Preview of Peril

The Second Martian War has reached a breaking point. Earth forces are stretched thin, supply lines faltering, and the Terran Space Force faces a crushing defeat. Commodore Clare Hartnett commands a destroyer tasked with an impossible mission: hold the line against an overwhelming Martian armada while civilian transports evacuate the outer colonies. Every tactical decision carries weight. Every ship lost is a world unguarded. Coppel writes with the stripped-down intensity of wartime dispatches. The prose has no excess, no padding. This is combat fiction transposed to the void: crews suffocating in failing hulls, commanders weighing sacrifice against surrender, the terrible arithmetic of limited resources against infinite danger. The novel captures what golden age SF did best: taking the anxieties of its moment and projecting them onto a cosmic canvas. The Cold War chill, the fear of escalation, the burden of command all find their expression in these interplanetary battles. For readers who want their science fiction lean, loud, and utterly without sentimentality. It moves fast and hits hard.