From Library Journal
Col. Adam "Iceberg" Friese was scheduled to pilot the next space shuttle, Atlantis, to dock with the Russian space station, Mir, until a freak accident just before the launch sidelined him. While his former girlfriend, Nicole, supervised the launch, Iceberg sneaked in a back gate and found his own front-row seat for the event. Meanwhile, Mr. Philips, a homicidal megalomaniac, and his fellow terrorists attack the launch site, holding hostage the astronauts, Nicole's launch team, and Atlantis until his demand for a fortune in precious gems is met. When Iceberg realizes that something is wrong, he goes to investigate, following the dead bodies back to the terrorists and, one by one, eliminating Mr. Philips's savage murderers while Nicole keeps the ringleader busy. Anderson and Beason have written a nail biter full of details about NASA and the Kennedy Space Center. This writing team, which admits to changing some details to preserve NASA security, has written several other high-tech action thrillers (e.g., Virtual Destruction, Ace, 1996). For all public libraries.?Grant A. Frederickson, Illinois Prairie Dist. P.L., Metamora
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The latest effort of this popular team is not the first thriller set at Cape Kennedy with a space-program background, but it is the most ambitious. Ready to carry a joint U.S.-Russian crew to a rendezvous with the Mir space station, the shuttle
Atlantis comes under attack by an adept and ruthless band of terrorists, organized by an unsuccessful junk-bond dealer trying to recoup his fortunes. The former mission commander, Colonel "Iceberg" Fries, has been sidelined by injuries but plays a key part in organizing a successful counterattack, in the process rescuing his former lover, astronaut turned launch controller Nicole Hunter. This yarn is in the classic mold of the novel that marries space advocacy to the techno-thriller, featuring lots of bloody action and exotic hardware at the expense of characterization, which is definitely subordinate. (Not to mention that some of the characterization is over the top: did two of the terrorists have to be a brother and sister who are bisexual
and incestuous?) Readers will definitely keep turning the pages, but Anderson and Beason have--in
Virtual Destruction and
Assemblers of Infinity (1993), for instance--done better work. With a prepub movie sale and plenty of publicity in the pipeline, though, this one may fly higher.
Roland Green