Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Starfire
    Unavailable
    Starfire
    Unavailable
    Starfire
    Ebook347 pages4 hours

    Starfire

    By Paul Preuss

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    "A terrific novel, I heartily recommend it." —Orson Scott Card

    After a solar flare accident in orbit, Travis is a hero: the first astronaut to bail out of a spacecraft and live. NASA, however, had advised against the bailout—and as punishment for violating orders, Travis is grounded on earth, never to fly again.

    Then comes Starfire, an experimental spacecraft that could be capable of interstellar flight. Travis fights a desperate political battle to become a crewmember, and his go-it-alone attitude makes for some rough going. Starfire’s planned maiden voyage is to land on an asteroid that is heading toward a close loop around the sun, stay long enough to explore, then return to Earth by way of a gravity boost around Venus.

    But during the mission, disaster strikes again: the ship is hit by a huge solar flare and must take shelter in the shadow of the asteroid, even while falling ever closer to the sun. The aim of the mission now becomes desperate survival...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDiversion Books
    Release dateJun 23, 2015
    ISBN9781626818842
    Unavailable
    Starfire
    Author

    Paul Preuss

    Arthur C. Clarke is the world-renowned author of such science fiction classics as 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, for which he shared an Oscar nomination with director Stanley Kubrick, and its popular sequels, 2010: ODYSSEY TWO, 2061: ODYSSEY THREE, and 3001: FINAL ODYSSEY; the highly acclaimed THE SONGS OF DISTANT EARTH; the bestselling collection of original short stories, THE SENTINAL; and over two dozen other books of fiction and non-fiction. He received the Marconi International Fellowship in 1982. Paul Preuss began his successful writing career after years of producing documentary and television films and writing screenplays. He is the author of twelve novels, including VENUS PRIME, Volumes 1, 2, and 3, and the near-future thrillers CORE, HUMAN ERROR, and STARFIRE. Besides writing, he has been a science consultant for several film companies. He lives in San Francisco, California.

    Read more from Paul Preuss

    Related to Starfire

    Related ebooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      World’s Largest

      Dec 12, 2023

      World’s Largest
      7 min read

    • Article

      David Wolf

      Jun 25, 2019

      THERE’S AN OLD astronaut joke at launches: There are only three possible outcomes for lunch. Either we’ll be having it back in the crew quarters because we had to call the thing off, we’ll be having it in orbit, or we’ll never have lunch again. There

      2 min read

    • Article

      A Bomb In The Desert

      Jul 16, 2020

      A Bomb In The Desert
      8 min read

    • Article

      Too Much Space

      Mar 17, 2021

      Too Much Space
      5 min read

    • Article

      Extraterrestrial

      Dec 1, 2019

      Extraterrestrial
      7 min read

    • Article

      Is The Search For Dark Matter An Act Of Faith?

      Oct 10, 2019

      The young physicist sits at his computer, watching for signals from Cygnus. His name is Christopher Toth, and his white lab coat is too big for him. Christopher speaks with calm clarity. His manner is modest, gracefully gentle, and I wonder if this c

      8 min read

    • Article

      BAILOUT At 70,000 Feet

      Aug 18, 2020

      BAILOUT At 70,000 Feet
      8 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      May 18, 2023

      CONTACT US BY POST: PO BOX 1200, WHITSTABLE CT1 9RH, OR E-MAIL SIEVEKING@FORTEANTIMES.COM PLEASE PROVIDE US WITH YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS With reference to his article on Nazi UFOs [FT430:44-49], I would be curious to know what evidence SDTucker has for s

      12 min read

    • Article

      Wigeon On A Star

      Dec 21, 2022

      Wigeon On A Star
      5 min read

    • Article

      Town & Country Notebook

      Mar 3, 2021

      1) On what musical instrument would a nocturne typically be played? 2) Who was the last monarch before The Queen to have a Diamond Jubilee? 3) Complete the title of the 1990 British film starring Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson: Truly, Madly… wha

