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.
