It snuck up on me. I began thinking I was reading something diverting, began to worry that it might be mewling, and finished believing I had read something important. In this mix of "hard" astronautics, family drama and, political maneuvering, Kluger manages to paint a picture of social media working at its best, in a time when it always seems to be at its worst. Does that make it a fantasy? Maybe. But we might more generously call it an aspiration. ( )

Jeffrey Kluger covers the NASA beat for Time Magazine and wrote the book that Ron Howard adapted for his Apollo 13 movie. So, he is well qualified to write a thriller set on the International Space Station, and Holdout has the virtues that match his credentials. It tells the story of Walli Beckwith, a Navy pilot and astronaut whose nickname honors astronaut Wally Schirra. When a Progress cargo ship hits the station, badly injuring one of the crew, NASA and Moscow order the station abandoned. Beckwith refuses to go, quoting Herman Melville’s line, “I prefer not to.” We soon learn that her refusal is a device to draw attention to the forcible relocation of tribal people from the Amazonian rainforest. The scenes on the space station and in the various space agencies are detailed and gripping. We root for Walli all the way. The scenes set in the rainforest do not come to life quite as well. Near the end, the melodramatic elements of the plot get a bit out of hand, but there is no denying its chills and thrills. 4 stars. ( )

A good gripping tale with great characters and a fairly fast pace story line. Loved some of the nerd stuff (technical details). Can't say enough good stuff about the book. Ignore the fact that it is a sci-fi book, this is not your grandmother;s or grandfather's science fiction. ( )

Coming in, I really wanted to like this book. But ultimately, this reminded me a lot of Charles Wheelan's "The Rationing." A nonfiction author attempts to write a science-based piece of fiction, and completely fails. The plot makes no sense, the characters are completely flat, there appears to have been no effort to go back and rewrite around the problems that arose in the first draft. ( )

Jeffrey Kluger’s Holdout: A Novel tells the story of Belka “Walli” Beckwith, an astronaut who elects to remain on the International Space Station rather than evacuate after an emergency. She does so in order to use it as a platform to highlight atrocities occurring in Brazil, where the president has begun burning land in the Amazon rainforest and rounding up tribespeople in order to collect the land for his own businesses. Walli’s niece, Sonia, works as a physician in the region and so Walli knows that she must use her unique position to stir up sentiment for an intervention that can stop the ethnic cleansing. Kluger’s work combines scientific realism with high drama and a sense of verisimilitude as he changes characters and institutions just enough from their real-world inspirations to keep the story in the realm of fiction while still feeling familiar to readers. Kluger previously worked with Jim Lovell on Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, which Ron Howard adapted in his 1995 film. This book reflects that sense of optimism, with hard work and belief in a cause helping to accomplish a noble goal. ( )