Last Updated: February 01, 2007. NOTICES Jan 05, 2006 We have posted a full content review of Brian Enke's "Shadows of Medusa".
May 11, 2004. HONORS FOR Glory Be To Mars, Book Three of the Mars Trilogy:
March 28, 2005 FIRST REVIEW OF "GLORY BE TO MARS", Book Three of the Mars Trilogy, from Harold Miller, the web master at the Mars Society: May 11, 2004. HONORS FOR Give Us This Mars, Book Two of the Mars Trilogy:
HONOURS:
Pennsylvania School Library Association Selection Committee has selected THARSIS BOOKS title Glory Be To Mars for their annual (2004-5) Top Ten List of Fiction Titles, in the category of Best Hard Science Fiction War Story. They cite it as a book that "should be in every high-school library", a book that contains "complex characters" and "political intrigue", and which "should appeal to World War II buffs as well"; the review goes on to say that although it "contains more battle strategy than the first two novels", yet it "still creates a Mars we can envision, with detailed pictures of the geography and the way of life necessitated by this harsh, but possibly livable, environment." This success follows on a selection of Book One of the Series As It Is On Mars, for the PSLA Top Forty list of 2001, and then Book Two of the Series Give Us This Mars, for the PSLA Top Forty list of 2003
Pick it up, and you won't want to put
it down.
THARSIS BOOKS title Give Us This Mars has been selected for the Top Forty of all 2003 Fiction Titles, by Pennsylvania School Library Association Selection Committee, one of eight SF titles honored, citing it as "exciting and insightful" and "a great read".
RAVE REVIEW SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL has given Give Us This Mars, Book Two of the Mars Trilogy, a rave review in its June, 2003 issue. For the full review see the Give Us This Mars Editorial Reviews page at Amazon.com. Here's how the review ends:
[See list further down, after the Give Us This Mars Content Review]
This success follows on a selection of Book One of the Series As It Is On Mars, for the PSLA Top Forty list of 2001
This extraordinary tale balances hard science with character development; history, politics, and even romance also play important parts. Readers might well feel as though they have stood on Mars, seen its beauty, and experienced its dangers, and they will be impatient for the next entry in this outstanding saga.
THARSIS BOOKS TITLE As It Is On Mars, Book One of the Mars Trilogy HAS BEEN SELECTED FOR TOP FORTY OF ALL 2001 FICTION TITLES BY PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION SELECTION COMMITTEE,
ONE OF EIGHT SF TITLES HONORED.
[See list further down, after As It Is On Mars Content Review]
Content Comparison Reviews of Recent and Forthcoming Hardcover (and fine Softcover)Fiction Books about the Exploration and Settlement of the Planet Mars.
Reviews compiled by Tharsis Books.
The story in this Second Edition (2005) is the same as in the First Edition of "As It Is On Mars" (2001). The major difference lies in the way the story is narrated in the beginning chapters.
In both editions, the story begins with the explosion of the return rocket at the landing site of NASA's first manned mission to Mars: the explosion wrecks the landing site in early 2038, and only two astronauts survive, an American engineer and a French medical doctor.
In the new edition, there is a completely new Chapter One that directly relates the dramatic events on Mars as they happen, both at the time of the explosion and in the immediate aftermath. The reader can now experience first hand the emotional trauma the two survivors go through, as they struggle to cope with the disaster. In contrast, in Chapter One of the old edition (2001), we find out about the explosion aftermath second hand, the next day, when the NASA chief reports to a Congressional Hearing on the disaster.
The new edition thus lacks nothing of the story in the First Edition, but pulls the reader into the drama of the story's beginning much more quickly, by presenting it in a direct, action-oriented manner, rather than in the more subdued, gradual manner of the Congressional Hearing in the First Edition.
A new, short Chapter Two now covers the NASA chief's report at the Congressional Hearing, but the remaining fourteen chapters are the same in both editions, except as follows. Minor errors in the First Edition have been eliminated, and narration has been improved. In addition, some minor scientific facts about Mars, mostly geological, have been updated: we understand the geology of Mars a lot better today than five years ago, thanks mainly to the NASA's Mars Exploration Rover missions of 2004/05. The existing map has also been replaced by three labeled satellite image maps (a western Kasei Valley map, a Leaf Valley region map, and an Ares Valley map). Finally, a further paragraph on Zen enlightenment has been added to Chapter Nine: Zen Master. [As It Is On Mars contains a simple, rational, exemplified explanation of Zen, necessary for the plot.]
As It Is On Mars goes on to tell the story that unfolds when the American and French governments secretly abandon the two explosion survivors to starve to death, and Japan consigns an elderly Zen master from a failed Japanese mission to the same fate, all three governments unaware of just what they are setting loose on Mars. For a better coverage of the content of the story, see the content description for the First Edition, in Review No: 5 below.
The Second Edition has sixteen chapters; word count: 175,000 words. [The First Edition is now Out of Print.]
