Countdown

September 14, 2015
Cannon (Because of You) mixes high tension and even higher stakes for a tumultuous courtship in this disjointed contemporary. Andrea Finley is NASA’s first female flight director. When a manned mission to the moon goes awry, she calls in Kenner Hutchings, a technological genius with a uniquely free-form way of approaching problems. Sparks fly between the two, but Kenner’s casual manner and blatant sexuality are at odds with Andrea’s rigid routine and tightly controlled life. Their professional relationship is increasingly complicated by personality clashes that hide mutual attraction, with the stress of the emergency at hand putting pressure on every encounter. Cannon struggles to develop the women’s antagonism into a believable relationship; it’s somewhat telling that one of the hottest sex scenes is actually a fantasy, and it takes quite a while before Andrea and Kenner can even converse civilly. Space fans hoping for scientific details will be disappointed; the malfunctioning space shuttle problem is handwaved in favor of emotional exploration and interpersonal drama. Cannon pulls it all together by the end, but readers may not get that far.