| Release Date | 2022-05-10 |
|---|---|
| Mercury Rising | Paperback, Ebook |
| Paperback ISBN | 9780857669728 |
|---|---|
| EBook ISBN | 9780857669735 |
Mercury Rising
by: R.W.W. Greene£4.99 – £9.99
Top Gun in space!
An alternative history with aliens, a slow-burn mystery and SF tropes aplenty
File Under: Science Fiction [ Little Green Men | Below the Crust | The Truth is out There ]
Description
Mercury Rising is the first in an exciting new series from R W W Greene, author of The Light Years and Twenty Five to Life.
Even in a technologically-advanced, Kennedy-Didn’t-Die alternate-history, Brooklyn Lamontagne is going nowhere fast. The year is 1975, thirty years after Robert Oppenheimer invented the Oppenheimer Atomic Engine, twenty-five years after the first human walked on the moon, and eighteen years after Jet Carson and the Eagle Seven sacrificed their lives to stop the alien invaders. Brooklyn just wants to keep his mother’s rent paid, earn a little scratch of his own, steer clear of the cops, and maybe get laid sometime in the near future. Simple pleasures, right? But a killer with a baseball bat and a mysterious box of 8-track tapes is about to make his life real complicated.
So, rot away in prison or sign up to defend the planet from the assholes who dropped a meteorite on Cleveland? Brooklyn crosses his fingers and picks the Earth Orbital Forces. A few years in the trenches and then — assuming he survives — he’ll get his life back, right? Unfortunately, the universe has other plans, and Brooklyn is launched into a story about saving humanity, finding family, and growing as a person — while coping with high-stakes space battles, mystery science experiments and finding out the real enemies aren’t the tentacled monsters on the recruitment poster.
Unless they are.
R.W.W. Greene is a New Hampshire USA writer with an MA in Fine Arts, which he exorcises in dive bars and coffee shops. He is a frequent panelist at the Boskone Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention in Boston, and his work has been in Stupefying Stories, Daily Science Fiction, New Myths, and Jersey Devil Press, among others. Greene is a past board member of the New Hampshire Writers’ Project. He keeps bees, collects typewriters, and lives with writer/artist spouse Brenda and two cats.
“Greene remixes sci-fi conventions into a wild, satisfying adventure in a nearly picaresque vein…Readers willing to roll with the punches will delight in following Greene’s winding path.”
– Publishers Weekly
– Publishers Weekly
“Mercury Rising is a rollicking, funny, picaresque adventure novel… Recommended for fans of old sf-adventure serials and Ernest Cline’s Armada.”
– Booklist
– Booklist
“The action in Mercury Rising is compelling from the first chapter. Greene’s skill at creating an alternate space-faring America in the mid-1970’s is studded with the perfect amount of pop culture references, and his many-layered Everyman, Brooklyn Lamontagne, feels like a long-lost best friend. All this combines to lock you in for a thrilling story that’s impossible to put down.”
– Ginger Smith, author of The Rush’s Edge
– Ginger Smith, author of The Rush’s Edge
“Everything I’ve come to love about Greene: impeccable story logic, fantastic prose, sly humor, and hope in all its glory.”
– Zig Zag Claybourne, author of Afro Puffs are the Antennae of the Universe
– Zig Zag Claybourne, author of Afro Puffs are the Antennae of the Universe
“Mercury Rising charmed and fascinated me. Greene has taken an absolutely wild premise and somehow made it fit like a puzzle piece into our own history and knowledge of the greater universe. It is unexpected and clever, heartfelt and funny, with big, conceptual penny-drop moments that hit the reader as hard as they hit the novel’s weary protagonist, Brooklyn Lamontagne.”
– Chris Panatier, author of Stringers and The Phlebotomist
– Chris Panatier, author of Stringers and The Phlebotomist
“Surprising, engaging, and with plenty of smart nods to society’s bullshit, Mercury Rising is a slice of alternative history that reads like science-fiction Stephen King. A joy.”
– Dan Hanks, author of Swashbucklers
– Dan Hanks, author of Swashbucklers
“Greene’s world is immersive, compelling, and fun. Brooklyn’s saga takes us from a dank New York City jail cell to bone-dry Texas, the rim of a still-smoking crater, the Arctic circle, a Vegas-like city on the moon, and beyond. And, like Brooklyn, I could only hang on for dear life and enjoy the ride. As with all good alternate history, it entertains while shining a light on issues that bedevil this world, and makes you think about the missed opportunities in our own timeline.”
– B.L. Blanchard, author of The Peacekeeper
“With a deft weaving of rock ‘n roll, denim suits, AMC Pacers and nuclear-powered spaceships, Greene effortlessly recreates a 1970s America that could have been. This thoroughly plausible alternate history in which asteroid-slinging aliens threaten a spacefaring human race is narrated by Greene’s unlikely hero, Brooklyn Lamontagne. Seemingly a brash young ne-er-do well, Brooklyn is redeemed by his love for his mother and his loyalty to his friends and you can’t help but root for him as he navigates a rocky path from the cold streets of NYC to the moon and beyond. As the stakes intensify and the mystery around earth’s implacable enemy deepens, the story becomes a ride as fast as an Oppenheimer-powered rocket and you won’t want it to stop. Can’t wait to see what comes next!”
– Sarah J. Daley, author of Obsidian
– Sarah J. Daley, author of Obsidian
