In Project Mercury, a lively and tense near-future science fiction novel, teens Ike Pressure and Eesha Webb are determined to unearth the truth about the secretive history of the Mercury Army Base they call home.
Thirteen-year-old Ike is a military brat who lives with his parents in Nevada on a remote military installment that once housed a nuclear bomb test site and is located a short distance away from Area 51. Ike knows what his dad's job is--military recruiter--but his mom is a "US Army Specialist" and what her job really entails is anyone's guess. While unpacking boxes in the basement of his new home, Ike discovers an old shortwave radio that sends cryptic messages over the staticky airwaves. At the same time, his parent-appointed "best friend," Eesha, arrives at Mercury interested in the base's clandestine history. Despite the Black teens' general disinterest in each other, they bond over the hush-hush history of their new home. Ike and Eesha begin working together to decipher the mysterious transmissions, hoping to uncover the truth about Mercury Base and the aliens that allegedly inhabit it.
Project Mercury is a gratifying and gripping work of science fiction from Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award-winning author Ronald L. Smith (The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away) that offers a vision of a future in which humankind has largely steered away from the evils of systemic racism, environmental degradation, and a hawkish desire for constant warfare. Ike's and Eesha's dual narrations are welcoming and accessible and give readers extreme doses of intrigue and action. --Cade Williams, freelance book reviewer