This edge-of-your-seat thriller marks Colonel Chris Hadfield’s third fiction book in his Apollo Murders series.

It’s Houston in 1975. A new Apollo mission launches into orbit, on course to dock with a Russian Soyuz craft: three NASA astronauts and three cosmonauts, joining to celebrate a new dawn of Soviet-American cooperation. But as NASA Flight Controller Kaz Zemeckis listens in from Earth, a deadly accident changes everything.

Meanwhile, from a remote location in East Asia, the first Chinese spacecraft secretly launches. On board is China’s first astronaut, Fang Guojun, whose mission puts him on a collision course with the Apollo crew. As Kaz races against an enemy on the ground and for answers beyond the sky, the safety of the remaining crew hangs in the balance.

Full of intrigue and real history — including the fascinating story of Professor Tsien Hsue-shen, the “Father of Chinese Rocketry” and founder of China’s space program — Final Orbit accelerates to a thrilling conclusion that captures the beauty and terror of space travel as could only be written by one of the most experienced astronauts alive.

In Terry O’Reilly’s bestselling book, My Best Mistake, he uncovered the surprising power of screwing up. Now, in his new book, he turns his incredible eye to the mavericks who go “against the grain” to see what makes them tick and to explore what lessons we can learn from them.

The mavericks are people who chose to ignore conventional wisdom, found or invented a better way, questioned the status quo at great sacrifice, and/or pushed for change against all odds.

Some were drummed out of their careers for it but in the end were proven right (Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis). Some were celebrated but had to fight every inch of the way (Norman Lear). Some re-invented their industry but preferred to stay an outsider (Tom Laughlin — aka Billy Jack). Some confounded their competitors with ingenious strategies (NHL coach Roger Neilson). One even saved millions of people around the world, but was humiliated, demoted, and dismissed for her entire career (Dr. Katalin Karikó — co-creator of the COVID vaccine). All persistent visionaries, each covered in battle scars.

From the founder of Wikipedia, co-written with award-winning journalist Dan Gardner, comes a sweeping reflection on the global crisis of credibility and knowledge. It explores “the rules of trust” that transformed Wikipedia from a scrappy experiment into a global utility used by billions of people — and how those rules can help others build things that last.

From the beginning, people predicted Wikipedia’s demise. Instead, this global experiment has become part of the fabric of modern, connected life. Long before it became the biggest collection of knowledge in the history of the world though, Wikipedia had to overcome its greatest challenge: getting strangers on the Internet to trust each other.

Trust, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales says, is a treasure. But it is not inanimate, like gold or gems. Trust is a living thing that can and must be cultivated. This book will show readers how this organization, a one-time punchline, became a global authority in the same two decades when the public’s trust in everything else has trended backwards.