Jerry Oltion is a familiar name from Analog so when I was looking for something interesting I picked up his novel Abandon in Place. The story starts with a phantom launch of an old Saturn V Apollo rocket from an abandoned pad at Cape Canaveral, witnessed by shuttle austronaut Rick Spencer, visible all the way to the moon before disappearing. After another ghost ship heads for orbit and on to the moon, he convinces the NASA brass to let him try and hitch a ride.
Sure enough, the spaceship is solid enough to carry Spencer but once in LEO instead of shutting things down, his girlfriend Tessa–coincidentally commanding the current shuttle mission–and a Japanese scientist EVA over and the three decide to see where the mysterious vehicle takes them rather than shutting the Apollo down. They get to the moon, the two astronauts ride the LEM to the surface and back home.
Only thing is, if Spencer starts to think the wrong way the spaceship starts to disappear right from under them. The ships, it seems, are made solid from the communal desire of humanity. Once home and away from the government scientists looking to see if Spencer’s ability can be turned into weaponry, he and Tessa are able to create almost anything out of thin air. Flowers, moon landers, almost anything.
Their ability is the manifestation of the Eastern belief that everything is really one, death is simply another transformation and, heck, if enough people really want something bad enough, they can make it come true. In fact, Oltion brings in the Pope Dave character he’s written about elsewhere to tell our heroes that he and his predecessors have actually known about this for centuries; they’re the source of religious miracles.
But just as Satan figures large in the Bible, an Eastern European nationalist is able to tap into the power for evil. Bagdoni has no qualms over creating towering, indefatiguable warriors who swarm west across the continent. Spencer and Tessa fly to England in a desparate bid to stop him and, of course, just barely succeed. In the process the astronaut learns the truth about existence I mentioned.
Abandon in Place started out as a Nebula Award winning novela, which I remember reading and enjoying. Science fiction economics being what they are, I suppose Oltion had too much incentive not to expand the story to book length but the idea (or the execution) simply doesn’t support it. Find the original and skip the novel.
not recommended
BillSaysThis 