Firestar

It is the dawn of the twenty-first century, and America is in trouble. Public schools breed apathy and ignorance, and politics has become the art of the quick fix. There is one woman, though, who has both the vision and the money to leverage change. Mariesa Gorley van Huyten, heiress to one of the great American fortunes, founds an educational subsidiary called Mentor Academies and begins to subcontract public school systems in order to raise a new, less cynical generation. But her clandestine program is much larger than that: it also includes the founding of a private space program, the eventual construction of an orbital power station, and the revival of technological innovation on Earth. Firestar is a chronicle of private enterprise and individual initiative-the story of one woman's quest that becomes the focus for a whole new world. Mariesa's program lets teachers strive to teach, hires astronauts who have no government space program to fly for, and provides productive outlets for the idealistic desires of the rich and powerful-at least those who remain sane enough to have such desires in the face of a crumbling America. And it just might work.

Michael Flynn opened his saga of near-future technology and space exploration with Firestar, in which he introduced a set of characters orbiting around one powerful and determined woman: Mariesa van Huyten, who is obsessed with the need to get humanity back into space and to save Earth from disaster. In Rogue Star, van Huyten's struggles continue. Three astronauts are headed out beyond Mars on the first human trip to the asteroid belt. In orbit around Earth, a construction crew is building the first permanent space station, owned by van Huyten's consortium. Meanwhile, the president of the United States is trying to force her into making a secret deal to put weapons in orbit so he can intervene in the ongoing wars. Van Huyten's plan is in place-and some people will kill to stop it.

In the early years of the twenty-first century, humans have advanced step by slow step into space. Constantly monitoring the heavens, they have discovered that certain asteroids have changed their orbits-and are on a collision course with Earth. Urgent action is required, but politics and a worldwide financial crash are getting in the way. To save humanity from disaster, two of Earth's prominent families, a host of political movers and shakers, and dedicated pilots and space travelers of all stripes must band together. From the government offices and factories of Earth, to the low Earth orbit station, to manufacturing facilities on the moon, all spacefaring humanity is united in an epic effort to save the planet from certain destruction and a new Dark Age-or perhaps even the extinction of all life on Earth.