What do you think?
Rate this book
Countdown
Welcome to Spaceport City
Population--dedicated, highly trained aerospace personnel. A sun-drenched community, dominated by giant launching pads.
At a distance, an ideal place in which to live and work. Behind-the-scenes, a bizarre world of driven men and restless women. For them, TV-monitored orgies are merely party games, alcohol and drugs--common remedies for loneliness and tension.
Dr. Michael Barnes arrives in Spaceport City on a highly confidential mission. Before lift-off of the new Pegasus rocket, he must uncover the town's innermost secrets. The accuracy of Barnes's countdown is vital to the nation's future--and his own!
Population--dedicated, highly trained aerospace personnel. A sun-drenched community, dominated by giant launching pads.
At a distance, an ideal place in which to live and work. Behind-the-scenes, a bizarre world of driven men and restless women. For them, TV-monitored orgies are merely party games, alcohol and drugs--common remedies for loneliness and tension.
Dr. Michael Barnes arrives in Spaceport City on a highly confidential mission. Before lift-off of the new Pegasus rocket, he must uncover the town's innermost secrets. The accuracy of Barnes's countdown is vital to the nation's future--and his own!
- GenresFiction
311 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
31 people want to read
About the author
Frank G. Slaughter
433 books80 followersFrank Gill Slaughter , pen-name Frank G. Slaughter, pseudonym C.V. Terry, was an American novelist and physician whose books sold more than 60 million copies. His novels drew on his own experience as a doctor and his interest in history and the Bible. Through his novels, he often introduced readers to new findings in medical research and new medical technologies.
Slaughter was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Stephen Lucious Slaughter and Sarah "Sallie" Nicholson Gill. When he was about five years old, his family moved to a farm near Berea, North Carolina, which is west of Oxford, North Carolina. He earned a bachelor's degree from Trinity College (now Duke University) at 17 and went to medical school at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He began writing fiction in 1935 while a physician at Riverside Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida.
Books by Slaughter include The Purple Quest, Surgeon, U.S.A., Epidemic! , Tomorrow's Miracle and The Scarlet Cord. Slaughter died May 17, 2001 in Jacksonville, Florida.
Slaughter was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Stephen Lucious Slaughter and Sarah "Sallie" Nicholson Gill. When he was about five years old, his family moved to a farm near Berea, North Carolina, which is west of Oxford, North Carolina. He earned a bachelor's degree from Trinity College (now Duke University) at 17 and went to medical school at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He began writing fiction in 1935 while a physician at Riverside Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida.
Books by Slaughter include The Purple Quest, Surgeon, U.S.A., Epidemic! , Tomorrow's Miracle and The Scarlet Cord. Slaughter died May 17, 2001 in Jacksonville, Florida.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 13, 2020
An ex-astronaut arrives to investigate the Pegasus launch. Someone tries to kill him. This book tries to highlight the fact that anyone who wants to voluntarily go into space has some mental issues. There are parts of this book that are disturbing.
October 8, 2008
Not a book I would save for my kids to read.
June 27, 2023
This was a wild find. It was published in 1970, so Slaughter was basically writing as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon. He imagines a near-future scenario where the space race amped up to the point where everything around Cape Canaveral ("Spaceport City") became a permanent hub of big-space money, power, and hubris.
But wait! This is the early '70s, so it's also about the paranoia of a mid-century straight arrow watching the rise of the swinging '70s. Sex parties with not-so-secret cameras! Teens huffing glue! Nightclub singers made good, and nice housewives gone bad. Closeted gay characters overdosing on penicillin to avoid testing positive for V.D.? Corrupt politicians! Scheming columnists! Profit-mad industrialists! Everyone drinking, everywhere all at once. Swinging, swinging, swinging!
But wait! Slaughter was also a physician who liked to incorporate real science into his potboilers, an early Robin Cook or Michael Crichton. That means he's serious about the science, so all wrapped into this sensational plot there's a series of things that can (and will) go wrong with the high-pressure mission set to launch imminently. Only one man can make sense of it all and save...well, himself. Maybe a couple astronauts, too. This was the Me Decade, after all.
In short, this book is an incredible time capsule. Seal yourself in, and hope the oxygen levels don't spike. (Sorry, they will.)
But wait! This is the early '70s, so it's also about the paranoia of a mid-century straight arrow watching the rise of the swinging '70s. Sex parties with not-so-secret cameras! Teens huffing glue! Nightclub singers made good, and nice housewives gone bad. Closeted gay characters overdosing on penicillin to avoid testing positive for V.D.? Corrupt politicians! Scheming columnists! Profit-mad industrialists! Everyone drinking, everywhere all at once. Swinging, swinging, swinging!
But wait! Slaughter was also a physician who liked to incorporate real science into his potboilers, an early Robin Cook or Michael Crichton. That means he's serious about the science, so all wrapped into this sensational plot there's a series of things that can (and will) go wrong with the high-pressure mission set to launch imminently. Only one man can make sense of it all and save...well, himself. Maybe a couple astronauts, too. This was the Me Decade, after all.
In short, this book is an incredible time capsule. Seal yourself in, and hope the oxygen levels don't spike. (Sorry, they will.)
February 1, 2022
Written in 1970, this mystery/thriller is set around the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and concerns a rushed rocket launch. The book's language is not very PC for modern standards, especially in the LGBTQ characterizations and language. Plus, all of the main characters are either swingers, drug abusers, adulterers, glue sniffers, or a combination of all those things.
June 22, 2022
Imagine reading a book written over 50 years that tries to predict the course of America's future course in space. It gets somethings right and something wrong. But it has some very insightful looks into the behavior of the people engaged in this business. As a result it is a fascinating book.
June 12, 2020
Disappointedly slow any action in the last 50 pages
October 9, 2012
Great book! Science, aerospace technology from the 70's, and thirty way-too-normal characters add up to a terrific drama surrounding a new rocket project named Pegasus in Cape Kennedy.
September 4, 2013
I read this in the early 70s when it was one of the possible futures.
Quite an exciting read
Quite an exciting read
April 14, 2017
Space Race Peyton Place warns against the evils of having a personal life when involved with the space program. Unless, of course, you're astronaut Dr. Mike Barnes; that man can do anything!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews