My least favorite so far from Michener. I did enjoy the science parts but not so much the fiction parts. It was a real slog to finish. I felt it could have been 200 less and all the better for it. ( )

4/7/22

Here's what I wrote after reading in 1984: "Exploration of space traced from the late days of WWII. Yet, still questions remain unanswered; how did this universe begin? Why? It is the final frontier?" NOTE made in January, 2008 - Still to this day I remember John and Penny Pope driving across the U.S. together and strengthening their relationship. Some day DBA and I will do the same!! ( )

I loved some of Michener's other long books, so I figured this might be a fun read. Well, in fact this is one of the more boring space-oriented novels I've come across. In part, since it was written in the early 80's, and based on research Michener did in the 70's, there was only so much he could write about that would touch space exploration and space science more directly. Still, this novel is really not about space so much as it is a drawn out, poorly paced, jumbled account of 6 early astronauts in NASA's moon landing program, with a bit about how NASA came to be, and a few other related threads, all of which could be so much more interesting than they turn out to be in this novel. In addition, the author's sympathy seems to be with the ultra-conservative characters he describes, making it hard for me, as a modern, female reader, to relate to the characters and their problems. Of course, bow, we have had female astronauts, and we've landed rovers on Mars that send us color photos of the surface daily, and we just had a Pluto flyby with photos. We also have still never landed another person on the moon yet since the program described in this book ended. The reasons why we 'doomed' ourselves to not have another moon landing are brought up in this novel, and there are other interesting themes and ideas throughout this book, but related in a rather mind-numbing manner that allows the reader to feel the ponderousness of this long book, one slow page at a time. It could have been worse, but this is not one of Micheners best books. ( )

Thick and thin... 800 pages thick but thin everywhere else. Michener didn't seem to know when to end the book, despite many opportunities. Still, I was always enthralled with the Apollo program and NASA, so the backdrop adds a star to the rating.

I wonder what Michener would have thought of some of his more disturbing story elements coming true. The country heading backward into the dark ages, science losing to ignorance, NASA becoming inconsequential...sad. ( )