      1 min read

    • Article

      Good Vibrations

      Mar 4, 2024

      Good Vibrations
      6 min read

    • Article

      Farewell from Cassini

      Sep 18, 2017

      If you're reading this message, there's no need to burn it. For it and I have already been burned beyond recognition. It was good knowing you and a great trip while it lasted. I danced through the sparkling rings of you earthlings' neighboring planet

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Space Menagerie

      Feb 17, 2022

      A Space Menagerie
      9 min read

    • Article

      Tesla’s Pigeon

      Dec 6, 2023

      On a February morning in 1935, a disoriented homing pigeon flew into the open window of an unoccupied room at the Hotel New Yorker. It had a band around its leg, but where it came from, or was meant to be headed, no one could say. While management de

      17 min read

    • Article

      Mike Golding

      Aug 8, 2019

      Ocean phosphorescence is the naturally occurring (green) light created by certain algae blooms when they are jostled or excited. The effect causes everything passing through the water to be outlined in a glowing light. Millions upon millions of algae

      3 min read

    • Article

      Books On The Light Shed By Astrophysics

      Apr 25, 2022

      It’s never too early to get kids excited about science, and this simple and fun counting rhyme about the Solar System is a welcome change from reading the same old fairytale. These days we remotely control telescopes, but imagine a time when to obser

      1 min read

    • Article

      Eternity In The Sky Tonight

      Oct 16, 2019

      Eternity In The Sky Tonight
      2 min read

    • Article

      Fiction: The Star Dunes

      Oct 17, 2020

      Fiction: The Star Dunes
      5 min read

    • Article

      Stars On Mars: The Celebs Go To Space Show We Didn’t Know We Needed

      Jun 8, 2023

      Klaxons sound and red lights flash inside a Martian base as a celebrity delegation takes residence. Apparently, the last member of their 12-person crew had a hard landing on the red rocks and is now trapped inside a capsule that’s fast losing oxygen.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Pathfinders

      Feb 22, 2023

      ▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1960-1961 | U | DVD ▶ Director Guy Verney, Reginald Collin ▶ Cast Gerald Flood, Peter Williams, Harold Goldblatt, Georg Coulouris It’s tempting to assume that Doctor Who emerged fully formed from the void in 1963, but this trilogy

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Moon Is Full of Money

      Jul 18, 2019

      I was slung in my favorite deck chair, drink in hand, having a gawk at the night sky. Andromeda, Pisces ... I trawled the constellations, mind abandoned, still aware in some curve at the back of my brain that the world is coming apart at the seams an

      14 min read

    • Article

      The Moon Is Full of Money

      Sep 7, 2017

      I was slung in my favorite deck chair, drink in hand, having a gawk at the night sky. Andromeda, Pisces ... I trawled the constellations, mind abandoned, still aware in some curve at the back of my brain that the world is coming apart at the seams an

      14 min read

    • Article

      The Fenland redoubt

      Oct 5, 2022

      The Fenland redoubt
      4 min read

    • Article

      Going Off the (Really) Deep End

      Jul 1, 2023

      Going Off the (Really) Deep End
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Perfect Trifecta

      May 3, 2022

      The Perfect Trifecta
      11 min read

    Reviews for Starfire

    3/5

    7 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 1/5
      I was most disappointed by this book. The first chapter of this was published in Interzone years ago as a stand-alone short story. It's a near-future space story about an astronaut who makes the first ever successful emergency re-entry without a ship, and it excited me so much that when the full novel appeared, I bought it. It then sat in my 'to read' pile for longer than it ought, and only now has it come to the top. Oh dear.If you like novels of political manouevering, this is great. Roughly half the book is taken up with this after the main character's initial thrilling bit. This is great if you like that sort of thing, or if you know the political system involved. As it's not the one I'm familiar with, I just kept muttering darkly about capitalism and Washington and wishing the story would get a move on. Then there's big chunks of NASA procedurals in it. I don't need to know what makes the big spaceship go very fast from its instruction manual. And the characters - well, the characterisation is very good. Shame they're all such boring people. The novel is being sold as a space disaster story; I'm nearly two-thirds of the way through and the disaster hasn't happened yet (unless you count my buying the book in the first place).