Book Review: The Last Astronaut by David Wellington

The Last Astronaut by David Wellington

Paperback, 400 pages

Published July 2019 by Orbit

This is only the second Wellington novel I read. I enjoyed Positive which I thought was pretty fresh as a Zombie novel can be at this point. That was almost four years ago and I told myself I was going to read more from the author but it wasn't till I saw this book on the shelf at the library that I did. I didn't read the back cover I went into it about as cold as I could. I knew generally that it was Science Fiction of course and assuming that Wellington was a horror guy I expected the book to go in that direction.

It is hard to talk about what I like about this book without getting into spoilers from late in the narrative. The Last Astronaut is going for a Gravity meets horror kinda thing but I don't want to be reductive about the things that I think are very creative and original. It is also firmly in the sub-genre of big dumb object science fiction most famously done in Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. As an entry in that sub-genre, this novel really goes cool places.

This is an interesting time to have a big dumb object novel as we just had our first in reality object named Oumuamua discovered traveling in and speeding out of our solar system. So give Wellington credit for having the first purely Oumuamua inspired novel that I am aware of. It is also interesting that Wellington is addressing the rise of the private space industry and presents a pretty negative view of the future of NASA - at least as a space flight program. Keep in mind NASA does a lot of other things. As a big space nerd, I really liked that Wellington took all this stuff very seriously and he clearly did his research.

He took liberties with the science a few times but nothing major and I was along for the ride for the most part. This novel is an entertaining cross-genre hybrid that I wasn't sure I was going to like early on. The narrative itself gets stronger as it goes. I thought the early pages felt rushed. The prologue about the Mars mission could have been something that was legendary and off-screen so to speak. It was funny after an entire chapter of building up how impossible and hard the training would be it is skipped over and never mentioned again. That was jarring for me and took me out of the story.

That is OK because the second half was much better and completely won me over. If you want to know nothing and trust me so far here is the part of the review that I am switching to spoilers.

It is the story of Sally Jansen a NASA astronaut whose life is thrown into turmoil when she fails and loses a crew member on an aborted Mars mission. Years later she is given the mission to quickly train and lead a crew to a huge alien object and make contact. All the mission stuff is exciting and suspenseful. All of it is taunt and well written. There are fun interplay and politics involving the government and the private space program.

The twist is well earned and what makes the book. OK, LAST WARNING. The object is not a spacecraft they enter but the body of a giant alien. This reveal is really well done and makes the horror moments really pop. I think the title and subtitle on the cover give a false impression, as this to me is a pure Sci-fi Horror novel. The strength is how the original of a horror concept is at the heart of the final act.

Overall I think this is a four out of five experience, that started off rough and got better. I am glad I read it and will continue to follow Wellington.