When it comes to aeronautics, Commander Christ Hadfield knows what he’s talking about. So, when I read his latest novel, The Defector, I was intrigued by three aspects: First, by the fact that events that he describes in the novel happened much like that on October 7, 2023, though he wrote the novel before then, and it was published on October 10, 2023. Did he predict the future, or was he depicting history repeating itself, as an historian would?
The Defector, by Chris Hadfield (Military Action & Adventure, Action and Suspense, Military Thriller; hardcover; publisher: Random House Canada; Oct. 10, 2023, 368 pages)
Second, I was struck by how things that are seen as insignificant can be the cause of large problems, at how little incidents, and unimportant people, add up to cause huge accidents, one failure at a time. He has written about this in his books about training to be an astronaut, and life on the International Space Station – how endless practices of routines and emergency preparedness are critical, and often detailed to minuscule levels. Third, it occurred to me that his depictions of real politicians are spot-on, for instance, the Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir.
Subject matter expertise required
When listening to podcasts or watching the hundreds of commentating vloggers on YouTube, I often wonder whether they have legs to stand on. Some are professional military or political analysts, or veterans, qualified and experienced to comment on politics and war. Others express their opinions (as statements of fact) when you have no idea what they know, where they get their information from, or what their motivation is. Often, they do not acknowledge or credit their sources, and word what they say as if they had personally produced the video clips that they are showing. I often wonder whether I’m watching a bot or a real person, since many use pseudonyms.
Not so Christ Hadfield. I do not need to repeat his biography. He is an expert on the subjects about which he writes, particularly being a test pilot. If anything, the trick in his writing is to create a balance between fact and fiction. He’s nicknamed a “galactic virtuoso”, and considering his achievements, that’s an appropriate name.
Chris Hadfield working on the Canadarm of the ISS. (Source: chrishadfield.ca)
The novel contains an appendix of the historical persons who feature as characters in the story, as well as a list of technical experts and specialists who advised him. And, one of the two epigraphs states: “Many of these people are real. Much of this actually happened.” But still, this is Fiction, a Military Thriller, and a good example of Realistic Fiction. As such, the balance between realism and imagination had to be maintained. There had to be enough of the latter.
Test pilots, politics and murder
The plot of The Defector is this: In 1973, “Kazimieras ‘Kaz’ Zemeckis”, the one-eyed protagonist of Hadfield’s previous novel, The Apollo Murders, is assigned to watch over a pilot from the USSR who has defected with a Soviet MiG-25 “Foxbat” fighter jet. This is where the realism of the novel kicks in: The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 is a supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft that is among the fastest military aircraft to enter service. This jet was, at the time that it entered service, the most desirable, advanced, and most secret jet fighter in the world.
The Russian Air Force MiG-25 (Image: Wikipedia)
In the novel, the prospect of being able to dismantle, analyze and figure out the workings of an actual MiG-25 is irresistible to the United States and Israeli air forces. The mysterious pilot lands the jet in Israel at the same time as the Yom Kippur War erupts, so the country is on full alert. Historically, this war, from 6 to 25 October 1973, was fought by Israel against a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria.
In the novel, the pilot in the Soviet-marked jet successfully dodges the Israeli radar and air defence systems and puts the jet down at Tel Aviv, to everyone’s consternation. But of course, he wants to defect to America, and the Israeli Air Force needs facilities and staff to handle the disassembly of the jet and the deprogramming of the pilot. So, off to a secure location in the US it is, and that’s where Kaz comes into the story.
An unusually well-timed release
This sounds very current, doesn’t it? The publication date coincides with the anniversary of the outbreak of the current Israel-Hamas war, but Hadfield could not have predicted that it would begin on October 7, 2023, coinciding with the anniversary of the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War. If nothing else, it proves that history repeats itself all the time. The Russian defector is a brilliant and cool test pilot and air force colonel, “Alexander Vasilyevich Abramovich”, called “Alexei”, nicknamed “Grief”. This character is fascinating. The novel opens with his manoeuvres to land the plane in Israeli territory, and from those mysterious moments, the reader is drawn into his background. Is he for real? Why is he doing it? What is his background? Follow the money…who gets what?
“The lesson had been hammered into every Soviet fighter pilot since Ivan Fyodorov had first broken the sound barrier in 1948: when you’re going supersonic , move all controls carefully or bad things will happen. Yet, staring down through the thick curve of his canopy, when he judged that the Israeli missile was as close as it would get, Grief yanked both engines’ throttles all the way back until they hit the IDLE stop. He was instantly thrown forward, and despite the sound-deadening layers of his helmet and earphones, he could hear the repeated, deep bangs of the engines’ compressors stalling in protest.”
The Defector, by Chris Hadfield, p. 29
Clever and exciting plot
Woven into the plot is a sub-plot about a serial killer, the Space Race and Arms Race between the USSR and the USA, and industrial espionage. This novel would make a great movie. Like in any well-constructed mystery, the author has put in small clues and foreshadowings that the reader will simply read over and forget, and that later turn out to be critical. These are the dominoes in the chain of events to which I referred before. I had to go back and find out which tiny clues I had missed. The clues relate to the solving of the mystery as well as to the breathtaking climax of the story. And it really is breathtaking – exciting and very clever, and satisfying.
