Books by Gerald Brennan

Pitching trades; planning on pitching to space-related podcasts (including "Space and Things") and publicationsTwo of the blurbists--one of whom is an admin of the "Space Hipsters" Facebook group--said this was the best book of the series.Much shorter and faster read than the most recent book in the series.Stephen Walker (author of Beyond) helped with research and is reading it for blurb consideration.Past titles have a small but enthusiastic following--the author sometimes receives Facebook messages from random strangers gushing about the books.Well-researched (the author tracked down transcripts of interviews with the relatively-obscure main character, and read a wealth of sources to reconstruct a Soviet lunar mission) while still being literary and lively

In late December of 1941, two parachutists dropped into occupied Europe on a mission to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, an SS leader whom one contemporary called "the hidden pivot" of Nazi Germany.Six months later, they succeeded.This is the definitive telling of this oft-forgotten story--its fascinating background, its thrilling climax, and its tragic consequences. It draws on diverse resources and influences, including Plato's Republic, Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, the writings of Czechoslovakian president Tomáš Masaryk, Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk, Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, and even Camus' The Fall and Bukowski's Ham on Rye. In doing so, it creates something wholly unique--a powerful meditation on the subjective nature of history, and on the ways we distort the past in order to preserve it as memory.

October, 1967. Yuri Gagarin sits atop a Proton rocket, ready to launch. After several turbulent years in the public eye, he's been chosen in secrecy to captain the Soviet Union's latest space spectacular: the first manned flight around the moon. The second story in the Altered Space series, Public Loneliness is a detailed and imaginative look at a country and a space program with a curious schizophrenia regarding publicity and secrecy. Based on extensive research, it's also a lively and literary story that references familiar classics (like Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea) and forgotten landmarks of Soviet socialist realism, while also touching on universal themes of adventure, alcoholism, heroism and shame. It's a compelling look behind the massive posters at the all-too-real man who led the human race into space.

May, 1970. After a one-month launch delay, Apollo 13 lands in the Fra Mauro Highlands of the moon¿and then the trouble starts.The first in a series of what-if stories from the golden age of space exploration, Zero Phase was written based on meticulous research, and with assistance from two Apollo astronauts: Dr. Edgar Mitchell, who visited the Fra Mauro Highlands¿and Captain Jim Lovell, who was supposed to. Dramatic, detailed, and finely written, this novella is a must-read for space aficionados and literary enthusiasts alike.The titles in the Altered Space series are wholly separate narratives, but all deal with the mysteries of space and time, progress and circularity. Each one is an ens¿ of words in which orbits of spacecraft, moons, planets, and people allow us fresh perspectives on the cycles of our own lives.

April, 1972. Three legendary astronauts embark on man's boldest space voyage yet-a yearlong mission to fly past our nearest planetary neighbor, Venus.Island of Clouds, the first full-length novel in the Altered Space series, is a gripping space epic based on NASA mission proposals from the late 1960s. Touching on literary and cultural influences ranging from Borges and Bukowski to Solaris and Star Trek, this story of exploration also offers a literary probing of the dark reaches of human nature: alcoholism, capitalism, authority, fatherhood, and the ephemeral nature of desire.Each entry in the Altered Space series is a wholly separate narrative, but all deal with the mysteries of space and time, progress and circularity. Every title is an enso of words in which orbits of spacecraft, moons, planets and people allow us fresh perspectives on the cycles of our own lives.