Ignition Paperback Kevin J., Beason, Doug Anderson - Softcover

Kevin J. Anderson; Doug Beason

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340674555 ISBN 13: 9780340674550

Publisher: CORONET BOOKS, 1996

Synopsis

NASA—you have a problem. In this high-tech action adventure from Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason, terrorists seize control of the Kennedy Space Center and hold the shuttle Atlantis and its crew hostage on the launchpad. But astronaut “Iceberg” Friese, grounded from the mission because of a broken foot, is determined to slip through the swamps and rocket facilities around Cape Canaveral and pull the plug on the terrorists. With their years of experience in the field, Anderson and Beason have packed Ignition with insider information to create an extremely plausible, action-packed thriller.

About this title

About the Author:

Kevin J. Anderson is the author of more than one hundred books, 47 of which have appeared on national or international bestseller lists. He has over 21 million books in print in thirty languages. He has won or been nominated for numerous prestigious awards, including the Nebula Award, Bram Stoker Award, the SFX Reader's Choice Award, the American Physics Society's Forum Award, and New York Times Notable Book. By any measure, he is one of the most popular writers currently working in the science fiction genre. Dr. J. Douglas Beason is the author of fourteen books, eight with collaborator Kevin J. Anderson, including Ignition and Ill Wind, as well as two non-fiction books. A Nebula Award finalist, Doug's short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and he has written for publications as diverse as Analog, Amazing Stories, Physical Review Letters and Physics of Fluids to Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Science, Technology and Society. Doug and Kevin's novel The Trinity Paradox holds the distinction of being the first work of fiction ever nominated for the American Physical Society's Forum award for promoting the understanding of physics in society, and was the first novel ever reviewed in Physics Today.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Terrorists seize Cape Canaveral at the time of a shuttle launch in a new technothriller from Anderson and Beason (the eco-disaster novel Ill Wind, 1995; etc.). Film rights to Ignition have already been sold, and, indeed, it seems to have been written for easy adaptation into a script: One action scene follows another, and the characters, all stereotypes, are minimally drawn. Mr. Phillips, a fastidious type, the sort often cast as the mastermind in James Bond movies, surrounds himself with several assassins, one of whom is, of course, a slinky female, another of whom, you guessed it, is a pathological explosives-expert. The members of the team demonstrate their ruthlessness at an Ariane launch in French Guiana, blowing up a rocket just after it's launched. Several months later, they capture the command complex at Cape Canaveral just prior to a shuttle launch, blocking out communications with Houston and feeding tapes of prior launches to the public, until they have the mission under their own control. Mr. Phillips even disappoints as a stereotype, since he merely lusts for a ransom in jewels rather than global dominion. He's opposed by the astronaut who had been scheduled to command the mission, ``Iceberg'' Friese, suffering now from a broken ankle, and his sometime lover, the former astronaut Nicole Hunter. Lots of gun battles and explosions ensue as Iceberg saves the world, a US senator is made to look oafish, and the fussy Mr. Phillips falls out of a helicopter. Iceberg is interesting enough to carry the reader along, perhaps, and Anderson and Beason portray Merritt Island and NASA's launch complex convincingly, virtues which, for some, may be enough to excuse the silly plot. Even Steven Seagal's standards are higher than this, but blowing up the Vehicular Assembly Building ought to look good on the screen. (Film rights to Universal) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: CORONET BOOKS
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0340674555
• ISBN 13: 9780340674550
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432