The year is 1943 and World War II in the Pacific rages on, with Americans engaged in desperate battles against a cunning enemy. Coast Guard Captain Josh Thurlow is on hand at the invasion of Tarawa, as the United States Navy begins throwing her Marines at island after bloody island across the Pacific. But nothing goes as planned, and young Americans go up against fanatical defenders.
As blood colors the waters around Tarawa, Josh flounders ashore through a floating graveyard of dead men and joins the survivors. Critically wounded, Josh expects to die. Instead, Sister Mary Kathleen, a pretty Irish nun, nurses him back to health, then shanghais Josh, sidekick Bosun Ready O’Neal, and three American Marines to a group of tropical islands invaded by a brutal Japanese warlord. Josh and his little band must decide whether to help the Sister ?ght the battle she demands, return to Tarawa and the “real” war, or settle down in the romantic splendor of the South Seas.
With an incredible eye for historical detail, edge-of-your-seat writing, and the talent of a master storyteller, Homer Hickam delivers another page-turning tour de force.
Homer Hickam (also known as Homer H. Hickam, Jr.) has been a coal miner, Vietnam combat veteran, scuba instructor, NASA engineer, and now a best-selling author.
Homer has always loved to write. In the third grade, his teacher, after reading one of his short stories, predicted he would make his living as a writer. He did a lot of other things and had a lot of other interests but writing was always his true passion. After returning from Vietnam, Homer started selling his work. At first, he mostly wrote about his scuba diving adventures for a variety of different magazines and then branched out into writing articles on history, mostly World War II but also some NASA-related work. His first book, Torpedo Junction (1989), the story of the U-boat war along the American seaboard during World War II, was a military history best-seller. It was published by the Naval Institute Press and Bantam. It is still popular and in print.
In 1998, Delacorte Press published Hickam's second book, Rocket Boys: A Memoir, which became an instant classic. It is often studied in schools and picked as a community or library read of the year. It has been translated into a dozen languages, most recently Vietnamese and Chinese.
In February, 1999, Universal Studios released its critically-acclaimed film October Sky, based on Rocket Boys. When speaking to groups, Homer often apologizes to the young women in the audience for not actually being Jake Gyllenhaal (Jake played him in the movie). Jake Gyllenhaal, when speaking to groups, often apologizes to adult women for not being Homer Hickam. They're actually good friends.
In 2011, Rocket Boys the Musical continued development on its march to Broadway (www.rocketboysthemusical.com). Homer is co-writer of the musical.
Homer's first fiction novel was Back to the Moon (1999) which has proved enduringly popular for more than a decade.
There are three more books in the "Coalwood" series after Rocket Boys (aka October Sky). They are The Coalwood Way, Sky of Stone, and We Are Not Afraid.
Homer also has a series of popular novels about Josh Thurlow, a Coast Guard officer during World War II. The series began with The Keeper's Son (2003), followed by The Ambassador's Son and The Far Reaches.
In 2008, his novel Red Helmet, a romantic love story set in a West Virginia coal town, was published. My Dream of Stars, the memoir of Anousheh Ansari, was published in March, 2010.
The Dinosaur Hunter, a mystery/western novel set in the ranch lands of Montana and reflecting Homer's love of both Montana and paleontology, was published in Nov. 2010.
His next novel, titled Crater, is set on the moon 120 years in the future and will be published April, 2012. It is the first in a planned trilogy known as the Helium-3 series.
Mr. Hickam continues to love the sea. He scuba dives and snorkels in the world's oceans. A new avocation is amateur paleontology. He has discovered two of the approximately forty T.rexes ever found.
Mr. Hickam is married to Linda Terry Hickam, an artist and his first editor and assistant. They love their cats and share their time between homes in Alabama and the Virgin Islands.
