I was looking forward to this because I figured that Hadfield, being an astronaut, would be great at dropping in very technical and accurate details about the mechanics and procedures of spaceflight, and in this I was not at all disappointed. (I love Hadfield, for the record; his nerdiness is infectious, as is his clear enthusiasm for public outreach. I still enjoy rewatching his videos from space.) I also figured that Hadfield’s forte was likely not character development or beautiful prose, and in this I was also correct. This is a Cold War what-if thriller, in which the Americans and Russians jockey for primacy with moon rovers, spy satellites, and competing space missions. Hadfield sprinkles in real people with his fictional characters, and although his characters have no real depth or growth, they serve the purpose of moving the plot along. I loved the very technical descriptions of everything, from helicopter mechanics to how a loose solder blob could cause severe damage (see, this is why you don’t skimp on shock testing) to how communications lags meant that you had to deliver and receive information at a remove; that palpable joy in the details made the overall awkwardness of the story easier to swallow.