Kings of the High Frontier [Hardcover]

Victor Koman (Author)

Book Description

Series: The high pilgrimage | Publication Date: October 1, 1998

Three-time Prometheus Award winner Victor Koman (Millennium: Weeds), who sicced an assassin on God in The Jehovah Contract and imploded the abortion controversy in Solomon's Knife, brings us his epic novel of humanity's next stage of evolution: the jump into Space.

Tammy Reis, beautiful NASA Space Shuttle commander, works for the most highly funded, technologically advanced space program in the world. So why do nightmares of the Challenger disaster haunt her sleep? And why is NASA incapable of recapturing the stunning successes it once achieved?

Visionary spacecraft designer Gerry Cooper struggles at his tiny rocket company in the Mojave Desert. Who in the world wants him stopped -- or dead?

One-armed billionaire playboy Laurence Poubelle hopes to build his own orbital X-15. Can his keen marketing skills overcome a nation hostile to wealth and contemptuous of adventure?

Meanwhile, the horror of the Challenger tragedy threatens to repeat itself on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. Standing at ground zero, NASA engineer Jack Lundy races the countdown to prevent the deadliest space disaster of all.

While bureaucrats and businessmen publicly battle for the high ground, a young descendant of the legendary Davy Crockett secretly constructs a single-stage-to-orbit rocket deep inside an abandoned warehouse in the South Bronx. Will he and his NYU classmates survive when NORAD detects the launch that blows the lid off the greatest conspiracy in the history of mankind?

Tammy Reis -- stripped of her astronaut wings for defending herself against a congressman's zero-gravity rape -- is recruited by the National Security Agency to infiltrate the stronghold of a er-rich smuggler who schemes to place a massive space station into orbit with a single, spectacular launch. When she discovers the true nature of his secret plan, she faces an impossible choice between duty to her government or freedom from her -- and humanity's -- nightmare.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An exciting, bracing look at a future some of us hope for, yet many fear. Hard-edged, tough-minded SF indeed!" -- Gregory Benford, Ph.D.

"Excruciatingly exciting... This is visionary fiction with gut-level, instinctive appeal." -- Richard E. Geis, The Geis Report

"In case you, like others, have forgotten the Future, Victor Koman remembers it. He grew up there and now, with total recall, wakes us to jog our memories and rebirth Tomorrow. Would that there were a dozen more writers like him in the field." -- Ray Bradbury

"They promise to do what the Space Program appears to have forgotten: get Mankind off the planet...

"The various spacecraft are lovingly detailed, utilizing both contemporary technology and classic designs, and we watch each of them being built under such a close eye that we feel we have as much stake in them as do the book's characters. There are any number of plot twists and turns -- far too many to properly convey in the space we have here -- but if you ever shared the dream of manned space flight, imagined it could be you heading up there into orbit and beyond, then you'll love this book.

"Kings of the High Frontier is an intriguing, exhilarating, thought-provoking, and -- yes -- sprawling novel that brings back the sense of wonder that drew so many of us into science-fiction in the first place." -- Charles de Lint, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Publisher

New independent publishers dream of procuring the perfect book for their virgin launches. For Final Frontier Books, that dream became a reality when award-winning author Victor Koman's newest opus, Kings of the High Frontier, went from manuscript to published book in less than three months. When I first read Kings, I was stunningly overwhelmed and knew immediately that this was a book for the future, a perfect first book for my fledgling company. Between its covers you won't find aliens bent on conquering Earth, intergalactic warp-drive warfare, or lasers guns (well, OK, there is one laser, but you'll be surprised at how it's put to use). What you will find is a story of humanity, an epic of tomorrow, and a struggle against overwhelming odds that is happening today. It is a tale of dreams lost and regained; a tale of the importance of defending and promoting individual freedom in the face of oppressive forces that seek to choke the dreams of humanity. Quite simply, Kings of the High Frontier is a must-read novel for anyone who has contemplated Space and pondered how a free people might get there and stay there. With this book, Final Frontier Books learned how to fly. I am proud to have played a part in bringing Victor Koman's masterpiece to the public, and it is my dearest hope that Kings of the High Frontier will be the impetus that moves us into the 21st Century with one common goal: the free an unfettered exploration of the final frontier.

