BadAsstronauts, Grady Hendrix
BadAsstronauts, Grady Hendrix
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BadAsstronauts

Author: Grady Hendrix

Narrator: Ezra Buzzington

Unabridged: 3 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 04/19/2022


Synopsis

From New York Times bestselling author of My Best Friend's Exorcism, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, and The Final Girl Support Group, Grady Hendrix takes a break from horror and goes all-in on sci-fi in this novella about backyard rocket jockeys trying to get into low earth orbit.

Melville, South Carolina was out of money, it was out of jobs, it was out of hope, and today it was out of astronauts. There were only two to begin with, and now one is stuck on the abandoned International Space Station after his mission went south. With NASA’s budget cut to the bone, there’s no one to bring him back home, so everyone is only too happy to ignore this embarrassing sign of American Failure and just let him die. But his cousin, Walter Reddie, isn’t going to let that happen.

Tanked on vodka, living on a “farm” whose only crop is cars on cinderblocks, Walter's a wash-out from the Shuttle Program and he’ll be damned if he’s going to let his cousin die in the sky like a dog. And so he begins to build a rocket. If America won’t rescue its astronauts, he’ll do it himself.

Violating numerous laws, good taste, common sense, logic, and reason, Walter becomes a lightning rod for people who aren’t ready to give up. His farm is transformed into the promised land for misfits, drifters, rocket junkies, pyromaniacs, dreamers, science nerds, and astro-hippies who believe that space shouldn’t just be for billionaires. But it won’t be easy. Chances are good they’ll blow themselves up, get arrested, or kill each other before they ever get into orbit.

About Grady Hendrix

Grady Hendrix is a novelist and screenwriter based in New York City. He is the Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Paperbacks from Hell, and the Shirley Jackson and Locus Award nominated author of Horrorstör, My Best Friend’s Exorcism, and We Sold Our Souls, which have received critical praise from such outlets as NPR, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, the A.V. Club, Paste, Buzzfeed, and more. He has contributed to Playboy, The Village Voice, and Variety.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Trish on May 27, 2024

I got this story purely because I enjoyed this author's works so much in the past - and didn't regret it. Welcome to ... backwater country. We're somewhere in the US, in a typical redneck area where there is about as much unemployment as there is alcoholism and white trash. In this charming environmen......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer on May 18, 2022

Not horror but an engaging read just the same. "Redneck NASA" is all you need to know!......more

Goodreads review by Zacks on July 13, 2022

4.5* I didn't even know Grady Hendrix had a novella like this until Danielle ordered it for me. I really liked this, totally different from his other books. He's one of my favorite authors of all time and this novella made me even more excited for his next book.......more

Goodreads review by Dan on May 10, 2022

Redneck NASA (Hendrix’s term, not mine). There you have it. An elevator pitch in two words. Think The Martian by way of Jeff Foxworthy, and you’ve got Badasstronauts. Sold? I certainly was. It’s far-fetched, but it’s so incredibly fun (and funny!). Hendrix is my go-to for palate cleansers, and as us......more

Goodreads review by Craig on July 28, 2024

This was a lot of fun! It's a kind of weird short novel about Redneck NASA and their vessel Space Jesus, the kind of thing that I can imagine Allen Steele maybe having written his senior year of high school after a long weekend party. There's no supernatural or horror element; it's a good old-fashio......more