There is a listing for the Revised Second Edition of "As It Is On Mars" at Amazon.com. The Amazon See-Inside-The-Book feature should be operational by about the end of August.
In the meantime, you are invited to visit the REVISED SECOND EDITION Specifications Page .
You can also read six pages from the new Chapter one, at the REVISED SECOND EDITION Excerpt page.
You can get a different glimpse of the content, by checking out some memorable lines from SIXTEEN chapters of the REVISED SECOND EDITION.
You can also read a conversation with the author about the reason for a REVISED SECOND EDITION of "As It Is On Mars".
Two scheming, aristocratic brothers are the instigators when a United Nations coalition dispatches an armada to attack the only human settlement on Mars in 2074. The independent settlement is illegal, but has been growing prodigiously, thanks to a secret machine the Martians have built. It is very well defended too, and getting the better of it is now a serious military matter.
The Martians also control a vital copper deposit, the largest ever found, worth over ten trillion dollars. Gaining control of that copper will make the brothers rich and powerful beyond dreams. Their lust for the copper is matched only by their passion for avenging the public disgrace of their father, years earlier; the Derk brothers are determined to erase the demeaning stain of dishonor that Martians have etched on their ancient family name.
One shadowy brother, Harold Derk, is the CEO of the world's largest resource company, Condor Copper Inc., and a master of political intrigue. He paid corrupt, warmongering political leaders to terrify their citizens, and deceive them into believing that the secret Martian machine is a horrible weapon of total annihilation, capable of wiping out all human life on Earth. The fabricated fear worked as intended, and led to popular support for the obscenely expensive armada, to put an end to the dangerous, illegal settlement and its abominable machine.
The other brother is the armada commander, four-star General Oliver Derk. He is a rogue general, with genocide in mind. He has all the military strength he needs to defeat the settlement quickly, and kill everybody in it.
As this very fast-paced tale opens, we find a ten-man Martian work crew in a desolate place south of Mariner Valley, over a thousand miles from home. One of them is a mysterious young man called Edward Russell. The ten have just finished hiding the secret Martian machine, to keep it out of the hands of the coalition. But that evening, they make a fluke discovery. Coalition forces have made a stealth landing, unexpectedly early, clearly intent on a massive surprise attack on the settlement.
The workers now have to get home at once, and sound the alarm. They have no choice but to take an impossible short cut, up along the treacherous thirty-mile long Hell Ridge. But then, in Chapter Two, with their four rovers perched high on the ridge, over three miles above the floor of Coprates Canyon: Disaster!
Shortly after, a deadly enemy of the coalition appears out of the southern waste, at the head of a dusty column of tanks and rovers, intelligent, nuclear-powered predator drones flying overhead. It is Edward Russell, with desert warfare in his genes, and for good reason. Soon he will be known on two planets as the desert fox of Mars, feared for his vicious, lightning attacks on the coalition, but revered for his tactical genius.
The elaborate setting for this epic novel encompasses most of the Western Hemisphere of Mars, which the war turns into a gigantic military chessboard. The plot is labyrinthine, and tragic too, a subtle blend of politics, war, human relationships, and the relationship of man to his planetary environment. It's even a tale that is not primarily science fiction, that anybody can enjoy at any time of life, and likely find something profound in too. The story unfolds at a rapid pace, as the war intensifies and the suspense builds. The plot also builds to a perplexing tactical puzzle, which armchair generals will no doubt try to solve, as they pit their brains against the desert fox.
It is also the story of the desperate journey of Edward's column in search of an elusive goal, as the column is sought high and low, and attacked too, by the forces of the coalition. The journey starts south of Mariner Valley in Chapter 1, and weaves its way through the entire novel, and over much of the western hemisphere, and does not end until the novel's final Chapter 20.
The author deploys military technology in the Martian war consistent with the known Laws of Nature. His intelligent nuclear-powered tanks, predator drones, and laser-gun armed fighter drones are all extrapolations of current capabilities that we can reasonably expect.
The author's earlier Mars stories, As It Is On Mars (see below) and Give Us This Mars (see also below), were about the beginning years of the settlement on Mars, but you don't have to read them to enjoy this latest, stand-alone novel. This third story takes place twenty-six years later. It has a whole new set of lead characters, and has enough of the early history of the settlement for new readers to join the tale effortlessly.
The novel has a 3-page prolog, twenty chapters, and 465 chapter pages, and about 190,000 words. It also has five single page maps: an overview map of the Western Hemisphere; a map of the Coprates Canyon region; a map of the Juventae Passage region; a map of the Hebes Passage region; and a map of the western Kasei Valley and Echus Plain region. There is also a single page summary of the Mars clock and calendar used in the novel, and earlier novels.
The Pennsylvania School Library Association Selection (PSLA) Committee has selected THARSIS BOOKS title Glory Be To Mars, Book Three of the Mars Trilogy, for their annual (2004-5) Top Ten List of Fiction Titles, in the category of Best Hard Science Fiction War Story.
There is a listing for the novel at Amazon's (U.S.) online bookstore.
It includes a SEARCH-INSIDE-THE BOOK feature. It is available for shipment within 24 hours.
There is also a listing for the novel at
Amazon's Canadian online bookstore.
The book is also listed at Barnes and Noble's on line bookstore, and is available for shipment to customers. B&N does not allow an excerpt to be posted, just a book description and image.
The book is also listed at the
Mars Society Bookstore. If you purchase the book at Amazon via the Mars Society Bookstore you will be giving a percentage of the sale to the Mars Society.
Tharsis Books has also posted a much larger NEAR-LOOK-INSIDE-THE-BOOK excerpt, more complete than the Amazon.com posted SEARCH-INSIDE-THE-BOOK excerpt.
You can get a different glimpse of the content, by checking out some memorable lines from EIGHTEEN chapters of the novel.
Specifications for the title, and a dust jacket thumbnail image, are at our GLORY BE TO MARS specifications page.
You can also read a conversation with the author about GLORY BE TO MARS.
This Mars-mission story is highly original—no debate about that.
First the background. A dream has come true for the Space Exploration Alliance (SEA), the current umbrella organization for the Mars Society and the Planetary Society, whose members have long been frustrated by America's and NASA's lack of progress toward a manned mission to Mars.
Well-heeled backers have contracted SEA to run a fully funded but low-cost mission to Mars. Whether the backers are a private group, or a corporation, or even just a rich individual—or something else—has not been revealed; nor have the motives of the secretive backers. But SEA has accepted the challenge, determined to get to Mars, show NASA and the short-sighted, slow-coach feds just how cheaply it can be done, and get the great adventure they have all been waiting for under way.
SEA has been busy: it has contracted for purchase/construction of the mission hardware; it has selected and trained the astronauts; it has landed an Earth Return Rocket and habitat and other essentials on Mars, to await the arrival of the astronauts; and it has launched the actual manned mission.
The story opens on Day One of the manned mission: a very small cylindrical (tin-can shaped) spacecraft with a three-person crew on board has just left Earth orbit on its 175-day journey to Mars. The spacecraft is swinging in a circle at the end of a long tether attached to a spent rocket stage, completing a circle in under a minute, which provides artificial gravity. It is headed for a landing on the Plain of Medusa, which lies west of the Valley of Mariner and the Tharsis Bulge. Everything now depends on both the crew on the spacecraft and Mission Support on Earth.
David Debacco, the novel's lead character, is the Director at Mission Support, which is not set up as you might be expecting, for the support team is not housed in the usual high-tech building. Instead they all work from home, most of them part-time, connected by the internet, using a virtual building with virtual offices and meeting rooms and avatars (it's a low-cost mission, remember!). The avatars (disguised computer-screen figures) permit concealment of the identities of the Mission Support people both from each other and from a hyper inquisitive press. Even David Debacco does not know the identities of the people under him, nor those of the people above him. In fact, the backers will order him fired if his identity is revealed. Of course, the media is going crazy with frustration, able to interview only astronaut Anna Schweitzer on the spacecraft at prearranged times, about how the mission is going.
This Mars mission is thus cloaked in mystery from the start, and that mystery only deepens as the mission progresses: initially with threats from a prominent media news organization; then the threat of a possible saboteur on board the spacecraft; and then threats by sinister forces who seem to want the mission to fail—or is it the backers who want it to fail, or is it some embittered NASA group, or some other shadowy group? And what could the motive be?
Not that far into the book it is impossible for the reader not to become convinced that this is a high-stakes mystery thriller worthy of the likes of Ken Follett or Dean Koontz, except that there are no dead bodies. But the dead bodies will soon appear, as the plot thickens and the outlook for the survival of the three on the spacecraft darkens. Will those three ever get to Mars, even dead? Most of the action is centered on Earth around the beleaguered David, who is soon almost constantly on the run in the Western United States, clutching his computer, in fear of his life, but desperately trying to keep the mission alive. His flight and plight is somewhat reminiscent of the plight of the heroes in Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code".
The pace of the novel is reasonably fast, appropriate to the nature of the plot, and increases towards the end. But every so often, it is an idea for the reader to stop, to ponder the growing mysteries within mysteries, or to go back and reread a section that seems to hold some clues. Of course, by the surprise ending of the novel most of the mysteries have been unraveled, but not all, and we are promised a continuation. The ending is thus not a frustrating cliff-hanger.
The writing is clear and easily read, with relatively short sentences, and no expletives; it compares well with the writing of well-known authors. The complex plot is internally consistent and coherent, and does not use flashbacks. Although the story involves detailed technical matters in only a few places, many of the low-cost Mars-mission details should give rise to worthwhile feasibility discussions in the space community. A triangular love affair is also part of the plot. There are about ten prominent characters, portrayed with varying degrees of depth, all of them plausible and easily distinguishable.
