The year is 2130. The first-ever expedition is sent to Mercury to search
for the cause of an unknown source of electromagnetic radiation that can
destroy space ships passing by the planet. Thought to be inhospitable
and lifeless, the surface of Mercury provides startling surprises for
the crew that endanger their lives and challenge their established
notions of what it means to be a sentient being. And some of the crew
members have their own separate agendas ...The scientific appendix at
the end of the book introduces readers to the wondrous world of Mercury
and how it has been portrayed in literary fiction up to the present
time. The author then uses scientific literature to present a concept of
life that is not based on carbon chemistry or the need for water. There
is also a discussion of consciousness based on electromagnetic wave
theory. References are provided for further reading.Nick Kanas is an
Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San
Francisco, where he directed the group therapy training program. For
over 20 years he conducted research on group therapy, and for nearly 20
years after that he was the Principal Investigator of NASA-funded
research on astronauts and cosmonauts. He is the co-author of Space
Psychology and Psychiatry, which won the 2004 International Academy of
Astronautics Life Science Book Award, and the author of Humans in
Space: The Psychological Hurdles, which won the 2016 International
Academy of Astronautics Life Science Book Award.
Dr. Kanas has presented talks on space psychology and on celestial
mapping at several regional and Worldcon science fiction conventions. A
Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (London), he has been an
amateur astronomer for over 50 years and is an avid reader of science
fiction. He is also the author of two non-fiction books (Star Maps:
History, Artistry, and Cartography and Solar System Maps: From
Antiquity to the Space Age) and two science fiction novels (The New
Martians and The Protos Mandate), all published by Springer.
