by Paul Mount

For the first eighty or so pages, John Shirley’s Suborbital 7 reads worryingly like a novelisation of one of those ropey 1980s straight-to-DVD action thrillers (usually starring Steven Segal or Dolph Lundgren) with titles like Ultimate Power or Hostile Vengeance or Hard Bastard Mission 3. It’s all relentless machismo, fightin’ talk, blazing guns and merciless killing populated by an initially-faceless roll call of characters and peppered with bewildering acronyms and largely-unnecessary intricate aeronautical detail. Mercifully though, once the book has delivered its big action set piece, it settles into its actual story and becomes a taut, claustrophobic space survival story set against a disturbingly-plausible deteriorating geo-political backdrop.

In the near future, a bunch of tough-as-nails Rangers, including Lieutenant Art Burkett, travels to an occupied monastery in Moldova aboard a high-tech suborbital vehicle (the titular Suborbital 7) to rescue a trio of top scientists kidnapped by the Thieves In Law terrorist group. The mission is largely a success, but as the ship leaves the scene, it’s attacked by a missile launched from Russia. Suborbital 7 is stranded at the edge of space, running out of fuel and oxygen and with its operating systems compromised. Tensions rise, loyalties are tested, and the ship soon finds itself caught up in a bitter game of cat-and-mouse between two jittery superpowers with their fingers on the trigger.

Suborbital 7 is initially a slightly stodgy read, its stiff militarism somewhat cold and unappealing, but it soon develops into a gripping incident-packed page-turner as the situation aboard the crippled ‘orbcraft’ becomes increasingly desperate and the “on the ground” espionage and political posturing provide some welcome relief from the stifling, often bloody, confines of the stricken vessel. Characterisation is fairly paper-thin – Burkett’s troubled domestic situation on Earth (his wife is tired of his dangerous lifestyle and is at the point of leaving him) is trite and perfunctory, and the rest of the ship’s crew are likeable enough if painted in broad strokes. But this is really a book about action and edge-of-the-seat suspense, and fans of tech-heavy sci-fi lite survival stories will enjoy this shamelessly gung-ho near-space adventure.

Suborbital 7 is available now from Titan Books.