Having reached the academy, Yeremin soon graduates with flying colours and joins the Red Air Force. Yeremin soon sees that his sole means of salvation is to secure the scholarship for himself: through a combination of ruthlessness (brutally blinding his tormentor) and natural ability, he achieves his goal, and with it access to a privileged elite. Determined to secure this prize by brutalising the competition, the leader of a gang of Yeremin's fellow-orphans bullies and repeatedly rapes him. He finds refuge in an orphanage, only to discover that his troubles have only just begun: the only means of escape from this hell-on-earth is to win the sole scholarship to an aviation academy. The book opens in 1946: following the devastation wrought upon the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War, Yefgenii Yeremin has been left without parents or prospects. Now the theme is taken up by an author somewhat closer to home, Jed Mercurio, writer of the TV dramas Cardiac Arrest and Invasion: Earth. The most prominent recurring story to emerge from behind this fog of deception is 'the Soviets got there first,' an idea which inspired the recent Russian 'documentary-drama' film Pervye na Lune ( First on the Moon, 2005). Soviet cosmonauts remained anonymous until they returned safely to Earth and any accidents along the way (even if they resulted in several hundred deaths) could be discreetly erased from history. The secrecy which surrounded it, in comparison to the blaze of publicity which accompanied the Mercury and Apollo projects, does much to encourage such speculation.

The Soviet space programme has always provided fertile ground for urban myths, conspiracy theories, and tall tales.

Ascent by Jed Mercurio