Highly recommended
With this novel, Chris Hadfield has proved that he is not a one-book-wonder phenomenon. It is proof of his writing skills and creativity. He has the right kind of imagination, experience and knowledge to be able to produce readable, enjoyable stories that also make you think a little bit further. Apart from that, his succinct, clear writing style (devoid of personal affectations) is easy to read and helps the reader work through the technical and scientific descriptions. Even I could understand it – in fact, I could picture the whole thing as I read. I am really looking forward to his next novel which hopefully will feature his likeable protagonist, Kaz, again.
SEVEN CIRCUMSTANCES 
When it comes to aeronautics, Commander Christ Hadfield knows what he’s talking about. So, when I read his latest novel, The Defector, I was intrigued by three aspects: First, by the fact that events that he describes in the novel happened much like that on October 7, 2023, though he wrote the novel before then, and it was published on October 10, 2023. Did he predict the future, or was he depicting history repeating itself, as an historian would?
Second, I was struck by how things that are seen as insignificant can be the cause of large problems, at how little incidents, and unimportant people, add up to cause huge accidents, one failure at a time. He has written about this in his books about training to be an astronaut, and life on the International Space Station – how endless practices of routines and emergency preparedness are critical, and often detailed to minuscule levels. Third, it occurred to me that his depictions of real politicians are spot-on, for instance, the Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir.
Subject matter expertise required
When listening to podcasts or watching the hundreds of commentating vloggers on YouTube, I often wonder whether they have legs to stand on. Some are professional military or political analysts, or veterans, qualified and experienced to comment on politics and war. Others express their opinions (as statements of fact) when you have no idea what they know, where they get their information from, or what their motivation is. Often, they do not acknowledge or credit their sources, and word what they say as if they had personally produced the video clips that they are showing. I often wonder whether I’m watching a bot or a real person, since many use pseudonyms.
Not so Christ Hadfield. I do not need to repeat his biography. He is an expert on the subjects about which he writes, particularly being a test pilot. If anything, the trick in his writing is to create a balance between fact and fiction. He’s nicknamed a “galactic virtuoso”, and considering his achievements, that’s an appropriate name.
The novel contains an appendix of the historical persons who feature as characters in the story, as well as a list of technical experts and specialists who advised him. And, one of the two epigraphs states: “Many of these people are real. Much of this actually happened.” But still, this is Fiction, a Military Thriller, and a good example of Realistic Fiction. As such, the balance between realism and imagination had to be maintained. There had to be enough of the latter.
Test pilots, politics and murder
The plot of The Defector is this: In 1973, “Kazimieras ‘Kaz’ Zemeckis”, the one-eyed protagonist of Hadfield’s previous novel, The Apollo Murders, is assigned to watch over a pilot from the USSR who has defected with a Soviet MiG-25 “Foxbat” fighter jet. This is where the realism of the novel kicks in: The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 is a supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft that is among the fastest military aircraft to enter service. This jet was, at the time that it entered service, the most desirable, advanced, and most secret jet fighter in the world.
In the novel, the prospect of being able to dismantle, analyze and figure out the workings of an actual MiG-25 is irresistible to the United States and Israeli air forces. The mysterious pilot lands the jet in Israel at the same time as the Yom Kippur War erupts, so the country is on full alert. Historically, this war, from 6 to 25 October 1973, was fought by Israel against a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria.
In the novel, the pilot in the Soviet-marked jet successfully dodges the Israeli radar and air defence systems and puts the jet down at Tel Aviv, to everyone’s consternation. But of course, he wants to defect to America, and the Israeli Air Force needs facilities and staff to handle the disassembly of the jet and the deprogramming of the pilot. So, off to a secure location in the US it is, and that’s where Kaz comes into the story.
An unusually well-timed release
This sounds very current, doesn’t it? The publication date coincides with the anniversary of the outbreak of the current Israel-Hamas war, but Hadfield could not have predicted that it would begin on October 7, 2023, coinciding with the anniversary of the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War. If nothing else, it proves that history repeats itself all the time. The Russian defector is a brilliant and cool test pilot and air force colonel, “Alexander Vasilyevich Abramovich”, called “Alexei”, nicknamed “Grief”. This character is fascinating. The novel opens with his manoeuvres to land the plane in Israeli territory, and from those mysterious moments, the reader is drawn into his background. Is he for real? Why is he doing it? What is his background? Follow the money…who gets what?
Clever and exciting plot
Woven into the plot is a sub-plot about a serial killer, the Space Race and Arms Race between the USSR and the USA, and industrial espionage. This novel would make a great movie. Like in any well-constructed mystery, the author has put in small clues and foreshadowings that the reader will simply read over and forget, and that later turn out to be critical. These are the dominoes in the chain of events to which I referred before. I had to go back and find out which tiny clues I had missed. The clues relate to the solving of the mystery as well as to the breathtaking climax of the story. And it really is breathtaking – exciting and very clever, and satisfying.
Highly recommended
With this novel, Chris Hadfield has proved that he is not a one-book-wonder phenomenon. It is proof of his writing skills and creativity. He has the right kind of imagination, experience and knowledge to be able to produce readable, enjoyable stories that also make you think a little bit further. Apart from that, his succinct, clear writing style (devoid of personal affectations) is easy to read and helps the reader work through the technical and scientific descriptions. Even I could understand it – in fact, I could picture the whole thing as I read. I am really looking forward to his next novel which hopefully will feature his likeable protagonist, Kaz, again.
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