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Alone on the Moon: A Soviet Lunar Odyssey
May, 1970. A two-person Soviet crew approaches the moon, ready to accomplish the greatest feat in human history—provided they can overcome their own petty jealousies, and the unforgiving harshness of space.
Alone on the Moon chronicles a Soviet moon mission through the eyes of Boris Volynov, a backup who’s been pressed into service helping Alexei Leonov (a man he despises) attempt humanity’s first lunar landing. Thoroughly researched, it’s a detailed and plausible rendition of two larger-than-life personalities facing incredible challenges. It’s also a meditation on luck, trust, the nature of observation, and the burden of being chosen—plus the way our personal narratives can shape (or poison) our perceptions of the present. Do the stories we tell ourselves shape our fate, or can we write a new chapter? The answer awaits.
The titles in the Altered Space series are wholly separate narratives, but all deal with the mysteries of space and time, progress and circularity. Each one is an ensō of words in which orbits of spacecraft, moons, planets, and people allow us fresh perspectives on the cycles of our own lives.
Alone on the Moon chronicles a Soviet moon mission through the eyes of Boris Volynov, a backup who’s been pressed into service helping Alexei Leonov (a man he despises) attempt humanity’s first lunar landing. Thoroughly researched, it’s a detailed and plausible rendition of two larger-than-life personalities facing incredible challenges. It’s also a meditation on luck, trust, the nature of observation, and the burden of being chosen—plus the way our personal narratives can shape (or poison) our perceptions of the present. Do the stories we tell ourselves shape our fate, or can we write a new chapter? The answer awaits.
The titles in the Altered Space series are wholly separate narratives, but all deal with the mysteries of space and time, progress and circularity. Each one is an ensō of words in which orbits of spacecraft, moons, planets, and people allow us fresh perspectives on the cycles of our own lives.
278 pages, Paperback
Published May 31, 2022
About the author
Gerald Brennan
27 books18 followersGerald Brennan is a self-described corporate brat who hails from the eastern half of the continent but currently resides in Chicago. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and later earned a Master's from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He’s the author of Resistance, Zero Phase: Apollo 13 on the Moon, Project Genesis, Ninety-Seven to Three, and Public Loneliness: Yuri Gagarin's Circumlunar Flight. He's been profiled in Newcity, and his writing has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, The Good Men Project, and Innerview Magazine; he's also been a co-editor and frequent contributor at Back to Print and The Deadline. He’s into Camus, Dostoyevsky, Koestler, Hitchcock, Radiohead, and The National, but you can also catch him reading Jim Thompson and even sneaking in some Wahida Clark from time to time. He’s also a huge Martin Scorsese fan.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 3, 2024
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Remember Mary Robinette Kowal's Lady Astronaut of Mars series? Alternate space race with hugely accelerated stakes, a lot of international and interspecies cooperation? Like, even women going to the stars?!? Well, that tore it. I had to have more space-but-not-this-way stories.
So here I am reviewing the next most different take on the Space Race...a Soviet first-lunar-landing story! And I hated it!
More precisely, I hated the narrator: Bitter Boris the Bore. Banging on about how unlucky he is, how a Jew is always held back, how deeply he hates Alexei the Golden Boy...his nickname's fuckin' BLONDIE facryinoutloud!...and his tedious wife, the chilly withholding climber.
I'll never read this book again. But goddam what a story! What a sheer, pulse-pounding rocket ride of a story!
The whole burden of the refrain "unlucky" is simple: Don't be different. Don't stand out. Be there but never be noticeably better than anyone in power unless you're so good there's not a corner that they can sweep you into. Because they will. In other words, big organizations are all alike and whatever alphabet the nameplates are printed in the behaviors are the same.
What happens to Boris is utterly terrifying. At every turn, his shot is blocked. His spot is taken. When he gets to do anything, it goes wrong. Not just people, then, but gawd hates him. And it's no wonder they do, he never met a joy he couldn't squelch or a happiness he couldn't chill to absolute zero. Even his son is being raised by this dark, unhappy cloud of a belief that nothing goes right because it's inevitable.
Yuck.
What this does for Blondie, the first man on the moon, is give him a partner in space who believes it's all going to shit anyway but he's going to check, recheck, then check the recheck so no one can say it was his fault. He calculates things Control has already fed into his computer. He's always got a finger on the cut-off switch so he can make the computers and the thrusters and the machinery of every sort obey his calculations. Which are, of course, correct. Blondie's always been the fair-haired boy and the lucky one so he's just indifferent to the details.
And do you know what? He shouldn't've been *quite* so sanguine. I delight in that bit. I thrilled to the ways the inevitable problems that crop up got handled, solved, and Boris vindicated. There's a reveal at the end of the book that wasn't a surprise to me, there's a lot of technical stuff that will likely put off a casual reader, and there's the basic problem of feeling whined at for almost 300pp. But there was no damned way I was closing this book until I was sure the story ended...well.
