New Scientist recommends Chris Hadfield’s Final Orbit

Just over 50 years ago, US astronauts and Soviet Union cosmonauts met in space for a ceremonial handshake. This mission serves as the background for former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield’s latest alt-history space thriller, Final Orbit, which introduces an accident that kills half the crew.

Meanwhile, Hadfield revives the cancelled 1960s Shuguang space programme in order to place the first Chinese astronaut in orbit almost three decades earlier than in reality. With these pieces in place, he tells the story of a clandestine three-way space conflict, and gives us possibly the most realistic depiction of a “battle” between two spacecraft ever written.

As in his previous books, Hadfield expertly weaves fact, fiction and his own experiences in orbit to produce a novel that is both technical and entertaining. If you can’t stand Tom Clancy-esque discussions of how exactly you plumb a nitrogen tank on a spacecraft, this may not be for you, but I am finding Hadfield to be a master of the genre.