Customer Reviews

Back to the Moon: A Novel

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I really liked Mr. Hickam's book. I also read Rocket Boys. This is a different kind of book - an adult space thriller. He kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. It's a love story, too, and a darned good one. I've worked in the space industry for a lot of years and this book comes as close as you're going to get how things really work inside NASA. Sure, Hickam has things happening that have never been done before but his characters are right on authentic. And I'm with him. Let's go back to the moon!

First off, this was written before Hickam's Rocket Boys according to his web site even though it came out afterwards. Clearly, when he wrote this novel, Hickam was just developing his skills as a writer. Still, even though it's dated (he uses the ill-fated shuttle Columbia for this trip to the moon) this is a very good book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hickam's inside knowledge of NASA makes it a unique book. I think his tongue was very much in cheek most of the time while he was writing this but I still get the idea that the characters are based on real people he knew while working for the agency. After reading the novel, I felt as if I actually knew each and every one of the people in this book from old gruff Sam the head of mission control to Cecil the lawyer. I especially liked Cecil. He's a great character and is a good example of Hickam's development while writing this book into the great novelist he's become. Like his latest novel, The Keeper's Son, this is a novel filled with action and adventure but it is also a love story, too, and a good one. Not only is there love between the hero Jack Medaris and the beautiful Amerindian science reporter Penny High Eagle aboard the shuttle but there is also the memory of love still with Jack's dead wife who was also a rocket scientist. The scenes on the moon were especially well done. Hickam makes you feel as if you really are there. And the idea of having Jack walking around the old Apollo 17 site was pure genius. How lonely it must be there in reality. Hickam gave me that sense but also wrote it with wonder and hope. Then when Penny joins him and Jack reads the letter (I won't tell you who it's from), I got goose bumps! Even then, Hickam's talent was very impressive in his ability to make you feel for his characters. I read this novel in one long reading and was very impressed, especially since I've read Hickam's most recent work. He is a much better writer now and it's interesting to see his early work as he learned his trade. I look forward to reading all of his work from here on and I certainly don't hold this early effort against him. Read it for what it is and simply enjoy the ride.

I am 14 years old. This novel is fun to read. I couldn't pt it down because I wanted to know what was going to happen to Jack and Penny and Paco (who is a cat). I've really enjoyed all of Mr. Hickam's books, especially his books about Coalwood and growing up there. I and my parents are going to visit Coalwood this October 4 to meet Mr. Hickam and the other rocket boys. It should be a lot of fun. But on this novel, I really think it's a great book. My mom and dad both read it before me and said so. I just like the idea of us going back to the moon but I also really got into Jack and Penny's love story. I also loved when he wrote about Paco. A cat in space is a very funny and interesting idea. I think a cat in space would be just like Paco is described. I felt really bad for Jack when he found the message on the moon. I cried over that. I am getting all my friends to read this book.

I found this a really good read, filled with interesting characters and a great plot.

It starts out with a highjacking of the space shuttle. Hickam has enough inside knowledge to make that perfectly plausible. There is a lot of work in space suits involved, something Hickam apparently was involved in a lot at NASA. Penny High Eagle, the payload specialist, is a great and sympathetic characture. Paco the cat who's aboard is a funny touch. There's a lot of fun to this novel. I think a lot of it is tongue in cheek that some reviewers can't figure out. It definitely is not boring and is a real page-turner.

It is very thought-provoking about the "Star Wars" killer satellites around the moon, plausible, too.

In a lot of ways, this novel is a love story. Jack wants most of all to go to find a message on the moon from his late wife. Yet, his wife never went to the moon so how could it be there? I teared up when I read what Jack actually finds there.

I noticed a note on a review about a pistol being fired in space. Gun powder does not require air to burn. It contains all the ingredients in it to work in a vacuum. A form of gun powder, after all, is what is used in solid fuel rockets! As for a space-suited astronaut getting his finger on the trigger, a .45 caliber pistol has plenty of room in its trigger guard. Recoil is a problem but Hickam has his astronaut well wedged in.

I enjoyed rummaging around the old Apollo 17 site with Medaris. Some really good writing here.

All in all, much recommended. Let there be no doubt that Homer Hickam knows how to write a novel. I love all his books. Remember, even his memoirs are written as novels

Keep it up, Mister Hickam! Can't wait for the Back to the Moon movie!

It is remarkable to me that a space engineer/reviewer would not like this book. I am such, have worked in the industry for decades, and believe that Homer Hickam has written a delightful techno-thriller that not only is a compelling page turner but gives the reader, space insider or not, much to think about. I guess you'd have to say Hickam is nor has ever been much of a "in the box" kind of thinker. If he was, he wouldn't have written Rocket Boys/October Sky which has sold ten times more copies than any astronaut biography.

The plot of this novel is centered around the Apollo 13 type of "can do" engineering whereby what is available is modified to do the impossible. But this is more than a book of engineering. It is a deeply philosophical look at the American space program and the very real people who are in it. Hickam has created characters that I deeply cared about as I read their adventures although he, as evinced in all his books, has his tongue firmly in his cheek much of the time. Homer, by the way, no longer works for NASA and from what I can tell rarely devotes any time to it these days. Most of his writing has centered around the town of Coalwood, West Virginia and I notice that his new novel is set on the Outer Banks and is a seafaring novel. Much can be learned about Hickam the writer on his site... In any case, this is a great novel for everybody. Don't miss it.

