Peter Nevsky and the True Story of the Russian Moon Landing

by John Calvin Batchelor

"John Calvin Batchelor's Peter Nevsky and the True Story of the Russian Moon Landing is a triumphant return to the epic grandeur of his earlier novels The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica and American Falls. Eight years in the making and based on long-rumored accounts of a Soviet manned mission to the moon launched prior to Apollo II, it takes on nothing less than the titanic contest of the Cold War, the never-to-be-repeated heroics of the sixties' space race, and the hopelessly tragic history of the Soviet Union." "Peter is an orphan, the only son of Apollon Nevsky, the greatest air ace of the Second World War. As he begins his story, it is 1968, the eve of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. It is also the homestretch of the moon race, and Peter is freshly arrived at Starry Town (Russia's Houston Manned Space Center), a cosmonaut candidate who dreams of claiming the glowing white orb of the moon for Mother Russia. Exuberant, patriotic, loyal, he is nonetheless haunted