Spaceman of Bohemia
NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX FILM
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX FILM STARRING ADAM SANDLER AND CAREY MULLIGAN
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD FOR SCIENCE FICTION
'An incredible experience . . . unforgettable'
Lisa McInerney, author of The Glorious Heresies
'Dizzyingly inventive'
TLS
'An excellent debut'
The Times
'Booming with vitality and originality'
New York Times
Set in the near-distant future, Spaceman follows a Czech astronaut as he launches into space to investigate a mysterious dust cloud covering Venus, a suicide mission sponsored by a proud nation. Suddenly a world celebrity, Jakub's marriage starts to fail as the weeks go by, and his sanity comes into question. After his mission is derailed he must make a violent decision that will force him to come to terms with his family's dark political past.
An extraordinary vision of the endless human capacity to persist-and risk everything-in the name of love and home, by a startlingly talented young debut novelist.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A Czech astronaut travels to an interstellar dust cloud in an attempt to redeem his family name in this wonderfully jubilant and touching debut novel. Beginning with the launch of the spaceship JanHus1, the novel promptly flashes back to explore the complex motivations of the titular spaceman, Jakub Prochazka. The son of a Communist sympathizer who tortured dissidents, Jakub chooses to leave his beloved homeland and wife, Lenka, to bring renown to the oft-overlooked Czech Republic. Once in space, Jakub encounters a possibly hallucinated alien spider named Hanus, who interrogates him on philosophies both existential and personal. Through their conversations, Jakub is forced to confront Lenka's new, seemingly happier life without him, as well as the ghosts of his father's violent past. Their debates come to a head in the dust cloud Chopra, where Jakub must risk his mission, earthbound life, and contact with Hanus. Written in an erudite comic style, the novel boldly switches tones like a spacesuit built for multiple planetary atmospheres: from the historical to the domestic, from out-of-this-world fables to brutal terrestrial reality.