The novel has thirty-six chapters, and 512 chapter pages in 10-point font, and about 190,000 words. It also has two quarter-page satellite-image maps of the Medusa region, both of them embedded where needed, within the body of the book. At the beginning are two pages of acknowledgements, followed by a four-page preface in which the author explains why and how the novel came to be written.
Public and School Libraries should not regret adding this book to their collections.
NOTE: Brian Enke is a software designer doing research at the Department of Space Sciences at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He commanded the first Mars Society simulated Mars mission. "Shadows of Medusa" is his debut novel.
There is a listing for the "The Shadows of Medusa" at Amazon.com.
Book Two of this Mars Trilogy is completely different from Book One of the saga, As It Is On Mars, in theme, plot, characters and pace. Book One tells how a few determined survivors of failed Mars missions unintentionally ended up founding the first human settlement on Mars, after a monumental struggle with the planet. Book Two continues the saga, but with the settlers now in an entirely different struggle, this time against other human beings trying to get control of their lands and resources.
Readers who have not read Book One of the Trilogy can easily continue with the tale. The essentials of the earlier story, most of which took place ten years before this latest story, are related in the beginning chapters of Book Two.
The story begins with reaction in high places to NASA's stunning discovery, in August 2044, that survivors of Earth's first manned missions to Mars are still alive. The survivors, thought to have died of starvation six years earlier, are even prospering, and have built an impressive settlement in a unique sanctuary in the western Kasei Valley region.
Then comes the realization that the settlers are sitting on an enormously valuable resource, worth trillions of dollars. Envious eyes are soon monitoring the settlement, as the U.S. and E.U. draw up rival plans for low-cost missions to Mars to rescue the settlers, and win control of their lands.
A NASA mission gets to Mars first, at the next opposition, in 2046, but a nuclear accident prevents it from landing. This bad luck for NASA gives the E.U. its chance, and the European Space Agency, ESA, quickly wins approval for a rescue mission for the next opposition, in 2048.
An alarmed U.S. President responds by authorizing an armed Air Force mission to Mars, to get there a month before the Europeans. This secret military mission is delayed, unfortunately, and the ESA mission gets to Mars first, after all, in July of 2048. The Air Force mission is in hot pursuit though, just one month behind.
The tale on Mars opens, in Chapter Two, with the arrival of the ESA mission. Five of the crew of twelve are military personnel, armed with nanoguns. The others are harmless engineers and scientists. There are five women among the twelve.
One of the military people is the mission's leader, Captain Richard Derk, a ruthless aristocrat and strategy mastermind, charged with getting the settlers off the planet. Derk's personal ambition is to become governor of Europe's first Mars colony, and the man in charge of exploiting the trillion-dollar resource on an enormous scale.
Derk's arrival triggers an escalating confrontation with the settlers, starting with a restless cold war. But neither side is prepared for the bizarre way the conflict eventually unfolds, as the planet also takes part, in its own special way. Nor are the settlers prepared for the devilry Derk is capable of.
The scenes are set in the spectacular terrain of the huge Kasei Valley complex, some of them familiar places from the earlier novel. Others are forbidding and treacherous, like the great labyrinth of chaotic terrain in western Kasei Valley. [Read this brief excerpt from Chapter 8: The Labyrinth.].
Outnumbered, outgunned, and outmaneuvered by Derk, the settlers' resistance would seem to be hopeless, as the initial cold war degenerates into a hot war, and it becomes obvious that the settlers desperately need help. But where can they get it? The U.S. military mission, rapidly nearing Mars, is out to seize their lands too!
Tom Cronin has come up with a highly original, quite fast-paced saga that can be enjoyed not only by Mars and science fiction enthusiasts but also by the general public. Although the tale does take place on Mars, in the wonderful Kasei Valley region, it has little in it that is exclusively science fiction. There are certainly no alien life forms or artifacts in the story, and even the ESA mission's nanoguns exist today at the prototype stage. Two indexed maps at the end guarantee readers easy visualization of where the spectacular places in the story are located.
The story is conceived as one that could happen. Indeed, dramatic, heart-wrenching events quite like it actually have happened. That was back in the very early days of the New World, in the time of the conquistadors. These are also very early days in the settlement of Mars, and history comes close to repeating itself in this story, and for much the same reasons.
This story develops relentlessly, and just flows along. The first chapter outlines the high-level events on Earth leading up to the struggle over land on Mars. The pace speeds up as the story on Mars gets going in Chapter Two, with the arrival of Richard Derk. By Chapter Three, in which the settlers attempt a covert preemptive strike, the pace is quite fast, and stays that way.
A quite large number of colorful new characters walk the pages of this epic novel. Six of the ESA twelve, along with the settlers, have lead roles in the story—Sweden's visionary engineer, Astrid Larsson, England's good-natured geologist, Don Carruthers, and Spain's resolute and disciplined military man, Jose Montoya, to name a few.
