Publishers Weekly
02/22/2021
Film director Walker (Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima) marks the 60th anniversary of the first manned space flight in April 1961 with this vivid account of the Cold War–era space race. Jumping back and forth between developments in the U.S. and the Soviet Union, Walker captures the uncertainty and tension of early test flights that sent stray dogs, a chimpanzee, and a mannequin named Ivan into space, and details covert intelligence-gathering operations, including a CIA mission to “kidnap” a key part of the Soviet R-7 rocket from an exhibition in Mexico City. The book’s centerpiece is a dramatic, minute-by-minute account of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s ascent into orbit and near-catastrophic return to Earth (a faulty valve delayed his engine compartment from separating at the designated moment, threatening to destroy his capsule upon reentry into the atmosphere). Walker draws on archival records, memoirs, and interviews with family members to profile key players in the space race, including U.S. astronaut Alan Shepard (who reached space 23 days after Gagarin) and Russian rocket engineer Sergei Korolev, who was “removed from all public discourse” after 1957 in order to protect the secrecy of the Soviet missile program. This entertaining and carefully researched history achieves liftoff. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
Dramatic and dynamic. Stephen Walker’s passion for his subject along with his exceptional research and attention to detail have brought my father’s extraordinary journey vividly to life.” — Elena Gagarina, daughter of Yuri Gagarin
“A spellbinding and completely authoritative account of Gagarin’s unexpected journey to immortality, this masterful book had me enthralled from the outset. A guaranteed gem.” — Colin Burgess, author of Freedom 7: The Historic Flight of Alan B. Shepard
“Exciting, well researched, and fascinating. I loved every word.” — Laura Shepard Churchley, daughter of Alan Shepard, America's first astronaut
“Beyond brings to life the space race and the extraordinary story of Yuri Gagarin. Using first-hand testimony, Walker evokes the personalities, the science and the atmosphere of the time in a history that reads like a thriller." — Anne Applebaum, author of Twilight of Democracy
“Vivid. . . .Dramatic. . . .This entertaining and carefully researched history achieves liftoff.” — Publishers Weekly
“This remarkable account of the 1961 race into space is a thrilling piece of storytelling….It is high definition history: tight, thrilling and beautifully researched.” — Sunday Times (London)
“Energetic history of the first years of the space race, focusing on Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968)… A welcome addition to the literature of space exploration.” — Kirkus Reviews
“A thrilling account of the first manned space flight…A great introduction to the gripping tale of Gagarin’s flight and its impact on space exploration history.” — Library Journal
"A fine tale...told with verve and suspense...A cliffhanger." — Wall Street Journal
"Scintillating...The thrilling ride to be the first man in space is vividly captured here." — Financial Times
Elena Gagarina
Dramatic and dynamic. Stephen Walker’s passion for his subject along with his exceptional research and attention to detail have brought my father’s extraordinary journey vividly to life.”
Sunday Times (London)
This remarkable account of the 1961 race into space is a thrilling piece of storytelling….It is high definition history: tight, thrilling and beautifully researched.”
Financial Times
"Scintillating...The thrilling ride to be the first man in space is vividly captured here."
Wall Street Journal
"A fine tale...told with verve and suspense...A cliffhanger."
Laura Shepard Churchley
Exciting, well researched, and fascinating. I loved every word.
Anne Applebaum
Beyond brings to life the space race and the extraordinary story of Yuri Gagarin. Using first-hand testimony, Walker evokes the personalities, the science and the atmosphere of the time in a history that reads like a thriller."
Colin Burgess
A spellbinding and completely authoritative account of Gagarin’s unexpected journey to immortality, this masterful book had me enthralled from the outset. A guaranteed gem.
Financial Times
"Scintillating...The thrilling ride to be the first man in space is vividly captured here."
Wall Street Journal
"A fine tale...told with verve and suspense...A cliffhanger."
Colin Thubron
Beyond has the exhilaration of a fine thriller, but it is vividly embedded in the historic tensions of the Cold War, and peopled by men and women brought sympathetically, and sometimes tragically, to life.
Asif Siddiqi
"A wonderfully rendered story of an epochal event."
Inside Outer Space
an incredible account…well-written…extraordinary…
Mark Bostridge
Stephen Walker sends us on an exhilarating journey into space. His book is a dramatic tour de force. Exciting, vivid, and at times deeply moving, it also makes a significant contribution to our understanding of early space travel.”
Booklist
Those fascinated by space exploration as well as its geopolitical importance in the last half of the twentieth century will find themselves engrossed in this detailed history."
