Rocket Science

Nobody but Jay Lake could combine more Americana than you could ask for in a non-stop adventure better than this.

— James Van Pelt, author of Strangers and Beggars

Rocket Science is an auspicious debut, paying tribute to SF’s golden age without mawkish sentimentality, action-packed without being shallow.

— Locus Magazine

When sharp-but-not-bright Floyd Bellamy returns from the war, Augusta, Kansas, has a parade for him. His polio-crippled best friend, Vernon Dunham, has been home all along, studying aeronautical engineering, learning to fly, then holding a job at Boeing in Wichita and getting Lois to consider him. Now things default to normal: Floyd gets the girls, and Vernon plays pal, though he sometimes wonders why. Sometimes become full-time after he helps Floyd hide a tank and an aircraft (ostensibly bought from some Germans) in the Bellamys’ barn. Vernon won’t regret it, Floyd says, after he sees the plane. For once, Floyd’s right. This is no ordinary flying machine. For one thing, it talks. Unfortunately, others know about it, and Vernon, the aircraft’s new master (he unwittingly found its remote control), becomes most wanted by die-hard Nazi agents, U.S. military intelligence, Reds masquerading as moonshiners, and the Kansas City Mob. Eventually, Vernon has to take off, vertically; this, fortunately, the aircraft, “Pegasus,” can do—fast. Sixty years ago—exactly when it is set—this low-tech (well, except for Pegasus) sf romp, chock-full of surprises, might have made one of the best B movies ever. Nowadays, Hollywood would destroy the situational rather than dialogue-dependent humor, the non-ironic characterizations, the clean talk, and the good manners that Vernon must ruefully flout. This is a real tour-de-force by a top-flight talent.

Ray Olson

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