Although the story is about an armed conflict, it has a low level of actual violence and a high level of strategic maneuvering. Lives are lost the story—even the life of a likable lead character. But Mars, still a very dangerous planet, is responsible for half the deaths.
There is little in the way of philosophical discussion in this rapidly unfolding tale. It does contain a heated and sophisticated exchange at one point, between two opposing sides, engaged in a fierce debate over the ownership of land and resources on Mars. A secret E.U. plan, the brainchild of Astrid Larsson, to put a massive and novel technology in place, to exploit the resources of Mars, is also part of the plot.
At the book's climactic ending, all threads are tied up—except one. As the story unfolds, we become aware of something else going on, something very important, but we never find out what it is. A suspicious CIA would like to know too, and is working hard on the problem. This open thread will no doubt take us into the third book of the saga, Glory Be To Mars, due in March, 2005.
The book has eighteen chapters, 461 chapter pages, and about 195,000 words. Seventeen chapters deal with story events on Mars. The novel has two indexed maps at the end, one of them of western Kasei Valley. The other is a detailed map of the Leaf Valley/Elbow Plain region, with a satellite color image of this region on the back dust jacket. There is also a 4-page appendix about the Mars clock and calendar used in the novel. There is also a detailed sketch of a structure inside Leaf Valley that is important to the plot. There are four pages of story front matter, including a 2-page prolog.
There is a listing for the novel at Amazon's online book store. [The Amazon listing did include about 25 pages of excerpt, but because of Amazon's new restriction of in-line excerpts to 999 words, was removed in 2004; we have sent a 999-word excerpt which should be posted by January 2005.] Tharsis Books has also posted a much larger but different excerpt.
The book is listed at the
Mars Society Bookstore. If you purchase the book at Amazon via the Mars Society Bookstore you will be giving a percentage of the sale to the Mars Society.
You can get a different glimpse of the content, by checking out some memorable lines from the novel.
Specifications for the title are at our GIVE US THIS MARS specifications page.
You can also read an interview with the author of GIVE US THIS MARS.
[A description of the simple Mars calendar and clock used in the novel is given in Appendix 1.]
In May 2004, this title was selected by Pennsylvania School Library Association as one of the top 40 fiction titles published in 2003. Eight of the top 40 were science fiction novels, as listed below:
Bear, Greg. Darwin's Children. New York: Ballantine, 2003. 0345448359. 387p $24.95. Gr. 9+
Card, Orson Scott. First Meetings in the Enderverse. New York: TOR, 2003. 0765308738. 208p. Gr. 6+
Clarke, Arthur C., and Stephen Baxter. Time's Eye. New York: Ballantine, 2004. 0-345452488. 377p. 26.95 Gr. 9+
Cronin, Thomas William. Give Us This Mars. Victoria: Tharsis Books, 2003. 0968750214. 474p. $25.95. Gr. 9+.
Flynn, Michael. The Wreck of the River of Stars. New York: Tom Doherty, 2003. 07653009990. 480p. $27.95. Gr. 10+
Grunwell, Jeanne Marie. Mind games. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. 0618176721. 133p. $15.00. Gr. 6-8
Haddix, Margaret Peterson. Among the Barons. New York: Scholastic, 2003. 0439585104. 182p. $6.95. Gr. 5-8
McCaffrey, Ann and Todd McCaffrey. Dragon's Kin. New York: Ballantine Books, 2003. 034546198. 292p. $24.95 Gr. 7+
The story concerns America's first manned expedition and landing on Mars in 2011. The NASA mission is low cost, based on Dr. Zubrin's famous Zubrin plan for a Mars mission.
The landing site is at Ophir Planum, and NASA has landed an empty Earth return vehicle (ERV) there, a year and a half before the manned mission landed, which gives it time to make fuel from Martian air and some hydrogen. Ophir Planum lies on the high plateau region about 300 miles south of the equator; it is just north of Copretes Chasma, which is part of the eastern half of Mariner Valley, and just east of Ophir Chasma, which connects into the middle part of Mariner Valley.
NASA has also landed a backup ERV about 350 miles due east of the Ophir Planum landing site, down in Capri Chasma, which connects into Mariner Valley at its eastern end. There is a visit to the bottom of Capri Chasma in the story.
The mission leader, Andrew, is an experienced Air Force pilot and Colonel. His crew are a redneck flight engineer (Gwen, female), an intellectual biologist and medical doctor (Rebecca), a redneck Texas geologist (Luke), and a sophisticated professor (Kevin), outdoor adventurer and historian of the group. The mission is to spend over a year on Mars, the main goal being to try to find out if there is, or ever was, life on the planet.
Things go wrong at entry into Mars orbit and the ship has to make a rough emergency landing, but gets down in one piece on Ophir Planum right beside the ERV. The ship now becomes the mission habitat. It is the low-cost cylindrical-can type, with cramped crew quarters in two circular floors. They also have a small pressurized rover (too small for an airlock) that can hold two but can squeeze in four. It runs on rocket fuel, with a range of about 350 miles.