And that's why it gets four whole stars.
My Review: Remember Mary Robinette Kowal's Lady Astronaut of Mars series? Alternate space race with hugely accelerated stakes, a lot of international and interspecies cooperation? Like, even women going to the stars?!? Well, that tore it. I had to have more space-but-not-this-way stories.
So here I am reviewing the next most different take on the Space Race...a Soviet first-lunar-landing story! And I hated it!
More precisely, I hated the narrator: Bitter Boris the Bore. Banging on about how unlucky he is, how a Jew is always held back, how deeply he hates Alexei the Golden Boy...his nickname's fuckin' BLONDIE facryinoutloud!...and his tedious wife, the chilly withholding climber.
I'll never read this book again. But goddam what a story! What a sheer, pulse-pounding rocket ride of a story!
The whole burden of the refrain "unlucky" is simple: Don't be different. Don't stand out. Be there but never be noticeably better than anyone in power unless you're so good there's not a corner that they can sweep you into. Because they will. In other words, big organizations are all alike and whatever alphabet the nameplates are printed in the behaviors are the same.
What happens to Boris is utterly terrifying. At every turn, his shot is blocked. His spot is taken. When he gets to do anything, it goes wrong. Not just people, then, but gawd hates him. And it's no wonder they do, he never met a joy he couldn't squelch or a happiness he couldn't chill to absolute zero. Even his son is being raised by this dark, unhappy cloud of a belief that nothing goes right because it's inevitable.
Yuck.
What this does for Blondie, the first man on the moon, is give him a partner in space who believes it's all going to shit anyway but he's going to check, recheck, then check the recheck so no one can say it was his fault. He calculates things Control has already fed into his computer. He's always got a finger on the cut-off switch so he can make the computers and the thrusters and the machinery of every sort obey his calculations. Which are, of course, correct. Blondie's always been the fair-haired boy and the lucky one so he's just indifferent to the details.
And do you know what? He shouldn't've been *quite* so sanguine. I delight in that bit. I thrilled to the ways the inevitable problems that crop up got handled, solved, and Boris vindicated. There's a reveal at the end of the book that wasn't a surprise to me, there's a lot of technical stuff that will likely put off a casual reader, and there's the basic problem of feeling whined at for almost 300pp. But there was no damned way I was closing this book until I was sure the story ended...well.
And that's why it gets four whole stars.
August 30, 2022
"Wordlessly we take our tubes of borscht. Leonov stays in the orbital module to look out 'his' porthole while I pull myself back into the descent module to watch through 'mine.' I recognize now what a clever move it was for him to 'give' me this window while we were approaching the moon. Short-sightedness on my part: had I gone in there first, I would have a roomier space now to eat and observe" (55).
"Again. 'I did not know that.' What else can you say, when you learn of someone's suffering? 'I'm sorry, Alexei'" (65).
"I thought about telling her then, telling her I'd been picked: the flight that would end all flights. She was, after all, well on her way to a doctorate in metallurgy; in those years it was still an open question as to who was the more accomplished spouse. But after East-5 I was taking nothing for granted. So I stewed in silence for several minutes before allowing myself to enjoy Andrei enjoying the ride: watching trees and apartment buildings with wide eyes, all of it fascinating and new. (Truly for a six-year-old, a suburban train ride is as exciting as a trip to space! And perhaps more so, for you at least know that the people in charge of the selection process put you there because they love you" (132).
"Again. 'I did not know that.' What else can you say, when you learn of someone's suffering? 'I'm sorry, Alexei'" (65).
"I thought about telling her then, telling her I'd been picked: the flight that would end all flights. She was, after all, well on her way to a doctorate in metallurgy; in those years it was still an open question as to who was the more accomplished spouse. But after East-5 I was taking nothing for granted. So I stewed in silence for several minutes before allowing myself to enjoy Andrei enjoying the ride: watching trees and apartment buildings with wide eyes, all of it fascinating and new. (Truly for a six-year-old, a suburban train ride is as exciting as a trip to space! And perhaps more so, for you at least know that the people in charge of the selection process put you there because they love you" (132).
September 26, 2023
Just two dudes hanging out around the moon. What could go wrong?
December 19, 2022
Slow-moving, until it suddenly isn’t. Absolutely terrific alternate-history account of the first moon landing, executed by Leonov and Volynov. If you’re interested in manned space flight, you’ll like this book.
September 21, 2023
Slow to pick up, but once you’re in you’re hooked. Excited to learn more about the Russian space program and the real histories of these two rather frustrating characters. Absolutely recommend to anyone interested in space travel
July 15, 2022
After reading all 5 of the author's previous eBooks, I had a hard time with Alone on the Moon: A Soviet Lunar Odyssey. I hate to post spoiler alerts. and more reluctant to use the phrase "Jump the Shark" but there is nothing other way to describe how one of the primary cosmonauts lost his opportunity to fly his first flight . Sorry Gerald.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews