The Last Astronaut by David Wellington
Review by Ernest Lilley
Orbit Paperback  ISBN/ITEM#: 9780316419574
Date: 23 July 2019 List Price $15.99 Amazon US / Amazon UK
Links: Author’s Webosite / Show Official Info /
OP: SFRevu July 2019

On the one hand, this is really good hard sf with a Stephen Baxter / Arthur C. Clarke vibe. On the other, it’s a mashup of Rendevous with Rama and the Expanse with a fair amount of Alien thrown in.

When a large interstellar object comes at us from out of the ecliptic plane of the solar system, it’s exciting news, but when one decelerates and changes course for Earth, it’s problematic as well. Still exciting, but mostly terrifying.

NASA should send a mission to investigate, and as this is set in 2055, you’d think that was a no brainer. Except for the failure of the Orion 6 Mars mission in 2034, which led to the shutdown of manned spaceflight. Sally Jansen, the mission commander of that voyage made it back to earth with most of her crew but was never able to let go of the choices she had to make to do that. Nor did the public let her forget them.

But we still need to go, and so NASA pulls out the Orion 7 capsule it’s been keeping in storage, swaps out all the parts that might have decayed, and puts Sally back in the big red chair. The world may see her as the woman who killed our chances to go to Mars, but NASA’s director sees her in a different light. Also along are Sunny Stevens, the astrophysicist who discovered the object, Rao, an exobiologist, and Major Windsor Hawkins. It’s a NASA mission, or will be, right up to the moment we decide the object presents a danger to earth. Which, really was the moment it started changing course towards the planet, but we can pretend, can’t we?

What follows is part high tech space drama, part trip through a Stranger Things version of Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama, and an impressive examination of how different minds and cultures approach a problem. NASA, scientists, the military, alien life, and oh yes…KSpace.

KSpace stands in for SpaceX here, or whatever comes after it, sending its own mission to the object, with a completely different mindset than the others, one that jumps right in and sees everyone else as competition.

After eons traveling in the cold of interstellar space, the object is waking up, and no matter what anyone expected to find, the truth is much, much, weirder and more terrifying. Unless you’ve watched the Expanse, seen Alien, read Rendevous with Rama, and enjoy Lovecraft. Then, less so, but it’s still its own story.

If there’s a sequel, it might be Dune with a bit of Stranger in a Strange Land for spice. But probably not.