A Lifeline to Earth Unravels
Novelist Rainer Granit examines the misuse of power in his delightfully irreverent new
book, Countdown 47, which goes inside an international governmental organization to
explore the results of absurd mismanagement, irrational decision-making, unbridled
greed, and pure ambition. It is also a darkly witty story of one man’s survival and
ultimate enlightenment as he faces the overwhelming forces of avarice and an unfeeling
universe.
Countdown 47 opens at the headquarters of the International Space Organization (ISO),
which appears to be a well-run organization with an important purpose. Beneath the
surface, however, the ISO is a seething cauldron of scheming individuals, representing
member countries, each with its own conflicting interests, plots, and plans. The ISO is led
by Director-General Jordan, a man prone to wild mood swings and grandiose plans. His
mission is to transport mankind to other planets before the Sun depletes its energy and
destroys the Earth.
When we first meet the protagonist, Geoff Kaufmann, he appears to be a lazy, overweight
and unintelligent bureaucrat, despised by his peers at the ISO, and completely
uninterested in all things concerned with space exploration. Suffering from an
impressive array of neuroses and phobias, this desk jockey is an improbable candidate for
the role of astronaut in the ISO’s new mission to Mars. When it is revealed that Kaufman,
who has used his accounting talents to siphon several billion dollars from another space
project, has been chosen for the Mars mission, his colleagues are astonished. Kaufmann
himself is horrified to find that his comfortable career path has been drastically diverted,
and that he has been dragooned to spend an interminable trip trapped inside the tiny
confines of a spaceship bound for the red planet.
Kaufman is joined on the voyage by two other unlikely astronauts: Captain ‘Cowboy’
Owens, a modern-day daredevil of superb physique, always willing to test the limits of
his strength – and his capacity for alcohol; and the alluring Milana, a spy from
Kazakhstan, an adrenaline junkie with whom Kaufman develops a romantic relationship.
The swindler, the alcoholic and the spy now find themselves on a space odyssey in which
surprising turns and events are on the daily agenda.
The unlikely trio develops a bond of mutual trust. As their distance from Earth increases,
so does their paranoia of Outsiders and the ISO in particular …