Mr. Hickham has combined political intrigue with technical space expertise--imagine if Tom Clancy had worked for NASA, and you get the idea. As the title and the cover art indicates, this is a story about using the space shuttle to go to the moon. But it is much more-there is a credible reason why someone wants to go back to the moon, with powerful political and financial players who want to stop this voyage. So this isn't like seeing that old Don Knotts film "The Reluctant Astronaut," but is more like seeing clips of "Nixon" interspliced with "Apollo 13." But have said too much as it is.

The genius of this book is Mr. Hickham's insider understanding of NASA, so the willful suspension of disbelief come that much easier. He paints the milieu of the space culture with a fine brush and striking detail, and highlights the clash between NASA and the nation government with bold realism. I almost think that he has told us a bit too much about why we haven't gone back to the moon. You are pulled into the middle of the turmoil of the not to distant future, and are actually at the helm of the Columbia in its voyage. The gems are the pervasive acronyms that confuse at first, but like good curry, come back to warm you.

The chapters are short, but pass with machine-gun rapidity, and Mr. Hickham's prose is smooth. This book is unboring, undull, unpassive. It is one of the most exciting books I have ever read so far. There is no drag or lag. Every word counts!

I have met Mr. Hickham, and, yes, he is very much like the way he is portrayed in "October Sky." He is a very nice gentleman who has written a very nice book.

There has always been a wish in my mind that our nation will again summon up the courage to return to the moon. Then along comes "Back To The Moon", which perfectly feeds off that wish and makes for a fun piece of fiction.

I was drawn to this book after reading Hickam's wonderful memoir "Rocket Boys" (aka "October Sky") last year. I wasn't sure if his fiction would be quite as engaging, but from the first page, I knew I was in for a treat.

Hickam manages to weave in all the current political and other influences preventing a return to a more adventerous space program. Add to that a shadowy group bent on permanently squashing space exploration and some other elements, and this book has all the "feel" of a Clive Cussler novel.

Like Cussler, there are some passages where the reader will have to suspend his or her sense of reality and let your imagination take control. But more often than not, that's what puts a lot of the fun and drama into a book. Hickam more than compensates with the "unbelievable" with the knowledge of the space program that only an insider could know. Plus, he also presents a lot of detailed scientific aspects to spaceflight that would make even skeptics believe that it could be possible to send a shuttle to the moon and back.

The ending was a little too cliched and "happily ever after" for me, but otherwise, it was one of the best fictional works I have read in the past year. As I said earlier, this book fed off my wish that the U.S. would renew manned missions to the moon. Hopefully there are others who will read this who also have the desire to pick up where the Apollo missions left off.

This book by homer ranks up there with any other fiction author like Cussler and Clancy. He includes a plausable senerio with adventure and suspence. There were no boring parts in the intire book, and it kept you wondering until the very last page. You will finish the book in a few days easy. This is a great book which I highly reccommend.

Three and a half stars.

BACK TO THE MOON by Homer Hickam should be shelved in "Science Fiction Fantasy" in the brick-and-mortar bookstores, but is probably improbably in "Literature". At the very start, we have the Apollo 17 astronauts discovering the isotope helium-3 in a moon crater in 1972. Fast forward to the present. Helium-3 is a necessary component of a hydrogen fusion process that will produce unlimited amounts of squeaky-clean energy. Of course, the only local source is the moon, long since forsaken by the US space program. Bummer! Ex-NASA wonder boy Jack Medaris, now head of his own space engineering firm, Medaris Engineering Company (MEC), is hired by entrepreneurs to retrieve some of the isotope from the lunar surface before a world treaty is signed that would ban any nuclear energy-producing process, including hydrogen fusion. When Jack's robot lunar miner is destroyed by the inevitable evil conspiracy - probably the same one now boosting premium gas to $2+ a gallon, his solution is to commandeer the shuttle Columbia on the day of its launch, and take it BACK TO THE MOON to retrieve the precious helium-3 "dirt". He does all this with the help of his engineering wizards at MEC, and a smart lawyer that writes a slick contract, signed by MEC, NASA and the Department of Transportation (DOT), that ultimately makes the hijack legal. This last wrinkle really puts a twist in the knickers of the female US Attorney General, a figure obviously reminiscent of Janet Reno.

The predictable plot is nothing more than a series of ludicrously preposterous and impossible action sequences. However, the ingenuity of Hickam's space scenes, and the characters of Jack and Penny High Eagle, make the novel palatable. Penny is a spoiled, self-absorbed Ph.D. biologist, who, like the now-deceased Carl Sagan, has become more of a media personality than scientist. It doesn't hurt her image that she's also a Cherokee Indian, and the first Native American to visit the South Pole, climb Mt. Everest, and dive to the Titanic hulk. Originally added to the Columbia's original (all-female) crew as a payload specialist, she's the only one to get aboard the shuttle before Jack and his sidekick Virgil abscond with it. The initial personal interaction between Jack and the bratty High Eagle gives new meaning to the term "bicker". But, it just so happens that Jack was previously tragically widowed, and Penny is very much a "babe", so you can see where that set of circumstances is going.

Like I said, I give this work a reluctant "thumbs up". However, there was one question left dangling. One of Penny's original, space experiments was to test the effects of weightlessness on the feline sense of balance. Thus, Paco the cat gets seized along with High Eagle, and spends his time happily clawing his way around the Columbia's cabin. Now, how does one get a cat to use a litter box in zero-g?

I took Mr. Hickam's advice and read this book at the beach. In fact, at Cedar Key, one of the many colorful locales mentioned in the book. I was captivated from the start. If you like techno-thrillers (and I think this is the key to why there's been some bad reviews here - you need to like the genre) Hickam has out-Clancyed Clancy and all the rest of them. Read this novel just for pleasure but you'll also learn a whole lot about people who work at NASA and what they really think about the astronauts, etc. Astronauts are not always heroes.