Hadfield hopes book launch takes off

Astronaut's first novel set for October release

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield is going to become a novelist. Random House Canada has announced it will publish his debut novel, The Apollo Murders, on Oct. 12 this year, with simultaneous release in Britain and the United States.

The fictional thriller will be set on board Apollo 18 on the far side of the moon in 1973. In real life, manned missions to the moon stopped in 1972 with the return of Apollo 17, although there were originally plans for three more landings, and the would-be, unflown Apollo 18 lander can be seen at the Cradle of Aviation museum in New York.

A press release for the novel reads: “As Soviet and American crews sprint for a secret bounty hidden away on the Moon's surface, old rivalries blossom and the political stakes are stretched to breaking point back on Earth. Houston flight controller Kaz Zemeckis must do all he can to keep the NASA crew together, while staying one step ahead of their Russian rivals. But not everyone on board Apollo 18 is quite who they appear to be.”

HOUSTON FLIGHT CONTROLLER KAZ ZEMECKIS MUST DO ALL HE CAN TO KEEP THE NASA CREW TOGETHER ...

Hadfield is already a published author, having written the 2013 autobiography An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, as well as the children's book The Darkest Dark and You Are Here, a collection of photographs taken from the International Space Station, where he became the first Canadian to command the ISS.

His foray into fiction makes him unusual among those in space program, most of whom stick to memoirs, from the very first (Yuri Gagarin's Soviet Man in Space) to Limitless, the autobiography of British astronaut Tim Peake, due out this month. But the multi-hyphenate Hadfield has worked in other fields, notably music. His 2015 album Space Sessions: Songs from a Tin Can includes his cover of David Bowie's Space Oddity, which he also played in space.

Random House says The Apollo Murders' mix of science and tension will appeal to fans of The Martian and The Hunt for Red October, with the added frisson of an author who, when he writes of the stress of a rocket launch or living in microgravity, has the experience to back up his prose. As they say, write what you know.