“The Last Astronaut” by David Wellington (2019)

“It’s a grand old flag, it’s a high-flying flag…”

Escapism remains the key reason I read, and sometimes you’ve just got to head off the planet altogether.

In the 2030s, Sally Jansen was the darling of the new space race. Heading off into the blackness of space to be the first person on Mars, there was no one who didn’t know her name. But then something dreadful happened. The expedition went wrong, they never made it to the Red Planet, and after China got there first, interest in the planets bega...