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Starfire
After a solar flare accident in orbit, Travis is a hero: the first astronaut to bail out of a spacecraft and live. NASA, however, had advised against the bailout-and as punishment for violating orders, Travis is grounded on earth, never to fly again.
310 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
19 people are currently reading
77 people want to read
About the author
Paul Preuss
33 books21 followersPaul Preuss is an American writer of science fiction and science articles, who also works as science consultant for film companies. He is the author of numerous stand-alone novels as well as novels in Arthur C. Clarke's Venus Prime series, based upon incidents, characters, and places from Clarke's short stories. (source: wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 10, 2022
Travis Hill is an astronaut with a hotdogger reputation, made when he free fell from orbit back to Earth using just a one-man shield, and when an asteroid enters Earth space with a highly eccentric orbit, Travis wants in. He comes from a position of wealth and power politics in Texas and his pushy mother manages to get Travis dried out enough from his alcohol addiction, and call in some Capitol Hill favours, to get him selected. This however, pushes out another qualified astronaut and causes resentment with the rest of the crew. After landing on the asteroid an unexpected solar flare creates what looks like a fatal radiation event for the crew of the Starfire (the first fusion space craft) unless something amazing can be conjured up. Travis, a loner who is not a good team player, must learn to cooperate and help the crew with a dangerous and never-before-tried manouevre, if they are to survive, Paul Preuss has produced an entertaining hard SF novel in the vein of Ben Bova’s Kinsman books, which will have you hoping against hope for the crew’s survival. Well worth a read.
December 27, 2015
Great opening, but it gets pretty draggy after that... until we find ourselves in space again! Haha. So good start, draggy middle, great end. Overall a realistic & (at the end) rather sombre look at the space program. Some of the science in this went right over my head - and the political meanderings I just found plain boring... (as in life I suppose)... *chuckles*...
March 16, 2019
El protagonista es egoista y poco profesional.
March 12, 2023
Easy to follow story with real science fiction.
October 12, 2023
Really hard syfy
This one should not be missed even if it was written a while back. If you want to read a tech oriented novel. Do not miss this one.
This one should not be missed even if it was written a while back. If you want to read a tech oriented novel. Do not miss this one.
July 30, 2015
A solar flare causes an accident on a routine mission around the Earth's orbit. This causes astronaut Travis Hill to take extreme measures by leaping out of the craft and into an escape pod, effectively becoming the first astronaut ever to jettison to safety from space and make a reentry back to Earth.
This amazing starting sequence in the novel, Starfire by Paul Preuss, hooked me straight in and kept me turning the pages, wanting to know what would happen the thrilling moment next. Unfortunately, as action-packed as the opening was, the rest of Starfire left me wanting.
Several years after Travis Hill's amazing escape from the solar flare accident and his daring descent back to Earth, he has been deemed unfit to go back to space. But when he hears about an asteroid that makes a near pass to Earth and is heading towards the Sun, he spies an opportunity to get back to space. With NASA launching the brand new spaceship, the titular Starfire, very soon, plans are made to readjust the spaceship's maiden voyage with an ambitious mission to land on the asteroid before it heads into a closed loop near the sun.
The premise of Starfire may remind you a little of the film Armageddon but this novel was first published in 1988, ten years before Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck ever went to space to the sound of Aerosmith. Also, Starfire, being a hard SF novel, likes to think it's a little brainier than Michael Bay's popcorn fare. And truly, the science and realism that permeates the novel is a joy for those who prefer their science fiction leaning towards science more than fiction. It is to the author's credit that all that science and realism does not get in the way of the story and actually enhances it.
Where the author fails is in the characters and the extraordinarily slow pace of the plot. The characters are either forgettable and especially in the main character's case, unlikeable. Travis Hill recalls one of a cowboy from Texas and retains all the negative stereotypes of one -- mainly a misogynistic white male. In fact, the cowboy elements were so strong that half the time I wondered whether I was reading a Louis L'amour western or a scifi opera.
The plot is simple enough, and the author possibly realised that this meant he had to pad his novel so that he could make his wordcount. And so every time things start to get a little exciting, we are thrown into a pointless flashback of a character. The flashbacks were so many to the point of annoyance; I kept wanting to shout at the book, "Get on with it already!"
I really wanted to like this book, I really did. The premise was sound and normally, anything with spaceships in it would get me hot and bothered, but this one left me as cold as a floating rock in space.
This book review was possible thanks to an ARC provided by NetGalley.
This amazing starting sequence in the novel, Starfire by Paul Preuss, hooked me straight in and kept me turning the pages, wanting to know what would happen the thrilling moment next. Unfortunately, as action-packed as the opening was, the rest of Starfire left me wanting.
Several years after Travis Hill's amazing escape from the solar flare accident and his daring descent back to Earth, he has been deemed unfit to go back to space. But when he hears about an asteroid that makes a near pass to Earth and is heading towards the Sun, he spies an opportunity to get back to space. With NASA launching the brand new spaceship, the titular Starfire, very soon, plans are made to readjust the spaceship's maiden voyage with an ambitious mission to land on the asteroid before it heads into a closed loop near the sun.
