Storming Intrepid

With its evil-empire depiction of the Soviet Union and obsessive emphasis on the latest and best American military equipment, this first novel owes a heavy debt to Tom Clancy, but manages to carve out its own niche in the technothriller genre. In the author's version of the near-future, the lame duck American president (all but identified as Lee Iacocca) is using the revived space shuttle program to deploy the ``Star Wars'' defense system. Meanwhile, certain powers in Moscow, beset by Kremlin infighting and conspiracy, see their government's chance for military parity eroding and resort to a desperate measureplanting a psychotic Soviet-trained agent on the U.S. shuttle crew delivering the Star Wars payload. When the spy murders his fellow astronauts and radios Russia, NASA begins a race into space to destroy the shuttle before it reaches enemy hands. Harrison's prose is only serviceable and often much worse; he runs on for pages about a telescope or a bomber, but doesn't describe a major character beyond calling him ``very big, very black and very, very smart.'' But his plotting is better, gathering speed as it goes and saving some effective surprises for the end. 100,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo. (Feb.)