EGGS IN TWO BASKETS

An asteroid creates a deadly dilemma for the president of the United States in this SF novella.

It’s 2050, and a massive asteroid called Camulos is headed for Earth. The nondescript Maj. Kristin Orsted and her fellow NASA Space Force pilots race to destroy it before impact. In case that plan doesn’t pan out, U.S. President John Sanders—descendant of a “long respected political family hailing from Vermont”—has unleashed a “planned pandemic” (a new coronavirus called “COVID-50”) on the world. While Dr. Tony Cifau tallies deaths and works on a vaccine, the National Security Agency uses phones, tablets, and smart TVs to see which citizens follow social distancing guidelines. The feds then zero in on people with skill sets and “genetic make-up” deemed beneficial to the survival of human species. It’s all part of a plan to get 1,000 “highly educated, highly skilled, cross-functional, and obedient” Americans aboard a shuttle to Mars. Those who can’t “follow orders” or “wear...a simple mask” are automatically struck from the passenger list, meaning that they’ll perish if the asteroid hits. Baird’s prose is sturdy and his plot, ambitious. However, the plan raises ethical and moral questions that aren’t well explored. Not one character picks up on the elitism at play, and President Sanders does little more than mope around the Oval Office. The work is also often weighed down by SF jargon—not related to new planets or alien languages (as in Star Wars, which Baird references multiple times) but boring back and forth between Orsted and mission control about meganewtons, calculations, and fuel capacities. Characters are vaguely sketched and seem less like real people than they do pawns for the plot. Notably, the book’s descriptions of COVID-50’s gruesome symptoms and the frustrations of lockdown feel too raw. There may come a time for quarantine lit, but many readers will feel that that time is still in the future.

An ill-timed and awkwardly executed novella.