Astroplaning

ASTROPLANING >"On the sea that's aquaplaning, in the air that's aeroplaning, and on the land, that's terraplaning. But by gum, sport, in outer space - THAT'S ASTROPLANING." Florida, 1943. In a mosquito-infested clearing carved out of the Mosquito Lagoon backcountry, a stubborn, credit-financed rocket man named Jack Daff is building something the U.S. government hasn't authorized, insured, or entirely noticed yet: a spaceship. He's got a crew to match - a laconic metallurgist, a biscuit-baking mad scientist, a disinformation specialist who plants UFO stories in local papers for sport, a seventeen-year-old runaway with an engineer's eye, and at least one alien mechanic doing his best to pass for a Floridian. But the swamp has other visitors. A pair of watchers on a nearby rise are debating whether to sabotage the launch - or simply keep admiring it a little too closely. A telepathic gyroscope is being built in a hospital sub-basement funded by a company that also happens to sell tonics. And somewhere above the frost line, a Council with very patient, very inhuman priorities is counting every month this launch gets delayed as a month closer to their own arrival. Astroplaning is pulp science fiction the way it used to be written - swaggering, conspiratorial, and gleefully unreliable - a swamp-bound space race run by men who believe in rockets, and watched by beings who believe in something else entirely. Equal parts Rocketeer, backwoods tall tale, and Cold War flying-saucer paranoia, it's a novel for anyone who ever wondered what would've happened if the space program had started in a Florida swamp with duct tape, moonshine, and a very determined biscuit chef. Buckle in. It's going to be a bumpy launch.