Voyage

I suppose I'm glad Stephen Baxter didn't manage to become an astronaut! I think he is still longing to go into space, and his novels give him -and us - the opportunity to go after all.This longing is very obvious in 'Voyage'. Baxter decides to take a crucial point in the history of the U.S. space program - Kennedy's call to go to the moon and Mars. Kennedy here survives the assassination attempt and goes on proclaiming manned... Read Full Review

I liked the book a lot; even if I felt, as some others have, that maybe a world with Mariner 10, Viking, Voyager and Hubble is actually a richer one than one with a single-shot Mars mission. Part of his achievement is that he makes you really ask yourself what you'd rather have seen happen.However, I don't think the political mechanism he invents is as plausible as the technology. Others have noted that aspects of the novel... Read Full Review

You have to ask yourself if the alternate history scenarios portrayed within this amazing book would have meant a more glorious space program. Would sacrificing half of the Apollo lunar missions, the Viking landers, the Voyager probes and the Space Shuttle have been worth it for one, single flight to Mars? That is a question Baxter makes you ask yourself through implication. This novel is one of the finest creations of... Read Full Review

VOYAGE was the second book by Stephen Baxter that I've read, but it's the best one. I have to say it--Baxter's got stones--big ones. He tackles an alternate history's journey to Mars in 1986 with ease. Everything is researched to the letter and feels real, from the inner workings of NASA to the tragedy of a nuclear-powered Apollo flight (shades of the Challenger disaster) to the characters themselves. Here is a writer... Read Full Review

I can remember, as a child of 10 or so, watching the ghostly pictures on television of Armstrong and Aldrin walking on the moon. I was hooked on the adventure and became an avid Apollo watcher until December '72 when the last mission flew. There was a lot of speculation that the Americans would follow up their moon triumph with a push at the big one and go to Mars. Despite the good reasons, I was always disappointed that... Read Full Review