172 Hours on the Moon
By Johan Harstad
Little, Brown and Company
Hardcover | Kindle
Released April 17, 2012

Ah finally a creeptastic sci-fi space adventure! Johan Harstad‘s anxiety provoking 172 Minutes on the Moon will make you rethink NASA and all those mysterious moon missions. Did they really find only moon rocks and dusty desolation, or did they find something so incomprehensibly sinister up there that Buzz Aldrin had to chuck his moon boots at it just before closing the lunar module and hightailing it back to earth?

NASA needs money. In order to get that money, they concoct a harebrained scheme to hold a worldwide lottery to select three lucky teenagers to go on the next moon mission. They figure if they hype it right, going to the moon will be bigger and better than going to Disneyland and, thus, be considered worthy of an ample share of government funds.

Millions of teens around the world apply for a coveted spot, one of whom really didn’t want to go, another who couldn’t care less about the mission, and one who signed up with a certain reluctant enthusiasm. What these three winners have in common is that they all wanted to get away from home for a while. Some had plans never to return to their countries of origin. Ironically, none of them were the slightest bit Geek.