The Tranquillity Alternative

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The Tranquillity Alternative (Mass Market Paperback - REPRINT) Pub. Date: 4/1/1997 Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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The Tranquillity Alternative (1st ed) Pub. Date: 3/1/1996 Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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Overview

Tranquillity Base is a permanent moon installation, civilian-manned and devoted to peaceful scientific research. Its dark side is Teal Falcon, a lunar nuclear base implemented during the Truman and Eisenhower years, six missile silos housing rockets poised to attack. Now the Cold War is over. The U.S. space program is a victim of politics, and Tranquillity Base, long deserted, is about to be sold to a foreign industrial conglomerate. Leading the symbolic mission to turn the base over to its new owners and to dismantle the missiles is Commander Gene Parnell, a pioneering astronaut, who installed Tranquillity thirty years before. But the commander soon realizes that someone on the mission has other plans for Teal Falcon. Who is it? Who can Parnell trust? Who should he fear? The veteran astronaut is forced to play a deadly game with the unknown terrorist. The stakes: the future of planet Earth.

On the dark side of the moon, six missile silos stand in silence. Today, they will be taken over by corporate interests. Tomorrow, they will be activated. HC: Ace.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

An action-packed plot doesn't save Steele's follow-up to The Jericho Iteration (1994) from a dearth of well-developed ideas. In this novel of alternate history, space exploration, after establishing itself as necessary for America's growth and defense, has suffered from public disinterest and lack of funding until the last vestiges of the nation's space program are about to be sold to a private German company. The final U.S. space mission-to the moon, to destroy nuclear missiles planted there decades earlier-is commanded by Gene Parnell, an aging white male given to nostalgia. Accompanied by a multicultural set of passengers and crew, some of whom are spies and agents, Parnell leads the mission through a series of minor crises. By the final third of the novel, with the treacheries revealed and most of the cards played, the reader is prepared for a dramatic climax-but none comes. Several promising subplots, dealing with a lesbian love interest and computer net mores, aren't fully exploited, and Steele's world-building, never strong, is especially weak here, with many of the social and sociological developments poorly conceived. At least the title is right. This disappointing yarn will calm more demanding SF readers right down-and then put them to sleep. (Mar.)

Library Journal

In another alternative history, the U.S. space program begins in 1944. But now interest in nonmilitary space exploration has waned, and funding for the program has diminished. Commander Gene Parnell heads a team shuttling from Earth to the lunar Tranquility Base to launch six Minutemen II rockets into the sun before turning the base over to a German aerospace company. The mission may be foiled, for an imposter among the crew plans to sabotage the launch. Steele vividly re-creates the experience of manned space flight through excellent technical detail. Highly recommended.

More Reviews (2) Fewer Reviews

Carl Hays

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.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780441004331
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Publication date: 4/1/1997
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Edition description: REPRINT
Pages: 320
Product dimensions: 4.30 (w) x 6.72 (h) x 0.88 (d)

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The Tranquillity Alternative

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All Available Formats + Editions

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

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Carl Hays

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Product Details

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