Infinite Blues

Book excerpt: June, 1968. An air force astronaut flies to an orbiting observation platform for a forty-day stint spying on the Soviet Union from space—and discovers a plot that will determine the fate of the world. The fourth book in the Altered Space series, Infinite Blues imagines a militarized Space Race in a Cold War that never was, with America trying to find its way back to normalcy after the MacArthur presidency, and warily watching as Beria’s Soviet Union builds the ballistic missiles that threaten to destroy it on a half-hour’s notice. A thoroughly researched thriller full of political paranoia and imaginative intrigue, it’s also a look at today’s America through the lens of an alternate past, as well as a literary examination of observation and participation, individualism and collectivism, the ideas and attitudes that hold our country together—and the ones that might send it careening towards catastrophe. 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 ensō of words in which orbits of spacecraft, moons, planets, and people allow us fresh perspectives on the cycles of our own lives.