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PEOPLE & ARTS Monday 12 august 2019

Novel reimagines US-Soviet space race

By KENDAL WEAVER are chosen in their youth But in the end, this is no
Associated Press to become cosmonauts laughing matter.
"First Cosmic Velocity" (G.P. — and given the same The space program dra-
Putnam's Sons), by Zach name. That way, if one dies ma is set in 1964, when
Powers in space, the catastrophe the Americans and Sovi-
"First Cosmic Velocity" is a can be concealed and the ets each had achieved
cleverly conceived and living twin can make ap- various "firsts" in the race
beautifully delivered novel pearances to receive pub- to claim territorial rights in
that looks at the struggle for lic accolades as if nothing the heavens and big politi-
space supremacy from the bad happened. cal points on Earth. Instead
Soviet side of the Cold War. This fictional twist is brought of pride and uplift among
As the U.S.-USSR battle un- off convincingly by Pow- the program's key players,
folds in the book, a tug of ers. He plays with actual however, there is an over-
war also ensues between Soviet foibles of the space arching somberness to the
the Soviet cosmonauts era, including the USSR's narrative, an edge of anxi-
brought to the program refusal to make public the ety over the prospect of
and the strict propaganda name of the director of the lethal failures in the Soviet
demands of their commu- country's space program. path to the stars.
nist state. Two key figures As the Soviets did, Powers Powers also describes the
picked to fly, Leonid and simply calls him the Chief grim lives of the twins in their
Nadya, embody this con- Designer. Ukrainian village in 1950,
flict, as deadly failures in A humorous element ap- when poverty, desperate
Soviet rocketry put the lives pears when Premier Nikita hunger and Stalinist-era
of space pioneers in dan- Khrushchev — unaware of brutality destroyed friends
ger. the use of twins — wants and families all around
Actually, there are two his little pet dog to be the them.
Leonids and two Nadyas. first canine in orbit, a four- The darkness and gravity of
As imagined by Zach Pow- legged hero of the Soviet the narrative is mixed with
ers in this debut novel, the Union. There is no arguing stirring prose and dialogue
degree of secrecy in the with the premier, and a that make "First Cosmic Ve- This cover image released by G. P. Putnam's Sons shows "First
Soviet space program is so search for a lookalike dog locity" a novel of ideas from Cosmic Velocity," a novel by Zach Powers.
great that identical twins ensues. the Cold War era. q Associated Press