About six weeks after landing, Rebecca discovers a very primitive life form, in Maja Valley, which lies about 700 miles northeast of the landing site. This ancient outflow valley flows east, downward from the high plateau, into the the low-lying Plain of Gold (Chryse Planitia), which was probably once an ancient sea or great lake. Like the huge Kasei Valley, lying some 200 miles to the north of it, and also flowing into the Plain of Gold, Maja Valley is a good place to look for signs of life. Rebecca soon determines that the life form is harmless to humans.
Now all hell breaks out on Earth, with riots, as a popular scientist together with a TV evangelist spread rumors that the mission will come back contaminated with a deadly and highly contagious Martian organism, with demands that the mission be ordered to remain on Mars for the duration, until it is shown that the organism is safe.
Serious scientists soon accept Rebecca's findings in her habitat lab that the life form is safe, but the excited mob does not. The crazies have allies within NASA who dispatch sabotage commands to Mars to empty the fuel tanks of both ERVs.
This leaves the mission stranded on Mars—and all because of Rebecca's harmless Mars bugs!
The mission now gels into two antagonistic factions (intellectuals Kevin and Rebecca versus rednecks Luke and Gwen), which gives mission leader Andrew severe problems keeping his team together and functioning as a unit. The warring factions soon find reason to accuse each other of sabotage (or is something else going on?).
Because of the high plateau landing site, there is no Martian water as a source of hydrogen to make more fuel from Martian air for the ERV. To get the stranded crew home, NASA needs to send a rescue mission. But, with a Presidential election coming up, loss of public support results in lack of Government financial support, and NASA can not get the funds to send help.
The five are now forced to make the effort to work together, and try and show they're really made of the right stuff after all. Will they be able to come up with a way to get home on their own before they run out of food, in spite of all the technical problems, the sabotage, and everything else the planet can throw at them?
The pace of the story is quite fast. Emphasis is on the intricacies of the plot, character interaction, and pace. There is little material of a philosophical nature to slow down the pace. The story is definitely action oriented, with a pace style not unlike that of Gregory Benford in "Martian Race", but with more lucid English, which you would expect from Dr. Zubrin.
The story unfolds almost like a fast-paced action movie, and could likely be converted directly to a movie with stunning canyon visuals. Indeed, the novel is set forth as a sequence of scenes, with each chapter entitled by a place and date, possibly the result of the influence of James Cameron, whose help with the plot is listed in the acknowledgments.
Descriptive material on Mars terrain, Mars features, distances, and how important places and things are located with respect to each other is very limited in the story, likely the result of publisher editing to speed up the pace. A good map at the end would have been a help in this regard, its omission again likely a publisher decision. We advise readers to have a map of the region covering eastern Mariner Valley and points further east handy as they go through the book, as this should increase their enjoyment of the tale.
The story takes up 255 pages with 30 chapters, including an epilogue. Story word count is about 80,000 words. About ten percent of the story takes place on Earth, the rest on Mars. There is also a 7-page appendix detailing the technical aspects of a Zubrin-plan Mars mission, as set forth in the author's The Case for Mars. The details of Mars terrain revealed recently by Mars Global Surveyor did not appear to be woven into the tale. There is no coarse language, nor any erotic material, although human lust is used in a clever manner to further the plot. There are no flashbacks either.
NOTE: Dr. Zubrin is also the author of two excellent non fiction books on space science: The Case For Mars about settling Mars, and Entering Space about human settlements in space. Both books are written in lucid prose, and are available at Amazon.com. Dr. Zubrin is the President and founder of the Mars Society. "First Landing" is his debut novel.
Tranfer directly to the book at Amazon's online book store for further details.
The book is listed at the
Mars Society Bookstore. If you purchase the book at Amazon via the Mars Society Bookstore you will be giving a percentage of the sale to the Mars Society.
See also the Content Review (Review Number 1 above)for the new REVISED SECOND EDITION of "As It Is On Mars", to be published on August 01, 2005.
This large saga, Book One of a Mars Trilogy starts with two missions on Mars in February 2038, a year that offers an attractive window for a manned mission—a low point in the sunspot cycle and a Martian spring equinox in January 2038.
A small Japanese Space Agency (JSA) mission has landed in Ares Valley, and a large 14-man NASA/European mission has landed in Kasei Valley, 1700 miles to the west. Kasei Valley is the largest outflow valley on Mars, and runs mostly east-west, about 1,000 miles north of Mariner Valley.
Unlike the folks in "First Landing", "Mars Crossing", and "Return to Mars", who land on the high plateaus on either side of Mariner Valley, the NASA and JSA adventurers land low down on outflow valley floors, considerably north of the equator, where water ice can be found underground, and possibly life.