Prof. Asif Siddiqi
The very best account of Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering space mission — vivid, thoughtful, and respectful of the characters in the story. A wonderfully rendered story of an epochal event."
Library Journal
04/01/2021
The Cold War was filled with anxiety and fear, but it also led to milestones in space exploration that were prompted by fierce competition between the USSR and the U.S. Walker provides a thrilling account of the first manned space flight, which began in total secrecy, concealed from the U.S. by the Iron Curtain. Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, a young Russian fighter pilot, became part of the Vanguard Six group of cosmonauts, and was soon thrust into fame as the first human to reach orbit. Gagarin was strapped into a tiny capsule the weight of a five-megaton nuclear bomb, where he had to suppress terrors of the mind that included panic attacks and claustrophobia. No one was sure what would happen to humans in space, or whether they could survive the massive thrust forces of a rocket launch. The United States was planning a similar launch into space, but whichever superpower completed this mission first would "score a massive technological, political, and ideological victory over the other." Walker, a film director, draws on extensive original research and takes readers behind the scenes of one of humanity's greatest adventures. VERDICT A great introduction to the gripping tale of Gagarin's flight and its impact on space exploration history.—Gary Medina, El Camino Coll., Torrance, CA
JUNE 2021 - AudioFile
In this riveting production, Stephen Walker's accessible scholarship illuminates Soviet Union cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s groundbreaking 1961 Earth orbit. Narrator David Rintoul’s pleasant baritone is the perfect companion to this revelatory slice of history. He seamlessly shifts between the aeronautic developments of competing nations to the launch of the first person into space. Light accents supplement nuanced characterizations of competing Soviet and American politicians, as well as Mercury 7 astronauts and Vanguard 6 cosmonauts. Sober honesty underscores the costs of their lauded accomplishments, as well. Given the Soviet Union’s intense secrecy, many interviews woven into this narrative add fresh perspectives. The maelstrom of emotions surrounding the momentous event vibrates off the page as Rintoul draws closer to Gagarin’s launch. A must-listen for all Space Age enthusiasts. J.R.T. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
JUNE 2021 - AudioFile
In this riveting production, Stephen Walker's accessible scholarship illuminates Soviet Union cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s groundbreaking 1961 Earth orbit. Narrator David Rintoul’s pleasant baritone is the perfect companion to this revelatory slice of history. He seamlessly shifts between the aeronautic developments of competing nations to the launch of the first person into space. Light accents supplement nuanced characterizations of competing Soviet and American politicians, as well as Mercury 7 astronauts and Vanguard 6 cosmonauts. Sober honesty underscores the costs of their lauded accomplishments, as well. Given the Soviet Union’s intense secrecy, many interviews woven into this narrative add fresh perspectives. The maelstrom of emotions surrounding the momentous event vibrates off the page as Rintoul draws closer to Gagarin’s launch. A must-listen for all Space Age enthusiasts. J.R.T. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2021-03-30
Energetic history of the first years of the space race, focusing on Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968).
Partly because they were late coming to the atomic bomb, the Soviets were determined not to lose ground in the space race. Consequently, writes popular historian and documentary director Walker, the ministry of defense requisitioned ground “four times the size of Greater London,” at first called Leninsky, where engineers developed the largest rocket in the world. Several rockets had exploded before they got one into space containing two dogs, proof that living things could survive the experience. Soon it was pilot hero Gagarin’s turn. Chosen from a huge group of candidates steadily winnowed down to six—we know this, Walker writes, thanks to a diary a high official in the program surreptitiously kept—Gagarin had strong competition with a fighter pilot named Pavel Popovich, who was ruled out because he was Ukrainian. “Even as the Soviet Union’s propagandists paid lip service to the socialist ideals of ethnic equality,” notes Walker, “Popovich’s origin was a handicap.” Though not the first historian to recount the Soviet Vostok program and its successors, the author does good work in contrasting it in detail with the American astronaut program (John Glenn would orbit the planet less than a year after Gagarin). Of particular interest is Walker’s investigation of the origins of the American determination to be the first to land on the moon, driven by John Kennedy’s bitter recognition of America’s defeat; he asked advisers, “Can we leapfrog them? Is there any place we can catch them? What can we do?” The answer was Apollo, a “distant and uncertain adventure that Kennedy himself had effectively quashed in the latest round of NASA’s budget cuts.” On the human front, Walker’s depiction of Gagarin’s succumbing to the “rock star” syndrome after his orbit, a feat he would never again match, is especially affecting.
A welcome addition to the literature of space exploration, shedding light on the Soviet contribution.
