Product Description
by Alastair Mayer (Author)
In this sequel to Alpha Centauri: First Landing and Sawyer's World, The USS Heinlein returns to Earth, hoping to refit, refuel, and return to the Alpha Centauri system within weeks to pick up the stranded crew of the USS Poul Anderson. Things don't work out that way. Commodore Drake faces a court-martial for the apparent loss of not justthe Anderson, but also the Krechet and the Chinese ship, Xing Hua.
The Chinese, meanwhile, have secretly reverse-engineered the Xing Hua and sent their own expedition to Epsilon Eridani, little realizing what awaits them.
But the real surprise is in the biological samples the Heinlein brought back, then smuggled out of the Lunar Quarantine Facility by a biopharmaceutical company looking for any advantage it could get. Ironically, that may be the lever Drake needs to go and rescue the rest of his crew. That is, if they're still alive, and if they want to be rescued.
Author Biography
Alastair Mayer was born in London, England, and moved to Canada with his family as a young boy. He describes his interest in space flight and science fiction as genetic: his father, Douglas W.F. Mayer, had been an early member of the British Interplanetary Society as well as a science fiction fan (who in fact published some of Arthur C. Clarke's first tales in Amateur Science Stories). After attending school in Canada, Alastair became involved in both the L5 Society (now the National Space Society) and computers, publishing articles in Byte, Final Frontier, and other magazines, as well as becoming an accomplished scuba diver and a private pilot. In 1989 he moved to Colorado, where he still lives, and where he works for a satellite network company. His short stories have been published in several anthologies and his work has appeared often enough in Analog Science Fiction magazine to gain him entry to the "Analog MAFIA" (Members Appear Frequently In Analog). Many of his short works can be found in e-book format on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and other e-book vendor sites. Alpha Centauri: The Return is his fifth novel, the conclusion of the prequel trilogy to The Chara Talisman. He is currently working on The Eridani Convergence, a sequel to The Chara Talisman and The Reticuli Deception.