As the story opens, one morning barely two months after the NASA landing, the NASA landing site is almost completely destroyed by a catastrophe. There are only two survivors, an American structural engineer and geologist, and a young French lady medical doctor and geneticist, who were away on a rover expedition. Two of the mission's three long-range, nuclear-powered rovers have also survived, and the two survivors now have to use one of them as a habitat. The pair are left with food for only two weeks, although the mission's seventh lander, due on Mars in ten days, is carrying food for almost three years.
Next day, there is a Congressional hearing on the disaster in Washington, and the NASA chief reveals that the rescue options depend on the safe arrival of this seventh lander.
Then the Japanese Space Agency deputy chief relates how the Japanese mission has suffered a crippling failure too, with only one survivor—an elderly scientist and master craftsman who is also a Zen master. There is shock when she reveals that the Zen master, facing starvation, has already broken off contact with Earth, in order to dig his own grave and die in private. Then the NASA chief drops another bombshell, when he reveals the enormous cost of rescuing the NASA survivors in Kasei Valley (about $100 billion in year-2000 dollars).
Afterward, a misguided and outraged U.S President comes to believe he is justified in using the enormous rescue sum to save thousands of lives on Earth instead, and secretly directs his CIA chief to finish off the two NASA survivors. The CIA obliges by sabotaging the antenna of NASA's seventh lander, which prevents NASA from sending the lander the commands needed to get through the Martian atmosphere without burning up. When NASA is forced to admit defeat, a media extravaganza erupts, detailing every aspect of the private lives of the doomed pair.
The NASA survivors are soon out of food, and inform Mission Control that they intend to follow the Zen master's example, to avoid a death of slow starvation. They announce they are breaking off communications with Earth, with destruction of the communications equipment, to dig their own graves and die in private, away from the media glare. Earth now has no further contact with Mars, and the stranded pair are assumed to have died.
At this point, the narrative, which so far has been mostly about events as seen from Earth, shifts to events as seen from Mars, and now we get to see what's happening on Mars first hand.
With almost no food left, the American engineer has courageously decided to die first. He has taken sleeping pills, and lain down in his Martian grave one evening, to die in his sleep when his air runs out. As his distraught companion waits for him to die, she suffers a complete emotional collapse. And then, to further compound matters, and really turn everything on its head, the entirely unexpected happens, converting the initial drama to a great saga on Mars, which occupies most of the book.
The story highlights human resourcefulness, heroic deeds, heartbreaking setbacks, narrow escapes and original rover train journeys across the wastes of Mars, all in a desperate attempt to carry out a master plan to build a survival resource in a Martian Shangri-La named Leaf Valley, an intriguing sanctuary that actually exists. And then there's the part played by the Japanese Zen master, with his great insight, technical skills and Zen awareness of Mars, just "as it is".
The master plan is the brainchild of the young woman, gifted with a brilliant creative and rational imagination. The emotional breakdown she suffered, as her companion lay dying in his grave, has altered her emotions, and transformed her into the first Martian. She no longer cares about Earth, and instead is determined to build, settle and be happy on Mars -- and so undo a great wrong. The ending, in which justice is done, is both climactic and anticlimactic.
The tale unfolds at a steadily increasing pace. It contains the occasional discussion, sometimes quite high level, either about some matter of principle, or about what to do next, particularly when risk is involved. Such discussions occupy only a small part of the novel. They do slow down its average pace, but only by very little; the reader still gets a very great deal of dramatic and suspenseful Mars story content.
Data returned from Mars Pathfinder and especially Mars Global Surveyor, is blended into the tale, and there are no alien life-forms in the story. The book contains no erotic material, nor any coarse language, and no flashbacks.
The book is generous in its descriptions of Mars terrain and geography, in which the story is deeply embedded, in a spectacular part of the planet. This is clearly the first Mars novel set in the great outflow valleys of Mars. The setting is so vividly portrayed that you think you are actually there.
There is a map of Kasei Valley at the end, as well as a reference description of the (simplest possible) Martian calendar used in the novel. [A similar description of this Mars calendar, and Mars clock too, is given in Appendix 1 of Give Us This Mars.] Estimated word count: 175,000 words. [This First Edition is now Out of Print, replaced by "As It Is On Mars", Revised Second Edition.]
Tranfer directly to the book at Amazon's online book store for further details. Amazon still has a few in stock.
The book is listed at the
Mars Society Bookstore. If you purchase the book at Amazon via the Mars Society Bookstore you will be giving a percentage of the sale to the Mars Society.
[You may also wish to transfer to a Tharsis Books web page where you may read a different set of short 3-4 page excerpts, plus some independent review quotes, or transfer to a further Tharsis Books web page containing a few memorable line quotes from the novel. Publishing specifications for "As It Is On Mars" (First Edition) may also be inspected. Those interested in more technical matters, may wish to transfer to a Tharsis Books web page containing an excerpt of Appendix 1 of Give Us This Mars, which gives a description of the simplest possible Mars calendar and clock used in the book.]
NOTE: T. W. Cronin is a university professor, hitherto an author of imaginatively written but specialized technical books.