The premise of Starfire may remind you a little of the film Armageddon but this novel was first published in 1988, ten years before Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck ever went to space to the sound of Aerosmith. Also, Starfire, being a hard SF novel, likes to think it's a little brainier than Michael Bay's popcorn fare. And truly, the science and realism that permeates the novel is a joy for those who prefer their science fiction leaning towards science more than fiction. It is to the author's credit that all that science and realism does not get in the way of the story and actually enhances it.
Where the author fails is in the characters and the extraordinarily slow pace of the plot. The characters are either forgettable and especially in the main character's case, unlikeable. Travis Hill recalls one of a cowboy from Texas and retains all the negative stereotypes of one -- mainly a misogynistic white male. In fact, the cowboy elements were so strong that half the time I wondered whether I was reading a Louis L'amour western or a scifi opera.
The plot is simple enough, and the author possibly realised that this meant he had to pad his novel so that he could make his wordcount. And so every time things start to get a little exciting, we are thrown into a pointless flashback of a character. The flashbacks were so many to the point of annoyance; I kept wanting to shout at the book, "Get on with it already!"
I really wanted to like this book, I really did. The premise was sound and normally, anything with spaceships in it would get me hot and bothered, but this one left me as cold as a floating rock in space.
This book review was possible thanks to an ARC provided by NetGalley.
June 18, 2015
I enjoyed Starfire, by Paul Preuss. It does drift into ‘hard’ sci-fi, but over all, it was an easy read, and ‘soft’ sci-fi fans won’t get bored.
There were a few dated references, but that’s to be expected for a thirty-year-old novel. Another aspect that frustrated me was about three or four lengthy flashbacks that just didn’t seem to help the story. I can appreciate the author trying to fill in the back-story to a few characters, but they derailed the story. I found myself angrily swiping pages to get through the boring back-story. On the final flashback, I just skimmed until it was obvious the flashback was over. It seemed almost as if the flashbacks were shoehorned in to reach a word or page count.
I really love the paperback cover. It fits the story perfectly and makes sense during the read. I don’t know if the art didn’t have the proper license, but the new electronic edition art, while it conveys that this is a sci-fi space adventure, just doesn’t work as good as the 1988 cover. (I grin when I see the 80s-style title font.)
I’m not too worried about spoiling a thirty-year-old book, so I’ll say that this space disaster is reminiscent of movies like Armageddon or Gravity.
I’m on the fence on this one in terms of star rating. It’s a great read, but the flashbacks just made me angry. If I did half stars, I’d say 3.5 stars, but for the purpose of Amazon and Goodreads, I’m gonna award it that extra half and say four-stars. If you’re a sci-fi fan, you’ll like this book.
There were a few dated references, but that’s to be expected for a thirty-year-old novel. Another aspect that frustrated me was about three or four lengthy flashbacks that just didn’t seem to help the story. I can appreciate the author trying to fill in the back-story to a few characters, but they derailed the story. I found myself angrily swiping pages to get through the boring back-story. On the final flashback, I just skimmed until it was obvious the flashback was over. It seemed almost as if the flashbacks were shoehorned in to reach a word or page count.
I really love the paperback cover. It fits the story perfectly and makes sense during the read. I don’t know if the art didn’t have the proper license, but the new electronic edition art, while it conveys that this is a sci-fi space adventure, just doesn’t work as good as the 1988 cover. (I grin when I see the 80s-style title font.)
I’m not too worried about spoiling a thirty-year-old book, so I’ll say that this space disaster is reminiscent of movies like Armageddon or Gravity.
I’m on the fence on this one in terms of star rating. It’s a great read, but the flashbacks just made me angry. If I did half stars, I’d say 3.5 stars, but for the purpose of Amazon and Goodreads, I’m gonna award it that extra half and say four-stars. If you’re a sci-fi fan, you’ll like this book.
June 30, 2015
If you are a fan of Sci-Fi you will like it, if not you will still like it. This is actually an older novel written in 1988, however it is not dated. Difficult to imagine but when this was written you did not have mobile phones, Ipads, Kindles or laptop computers. So the author has shown great skill in detailing this solar adventure in a believable way. The main character is a veteran astronaut using his fame and buliding his reputation as the premier person with knowledge of asteroids. Appearance of a freak asteroid gives him the opportunity for a last trip into space. It is an excellent book but I have withheld my fifth star because he used flashbacks and bios to give the background on the other characters. This disrupts the flow of the book and if detail was deemed essential then it could have handled better, but who am I ? do I write thrilling Sci-Fi novels?
June 6, 2023
Perceivable the script-writing the author. This book is more of a movie. If your imagination is vivid enough, you can practically see the whole scenario unfolding before your eyes. I even started looking for actors for the crew. A lot of time and effat given to fleshingout the characters... sometimes even boring in a cinematographical way. Thankfully, no sex scenes... Took me 10 hours to read. Hard Sci - Fi in all its splendour.
June 23, 2015
I really enjoyed this book. My Sci-Fi reads often tend towards Science Fantasy, but I felt that this one was more "hard" science fiction. I was quickly pulled into the novel and followed along at a brisk pace, as though as other reviewers have mentioned, I did get lost a little in the flashbacks.
March 5, 2009
Good scifi read. Stimulating and imaginitive. What happened to dreaming of space? Oh yeah, TV.
March 15, 2015
Donated to Smith Family charity march 2015
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews