A retired U.S. Navy Commander and former NASA astronaut finalist brings authentic spaceflight detail and Cold War secrecy to a novel revised from its 2003 edition

MILL CREEK, Wash. — 10/18/2026— Jonathan Malay, a retired U.S. Navy Commander, former NASA astronaut-selection finalist and award-winning bestselling author of War in Our Wake, today announced the release of Archangel Eyes, a novel of spaceflight, faith and Cold War secrecy. The 278-page book is available now in paperback and Kindle editions.

Set principally in November 1985, Archangel Eyes follows Navy Commander Michael Saint Pierre, a Space Shuttle Mission Specialist aboard Discovery when a cascading electrical failure takes down two of the orbiter's main buses. The crew is asleep when it happens. Saint Pierre's body remains aboard; his consciousness, he will later insist, does not. He returns convinced he has been close to God — and draws the attention of a Department of Defense special access program that has spent years searching for someone exactly like him.

Unable to explain what happened to anyone at Houston, Saint Pierre takes leave at a Benedictine priory in the woods of southern Vermont. There he meets Maria, a Guatemalan widow sheltering with her two young children after government security forces murdered her husband. Their winter at the monastery forms the emotional center of a novel that ultimately spans four decades, closing aboard the International Space Station in 2001.

The book draws on a documented chapter of Cold War history. Beginning in the early 1970s, U.S. intelligence agencies funded a succession of programs — under code names including Grill Flame, Center Lane, Sun Streak and Star Gate — in which participants attempted to observe distant places and events by non-physical means. The records were transferred to the CIA in 1995 and the effort was terminated, with final evaluations skeptical of its intelligence value.

Malay deliberately avoided researching those programs until he had finished writing. What followed was unexpected. As he recounts in the book's Author's Note, after an earlier edition was published in 2003 under the title Seraphim Sky, he was approached by two former colleagues from the aerospace and geospatial intelligence community — men he had worked alongside for years — who indicated they had been part of, or close to, the inner circle of Project Stargate. Having read the novel, both said much the same thing: "You know, don't you?"

"I didn't want to confuse what I was trying to say about the vision of the human soul with the voodoo of Tarot readers, psychics, witches, and channelers," Malay writes. His invitation to readers is plainer: "Come with me to the woods of New England, out onto the Atlantic, through the halls of power in Washington, to the farthest edge of space, and deep into the human soul."
The technical material reflects the author's career. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School, Malay served twenty years as a commissioned officer specializing in oceanography, meteorology, satellite remote sensing and space operations — work that at times placed him alongside the CIA and military intelligence. He later held leadership positions at NOAA, Orbital Sciences Corporation, Ball Aerospace and Lockheed Martin, supporting NASA and NOAA programs to Mars, Jupiter, the Sun and the asteroids. He was a finalist for NASA's astronaut corps in 1984, one year before the fictional flight at the center of his novel.

Archangel Eyes will appeal to readers of intelligent science fiction, authentic spaceflight narratives, spiritual fiction, and Cold War suspense.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jonathan T. Malay is an award-winning bestselling author, lecturer and consultant, a retired U.S. Navy Commander, and an expert in oceanography, meteorology and space systems. He is a Fellow and past president of the American Meteorological Society and the American Astronautical Society. He co-authored the National Geographic Encyclopedia of Space and is the author of War in Our Wake (2025), a memoir of the final days of the Vietnam War aboard the destroyer USS Benjamin Stoddert. Since retiring from the aerospace industry in 2014, he has lectured aboard premier cruise lines worldwide. He lives in Mill Creek, Washington, with his wife, Sharon.

Book Information

Title: Archangel Eyes. Previously published as Seraphim Sky (2003)
Author: Jonathan Malay
Genre: Science Fiction | Spiritual Fiction | Speculative Fiction | Political Suspense
Formats: Paperback | Kindle
Available From: Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Archangel-Eyes-Jonathan-Malay-ebook/dp/B0HN5WJMXV/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0

For Interviews, Review Copies, or Additional Information

Jonathan Malay
Email: [email protected]
City: Mill Creek
State: Washington
Country: United States
Website: https://jonmalay.com/war-in-our-wake