“Commander, you needn’t worry. We’ll be fine. While the Diébào can learn more and get smarter with every byte it processes, it cannot think like you and me. It can collect, analyze, and interact with data and make decisions in nanoseconds that would take us months to make. But it will never replace us.”

 The Space Race never ended, it simply changed hands. Today, amidst budget cuts for NASA and gridlock in Congress, the United States is far behind China in progress towards forging the final frontier. When a manned rocket is launched to a secretive Chinese base on the far side of the moon, the side we cannot see from Earth, President Phillip Lawson is faced with the difficult mission of figuring out whether China is truly pursuing peaceful purposes in their exploration – or if their operations on the Moon have more malicious intentions.

While the US works on its own intelligence mission to uncover the Moon base shrouded in mystery, things take an even darker turn. Both the US and China are soon to find out neither nation could have predicted what was the true malice at work. Decades of resentment and secrecy must be set aside in DRAGON ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON, or the whole of humanity be put at the mercy of nightmarish reality.

Douglas J. Wood’s new thriller DRAGON ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON (Plum Bay Publishing; ISBN; August, 2020;) delves into what may happen when space exploration becomes a one-sided venture. Readers will be brought into a world where the power of technology has fallen into the hands of a singular government and where secrecy and deceit are a staple.

With Wood’s attention to historical detail, DRAGON ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON serves as a witty and intense look at not only the future of space travel, but of our current state of affairs. It touches on the relevant political climate of the US and China and posits one possible trajectory for how a power struggle between two global superpowers may end. Using a flair of sci-fi, Wood cautions our growing dependency on AI and supercomputers might one day introduce a third super power to the field- a player that answers to no human-made government.

About the Author

Douglas J. Wood is the author of the award-winning political thriller, DARK DATA: Control, Alt, Delete and the Samantha Harrison political trilogy. Wood has won the Independent Press Award two years in a row for Asshole Attorney: Memories, Musings,

and Missteps in a 40-Year Career (2018 Best Humor) and for Dark Data: Control, Alt, Delete (2019 Best Political Thriller). A partner at Reed Smith LLP, he has over four decades of experience in the practice of entertainment and media law, allowing him to frequently impart knowledge gained from his career into his books. He and his wife live in North Carolina.

Dragon on the Far Side of the Moon
By Douglas J. Wood
Plum Bay Publishing
Publication Date: December 29, 2020