Alan Smale’s Radiant Sky

Join us on Saturday, February 22nd at 1:00 PM as Book People welcomes astrophysicist and author Alan Smale. Alan will discuss his newest book Radiant Sky.
In an alternate 1983, the Cold War turns hot – in space, with clunky retro Apollo and Soyuz technology, in this technothriller-with-heart set entirely on and around the Moon.
Radiant Sky is the much-anticipated sequel to the critically acclaimed Hot Moon (“A nail-biting thriller”—Publishers Weekly) by two-time Sidewise Award-winning author Alan Smale.

Vivan Carter, the electrifying hero from Hot Moon, returns to lead a lunar geological survey team comprised of both Americans and Soviets. Their journey takes them across the harsh and barren lunar surface as they chart the Moon and collect samples for this grueling mission. Such an expedition is already dangerous enough, but the stakes become much higher when they face a startling ambush at the lunar South Pole.

The crew must navigate a treacherous path where survival requires ingenuity, courage, and an uneasy alliance with their Soviet counterparts. As the stakes grow higher, the mission becomes a test of skill, endurance, and trust in an era defined by suspicion and rivalry.
 
Alan Smale writes alternate history and hard SF. His novella of a Roman invasion of ancient America, “A Clash of Eagles”, won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and related novels Clash of Eagles, Eagle in Exile, and Eagle and Empire (2015-2017) are available from Del Rey.
His Roman-baseball collaboration with Rick Wilber, The Wandering Warriors, came out from WordFire Press (2020), and Hot Moon, his alternate-Apollo “technothriller with heart” from CAEZIK SF & Fantasy in 2022, with sequel Radiant Sky following in November 2024.
Alan has sold 40+ stories to Asimov’s and other magazines and anthologies, and non-fiction essays to Lightspeed, Journey Planet, and Galaxy’s Edge.
Alan grew up in Yorkshire, England, and earned degrees in Physics and Astrophysics from Oxford University. Until recently he performed astronomical research at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and served as director of an astrophysics data archive