In all his previous work James A. Michener's point of origin is the beginning of things….

Locale, therefore, dominates the action of his story and the development of character, a tendency indicated by the titles of his major novels. There is a brooding presence of landscape, a Hardyesque sense of determinism subjecting even the strongest of his people to a fate beyond their control.

So he might have opened ["Space"] with a picture of planets and suns hurling through a million miles of emptiness. That would have given us a familiar Michener beginning. Instead, he moves to the last days of World War II and the men who had the early vision and professional promise to shape the American program in space.

The crucial decision to get into the action right away tells us something about this book that's different from other Michener novels. His focus here is...