• Author
Interview

Gary Tigerman's debut science fiction novel, THE ORION PROTOCOL, is
so good it should come with hot buttered popcorn.

THE ORION PROTOCOL is everything a science fiction novel should be
and thensome. Tigerman's main characters, former Apollo astronauts
Commander Jake Deaver and Colonel Augie Blake, nearly 30 years
after NASA's final voyage to the Moon in 1973, have kept silent
about their findings until journalist Angela Browning receives a
mysterious computer disk from an anonymous source.

The disk reveals images of Mars believed to be taken from the Mars
Observer, an actual spacecraft sent to explore the surface of the
Red Planet in 1992. While NASA reported that the spacecraft, manned
by scientists at Kennedy Space Center, was lost due to an
explosion, Tigerman's book sheds new light on the possibility of a
conspiracy by the U.S. government concerning the real story behind
the lost orbital.

This fascinating novel isn't just about unrevealed findings on the
Moon or top secret images taken from Mars; it is also the unveiling
of Project Orion, a supposed space defense system posing as an
innocuous satellite. The book speaks volumes to conspiracy
theorists in terms of America's efforts from the start of NASA to
do whatever it takes to shed from the public the possibility of
extraterrestrial life forms inhabiting other planets, namely the
Moon or Mars.

As far back as the Eisenhower administration in 1958, at the dawn
of NASA, the Brookings Report, a blue-ribbon study approved by
Congress and authored by Margaret Meade, stated that any type of
extraterrestrial intelligence could impose chaos to the American
public. At the end of the novel, Tigerman includes a note from the
author about his subsequent factual findings during his research
that keeps the conspiracy wheels churning.

Furthermore, THE ORION PROTOCOL touches on the subject of a free
press in America and how the press has to fight like dogs to get
the truth from the federal government as portrayed by Browning's
character. The author, a screenwriter living in Los Angeles, also
does a remarkable job with the dialogue --- particularly near the
novel's gripping and powerful end --- making this tale the ultimate
white-knuckle thriller.