Kings of the High Frontier is available in two collector's editions, both with an important Afterword by award-winning and best-selling author Gregory Benford, Ph.D. The 1250 copy Limited Edition is signed and numbered by Victor Koman and includes a stunning dust jacket by Star Wars and X-Files artist Rob Prior (his first-ever book cover!). Pre-publication sales of this edition have exceeded expectations, so act fast. The Deluxe Edition, limited to 250 copies, is slipcased and bound in Kivar, signed by all three contributors, and includes a limited edition 22" x 18" full-color lithograph of the dust jacket art, limited to 500 prints, signed and numbered by Rob Prior.

Kings of the High Frontier has earned the highest praise, from Ray Bradbury to Gregory Benford, and has been displayed prominently at the World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore and DragonCon in Atlanta. I urge everyone to find out what the buzz is about, because Victor Koman doesn't pull any punches. While reading Kings, one cannot help but contemplate the current status of our moribund space program, and it is this fact that makes the novel shine. This stuff is happening today, my friends. This is not an idle dream, a fantasy of some far-off future. Kings of the High Frontier is now and will motivate you to seize back the reigns, look once again at the stars and shout: "Here We Come"...and mean it. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 576 pages
• Publisher: Final Frontier (October 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966566203
• ISBN-13: 978-0966566208
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,657,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring. The greatest SF novel in at least a decade., February 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Kings of the High Frontier (Hardcover)

I had the privilege of being the eighth person to buy Kings of the High Frontier when it was first published in electronic form by Pulpless.com. I feel rather as if I were there when Vincent Van Gogh swept the final stroke of pigment onto Starry Night or Ayn Rand scrawled the last word of Atlas Shrugged. This book is that good. It's good on at least two levels. First, and crucially, it's a walloping great adventure story. One friend not only stayed up all night to read it, but told me she leaped to her feet and danced around the room during the book's most magnificent scene. Second, without any lecturing or heavy-handedness, this book is an important philosophical statement about free minds and free lives. Oh yeah, it's also an indictment of NASA so accurate and so fierce it's a wonder that agency hasn't crumbled to dust before Victor's rage. I can think of no book I could recommend more highly, and no recent book that has so filled my heart and my spirit. To freedom! And to space!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Dream Re-Awakened., November 21, 2001

By 

"luxlucre" (Vancouver, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kings of the High Frontier (Hardcover)

I recieved my copy of this fantastic book less than 24 hours ago and have read it non-stop every waking moment until I finished it a few minutes ago. I recall clearly the day that man walked on the Moon, being a wide-eyed 6-year-old at the time, I knew at that time that one day, I would HAVE to go into space myself.

This novel re-awakened that 30-year-old dream to be in space myself. It's characterers are intellegent and determined to not let governments be the monopolizers of the high frontier, so several groups unaware of each other's plans, at first, each begin constrution on ships that will let them break free of the Earth and it's suffocating States.

Find yourself a copy... And dare to dream!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best, October 5, 2005

By 

James G. Miller (Richmond, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kings of the High Frontier (Hardcover)

Like much of the great science fiction of the past, this book has a definite libertarian theme. My only faults with it were 1) lost of sleep while reading it because it is one of those books that you can't put down and 2) one rape scene that I considered a lot more graphic than it needed to be and thereby precludes my recommending the book to younger readers. One might object that many of the characters in the book are too black and white, but I would maintain that Koman may be closer to the truth here than many are willing to admit. The reality is that evil exists and most politicians are scum. "Kings of the High Frontier" immediately flew into my top 10 fiction list. Victor Koman seems a worthy successor to Robert Heinlein.