his background. I was lucky enough to get this as a kindle daily deal but it was already on my wishlist. I would certainly be willing to read more like this.

Actual astronaut Chris Hadfield used the well known structure of an Apollo moon mission as the scaffolding for his entertaining Cold War thriller. It is not so much a murder mystery, since the identity of the killer is telegraphed quite early in the action. Sadly missing is a deeper dive into the experiences that motivate the villain. This might have been preferable to the superfluous biographical detail of Kaz Zemeckis, the one eyed pilot and military liaison officer who provides much of the non astronaut viewpoint (plus being the purveyor of periodic infodumps). The mix of fictional and actual historical personages works well. That Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were behind the scenes in the perversion of good sense which is the fictional 1973 mission of Apollo 18 (and the last) is entirely believable. Though sometimes, truth can be stranger than fiction, since it is true that the USSR actually installed a machine gun on one of its spacecraft!It is a good propulsive read, the pacing and tension building to a decent if slightly overblown splashdown climax (surprisingly, there was no shark to be jumped in the waters of the Pacific). There are some loose ends left fraying, so i wonder if a sequel might be in the works.

I had seen Commander Chris Hadfield on BBC when he presented "Do you have what it takes?", a selection program for future astronauts, so I was fascinated to see that he had written a novel, which I suspect is a product of the lockdown. Commander Hadfield is a former test pilot and a mission commander on space missions.I was not disappointed, this book is a gripping thriller! The book explores a parallel universe where Apollo 18 flew as a military mission. It is not a "who dunnit" despite the title. I found the book very difficult to put down.What is completely unique about the book is that Commander Hadfield gives an extremely detailed and realistic description of space flight. I have not flown fast jets, or a rocket, but I did my basic flight training our of the Space Center Executive Airport near Cape Canaveral, and my instrument training in Panama City, Florida, and I found his descriptions of various flights in these areas to be highly accurate. Anyone not interested in aviation might find the level of detail in the book, including extracts of various checklists, to be a little irritating - I loved it! At the end of the back he reveals that many of the charactors are based on real people, but surely not all, I hope!A minor problem with the book is that some of the dialogue in the book is in Russian and Commander Hadfield adds a transliteration of the Russian spoken before a translation of the dialogue into English. I worked in Moscow and know a little Russian and would have far preferred to have the Cyrillic rather than the rather loose transliteration. I suspect most readers will find the transliteration tiresome and wonder why it was added.This book is recommended for anyone interested in space travel or aviation who likes a good thriller. It would be a super Christmas present for any teenager dreaming of being a test pilot and an astronaut.Well done Commander Hadfield! I hope we see a follow up in due course.