Twenty years following the disappearance of the infamous Ishiguro — the first manned spacecraft to travel deeper into space than ever before — humanity are setting their sights on the heavens once more.
Under the direction of two of the most brilliant minds science has ever seen – that of identical twin brothers Tomas and Mirakel Hyvönen — this space craft has a bold mission: to study what is being called ‘the anomaly’ — a vast blackness of space into which the Ishiguro disappeared. Between them Tomas (on the ground, guiding the mission from the command centre) and Mira (on the ship, with the rest of the hand-picked crew) are leaving nothing to chance.
But soon these two scientists are to learn that there are some things in space beyond our understanding. As the anomaly begins to test the limits of Mira’s comprehension — and his sanity — will Tomas be able to save his brother from being lost in space too?
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Tomas and Mirakel Hyvönen have had exploration on the brain since they were bairns building backyard spacecraft out of discarded cardboard and handfuls of old wires and hard drives. Now the twins — identical but for a birthmark that sets Tomas apart — are all grown up and about to do for real what they've always dreamed.
When the Lära lifts off, one of the brothers will be on board; the other — the loser of the game they always play to resolve such situations — will man the microphones back at ground control. Their mission, should they choose to accept it — and indeed they do — is to investigate the anomaly Cormac Easton and the crew of the ill-fated Ishiguro stumbled into some twenty-three years ago.
In that time technology has obviously evolved... as has the anomaly this quartet revolves around; astronomers can now see it quite clearly, because of course it's grown closer. But the enterprising twins bring a crucial difference of opinion to the table too: a sense of scientific efficiency that the missing ship lacked.
When the Lära lifts off, one of the brothers will be on board; the other — the loser of the game they always play to resolve such situations — will man the microphones back at ground control. Their mission, should they choose to accept it — and indeed they do — is to investigate the anomaly Cormac Easton and the crew of the ill-fated Ishiguro stumbled into some twenty-three years ago.
In that time technology has obviously evolved... as has the anomaly this quartet revolves around; astronomers can now see it quite clearly, because of course it's grown closer. But the enterprising twins bring a crucial difference of opinion to the table too: a sense of scientific efficiency that the missing ship lacked.
Everything they did was wrong. I can pick holes. They launched from Earth, even though it made no sense, even back then. They spent money on automated systems because they believed they would add efficiency. They were wrong, as proven by their disappearance. They spent billions developing ridiculous gravity systems, something that the Russians prototyped back in the previous decade concerning gravitomagnetism. Any why? So that they could rest! So that they could feel the sensation of a ground beneath their feet! They took a journalist with them, because they spun their mission into something commercial, something outside science. They too a man who didn't serve a purpose with them on a mission that could have meant something. What did that cost them, that folly? They played everything badly, a product of moneymen rather than scientific design. It drove Tomas and myself insane. And when they went missing, the balloon deflated overnight. No more space travel. There is nothing new out there to find, and no glory to be garnered from dying in the cold expanse of space as they surely did. (pp.6-7)There is, though... if not the glory of a great story then indubitably discovery. Thus the Lära launches, with our protagonist Mirakel — Mira to you and me — in charge of a complement of six scientists as luckless, ultimately, as the last lot.
