Slingshot: Building the largest machine in human history (The Starchild Series)

     Slingshot is a love story - about a man, a woman, another man, another woman, some gender bending...and a machine, the largest ever built. Slingshot is a mystery - about a missing aviatrix, a conspiracy, a true-believer.

     Slingshot is an adventure - about following a dream, the ocean-deep, outer space. Slingshot is about constructing the first space launch-loop stretching 2,600 km between Baker and Jarvis Islands in the Equatorial Pacific. It's about high finance, intrigue, unlimited ambition, heroism, fanaticism, betrayal...and about opening space to the common person. The setting is the day-after-tomorrow. Technology has advanced, the web is more pervasive than ever, but human ambition and greed remain unchanged.

     In Slingshot, Alex Regent, Margo Jackson, and Klaus Blumenfeld reach for the stars as they blend their skills to create the world's first space launch-loop, backed by major software money. Environmental fanatic Lars Watson with his team of young eco-terrorists are funded by opposing financial interests, who will go to any length to halt the project. Reporter Lori Kutcher indiscriminately applies her own personal skills to ensure it is she who reports the unfolding events to a watching world. With a cast of 69, Slingshot takes you from Seattle's world financial district, to the ocean bottom at 5,000 feet off Baker Island, to the edge of space 80 km above. You play with dolphins and battle sharks. You fly and sail and dive, you work and play and love across the vast panorama of an Equatorial Pacific being put to leash to serve humanity's surge into outer space.

     While its accurate science and precise engineering will appeal to hard science-fiction buffs, Slingshot's major focus is the grand journey, the opening of outer space to the common person by men and women who loom larger than life as they work, play, and love.

Real people, accurate science, and high adventure under the ocean, in the air, and in space. This is about the heroic men and women who will take us there, and the villains who try to stop them. Keith Lofstrom Inventor of the Launch Loop Slingshot does for the launch loop what Arthur C. Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise or Sheffield's Web Between the Worlds did for the space elevator. Again Williscroft delivers a great mix of hard science fiction and action. - Alastair Mayer Author of the Tspace Series The engineering triumph portrayed in this book is staggering - an electromagnetic loop 80 kilometers high able to launch spacecraft safely into orbit without rocket fuel. A dedicated team of visionaries overcomes natural hazards and sinister opponents to complete this heroic project. The detail is convincing, and the action is entertaining. John Knapman, PhD Director of Research International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC) Robert Williscroft deftly crafts an energetic story around a phenomenal technological development just over the horizon: the space launch loop. The technical detail woven into this story is an education unto itself. But don't assume that Williscroft chooses raw infodump over story - Slingshot is an adventure that pulls you in, gives you characters that are engaging, and invites you to follow them through their challenges. What Williscroft has done in Slingshot is no easy task - he has balanced the hard aspect of science fiction with the character portrayals that those who despise that very hard science fiction beg for. The last decade has seen impressive leaps in the theoretical work toward the launch loop - this book couldn't come too soon! And you won't be able to keep from reading all the way to the end. Williscroft's art continues to be praise-worthy! - Jason D. Batt - 100 Year Starship Author of The Tales of Dreamside series