The moon is famously cold. But its temperatures are not as frigid as that terrible sensation in the hearts of astronauts Charles Shepherd and Gary Lucas when their Starlight lunar lander’s ascent engine thruster refuses to ignite. No engineer down at the Manned Spacecraft Center can discern or fix the problem. That spells certain doom for these two explorers of NASA’s Apollo 19 mission—the space program that never got off the ground in our timeline, but did in this alternate history.

Stranded on Earth’s distant satellite, Shepherd and Lucas must face their inevitable deaths from depleted oxygen. They’ve little choice but to attempt seeing their last sights at the Moon’s south pole. What they discover could shake the foundations of science and open their own alternate history that spans space and time.

The late Shane Johnson¹ crafts this 2002 slow-burn tale of discovery, planting its flag in the soil of hard sci-fi and real history before veering off-course into startling directions. Some readers may feel professionally distant from his heroes, whose human faces often seem hard to see behind those tinted helmets. Christian fans, especially, may feel confused by the timey-wimey jumps—that is, until they land upon a seemingly strange world that soon becomes potentially less surprising than the author intended.

Intricate mission details with cameos from history give Ice some hard edges. Yet the story’s human heart burns warm, with a particular focus on Christian evangelism. Shepherd and Lucas explore basic and relevant biblical concepts such as God’s nature and trustworthiness, while on Earth, their wives confront serious grief and the promises of God found in Scripture. By the end, the astronauts’ mission may feel too conveniently resolved, with many biblical explanations to spare. But the journey feels real enough to make even unexplained science more plausible.

Those with ears to hear the 2007 audiobook get a bonus—narrator Cameron Beierle not only sticks the landing with “alien” language, but provides sterling vocal impressions of President Richard M. Nixon and CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite.

Best for: Adult readers, especially men; hard sci-fi fans who don’t mind overt discussions of Christian faith and speculations about biblical history.

Discern: Space-exploration peril, some existential dread, grief and other relational stress after the presumed deaths of two good husbands, no vulgar words, but plenty of Old Testament–level violence and attempted assaults.