The Cold War science and technology in Red Corona may seem fantastical, but it’s all real. Or at least based in fact.

The sixties was an intense period of innovation in this arena, driven in equal parts by ambition and paranoia. For several years the Corona programme was the apex of global surveillance, complete with parachutes and giant hooks. And ever-more-sophisticated listening devices were constantly being created by intelligence agencies all over the world, though Pipistrelle and Atlas brings a few major developments in that sphere forward by a few years.

But it wasn’t just the West that was coming up with new ways to spy on people from the stars or through walls. For most of the sixties, the USSR led the space race. Russia even had their own version of Corona called Zenit (codenamed Kosmos), which was only decommissioned in 1994. The Soviet naukograd system of closed cities is also well-documented, and both Kupriyanovich’s mobile phone and the BIOS-3 sealed ecosystem were real.

There’s no proof of any connection between the Corona programme and the Telstar communications satellite. But, as they were developed so close to each other, and represented a step-change evolution of the same technology, it’s compelling to speculate that there might have been a link.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This is an incomplete list of everyone who has helped make this novel a reality.

First and foremost, my thanks go to Chris for being there through thick and thin, and keeping me going through both.

Also to Sian for letting me cannibalise the spare room, and all my friends who forgave me when I dropped off the face of the earth for months and reappeared talking about satellites and parachutes.

To Dan M for his unceasing support and flattery. To Master Ng for my fortune.

To my family for putting up with my obsession with spies and space for so long. And especially my mother, who said there weren’t that many typos in the manuscript, and my father, who said he’d ignore them.

To Gordon Wise for seeing something in this book, or me, or both, that other people might like. And to everyone else at Curtis Brown for their support in making a dream come true.

To Jenny Parrott, whose kind words and sleight of hand helped me get everything that was stuck in my head onto the page. And to the rest of the team at Point Blank and Oneworld for taking a hell of a chance on me.

About the Author

About the Author

Tim Glister is a creative director at an advertising agency. He’s worked for a range of global brands, and previously worked as a literary agent. He has written two novels, Red Corona and its sequel, A Loyal Traitor. Glister lives in London.

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