Wonders
All
Around

The Incredible True Story of
Astronaut Bruce McCandless II and the
First Untethered Flight in Space

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About

Bruce McCandless III

Bruce McCandless III grew up in the shadow of Houston’s Johnson Space Center during the Apollo and Skylab eras, watching Batman and Buzz Aldrin with equal enthusiasm. He graduated from the Plan II Honors Program of the University of Texas and went on to earn an M.A. from the University of Reading in England and a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law. After teaching at Saint David’s School in New York City, he returned to Austin to practice law and retired in 2019 as general counsel of Superior HealthPlan. In addition to Wonders All Around: The Incredible True Story of Astronaut Bruce McCandless II and The First Untethered Flight in Space, Bruce is also the author of the science fiction novel Sour Lake (2011), the modern fairy tale Beatrice and the Basilisk (2014), and the Western supernatural thriller In the Land of Dead Horses (2021). He has published poems, stories, and essays in a variety of journals, including the Texas Observer, The Seattle Review, The Asian Wall Street Journal, Pleiades, Cold Mountain Review, and Consequence. and his book of poems, All of This is Ours, was published in the summer of 2021 by Kelsay Books. Bruce is an avid runner and mountain biker who spends most of his free time on Central Texas trails. He is also a board member of the Worthy Garden Club—an Oregon-based environmental organization working to plant a million trees in the Pacific Northwest—and the Austin Library Foundation. Bruce and his wife, Pati McCandless, live in Austin.

You can follow Bruce on Medium and keep up with him on Instagram.

Wonders All Around

The Man You Never Knew You Knew

It’s one of the most powerful and popular images in the history of space exploration: an astronaut in a snow-white spacesuit, floating untethered and alone in an expanse of blue. Bruce McCandless II is the man in that spacesuit, and Wonders All Around is the thoroughly engrossing, extensively researched story of his inspiring life and groundbreaking accomplishments, as told by his son, a gifted writer and storyteller.

McCandless, a Navy fighter pilot, joined NASA in 1966. He was Houston’s capsule communicator—the person talking to the astronauts—as Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong made his giant leap for mankind in 1969. McCandless developed technology his fellow astronauts used until he himself rode Challenger into space on the tenth shuttle mission. But the road to that incredible feat was not the sure bet it should have been for such a gifted man.

Bruce McCandless II was an astronaut for 24 years, and his career reflects the accomplishments and accolades, the brilliance and broken hearts, of the men and women of the American space program from the mid-sixties through 1990. But Wonders All Around is more than a catalog of McCandless’s extraordinary achievements, which included work on the design, deployment, and repair of the Hubble Space Telescope. It is also a human tale of perseverance and devotion, disappointment and redemption.

Recounted with insight and humor, this book explores the relationship between a father and a son, men of two very different generations. And finally, it is an exploration of the character of one unique individual, and the courage, imagination, and tenacity that propelled him and his country to their place in the forefront of space history.

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Fiction

Bruce McCandless is also the author of genre- bending fiction that melds fantasy, science fiction, and western themes. His latest work, In the Land of Dead Horses, is a spine-tingling tale of Texas history and supernatural terror. A prequel to 2011’s Sour Lake, In the Land of Dead Horses reintroduces readers to Texas Ranger Jewel Lightfoot and his macabre world of double-barreled demon hunting.

In the Land of Dead Horses

In the Land of Dead Horses tells the story of Texas Ranger Jewel T. Lightfoot's 1908 pursuit of a resurrected horror from another age--a manifestation of the Mayan god of darkness, unearthed from its subterranean crypt in the wastelands of the Chihuahuan Desert and set loose on an unsuspecting world. The dead, it turns out, have no love for the living.

Sour Lake

It's 1911. Someone, or something, is leaving the good citizens of East Texas's Ochiltree County savagely mutilated and drained of blood. Slow-talking Sheriff Reeves Duncan, with the help of Texas Ranger Jewel Lightfoot and a motley crew of unimpressive gentlemen, needs to put an end to the murders, and soon. But it won't be easy. Because no one's ever seen a killer like this before.

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Contact

For media inquiries, contact media@greenleafbookgroup.com.

Interested in having Bruce as a speaker or interview guest? Download the press kit.

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