In April 2002, this title was selected by Pennsylvania School Library Association as one of the top 40 fiction titles published in 2001. We have posted the P.S.L.A. rave review. Eight of the top 40 were science fiction novels, the other seven being:
Bradbury, Ray. From the Dust Returned. New York: William Morrow, 2001. 0-380-97382-0. 224 p. $23.00. Gr. 8- Adult.
Card, Orson Scott. Shadow of the Hegemon. New York : Tor, 2000. 0-312-87651-3. 365p. $25.95. Gr. 7-adult. Sequel to Enderís Shadow.
Hautman, Pete. Hole in the Sky. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2001. 0-689-83118-8. 179p. $16.00. Gr. 9-12 .
McDevitt, Jack. Deepsix. New York: EOS, 2001. 0-06-105124-1. 432p. $25.00.Gr. 9+ .
Pratchett, Terry. Thief of Time. New York: Harper Collins, 2001. 0-06-019956-3. 324p. $25.00. Gr. 10 +.
Rochelle, Warren. The Wild Boy. Urbaba, IL: Golden Gryphon Press, 2001. 1-930846-04-5. $22.95. YA.
Rusch, Kristine Kathryn. Stories for an Enchanted Afternoon. Urbana: Golden Gryphon
Press, 2001. 1-930846-02-9. 284p. $24.95. Gr. 9-adult. [ short stories]
The story concerns Earth's third manned expedition to Mars. Two earlier manned missions had both failed, a Brazilian mission to the North Pole and an American mission to Acidalia (the region northeast of Ares Valley, which is northeast of Mariner Valley). None of the mission members had returned to Earth - all had died.
There are six persons on the third mission in the late 2020s, all with quite different backgrounds. They land just south of the eastern section of Mariner Valley on the high plateau. The mission is using a low-budget Zubrin plan for Mars involving a return rocket that makes its own fuel on the ground.
Things go wrong, however, soon after the landing on Mars. There is an accident with the return rocket that kills one of the six, and vents the rocket's fuel and oxidizer. The only way home for the remaining five adventurers is to try to reach the return rocket of the former Brazilian mission, parked near the North Pole, quarter way around the planet, a rocket that can carry only three at the most. (The American landing site beyond Ares Valley is closer, but the return vehicle for that mission left Mars and did not make it back to Earth.)
The five have a small rover that can just squeeze in three, but which is not designed for such a long journey northward; they also have two dirt bikes. The huge Mariner Valley canyon walls block their way as well, so that there is only a slim chance of success. Nevertheless they set out.
Two more lives are lost as the story unfolds--one of them falls to his death, and another is lost in the wilderness of Lunae Planum (or is there something rotten going on?). The journey clearly does not go according to plan for these adventurers.
But things continue to go wrong. While traversing Lunae Planum toward the northeast, past Ganges Chasma, headed for Ares Valley, the overburdened rover finally gives up and they have to walk; this forces them to invoke their Plan B, which involves a surprise transportation means.
Most of the story concerns the journey of the mission members across Mars in the region in and around eastern Mariner Valley, and events in the former lives of the mission members (told in flashback chapters) -- considerable space is devoted to each of the characters in the mission.
The book has six parts, each part with about 20 very short chapters, each 1-4 pages long. At least a third of the chapters are the flashbacks about the mission members' prior lives, and the reader gets to know them well. A consequence is that the length of actual Mars story in the novel is on the short side, given that the book is not long.
The material on Mars is up-to-date, but appears to have been written before the detailed, terrain revealing images from Mars Global Surveyor became available. The mission does find fossil evidence of life. There are a few episodes of coarse language, with use of swear words, and some erotic material. The tale unfolds at a reasonably fast pace, but interrupted by the many flashback chapters.
Some readers not familiar with Mars might like to have a map at the end, although there are plenty of compensating web sources. Estimated story length: 90,000 words.
NOTE: Dr. Landis is a scientist working at NASA. He is an acclaimed short-story writer as well, and winner of a Hugo award for short fiction. "Mars Crossing" is his debut full-length novel.
Tranfer directly to the book at Amazon's online book store for further details, including an excerpt.
The book is listed at the
Mars Society Bookstore. If you purchase the book at Amazon via the Mars Society Bookstore you will be giving a percentage of the sale to the Mars Society.
This book could be looked upon as a reply to K.S. Robinson's "Red Mars", where colonists terraform the planet. It is about a colony of about 6,000 on Mars, living in a village of domes just west of Olympus Mons in the middle of the 21st century, with a particle physics accelerator science installation nearby.
In contrast to the heroes of "Red Mars", the colonists are against terraforming the planet. (They do not even go outside much.) They too go for independence, however, but not by means of a revolutionary war as in "Red Mars". (This is a English book and maybe there is still some lingering touchiness about those Yankee rebels who long ago went for independence from mother England with guns blazing.) These colonists seize their chance for independence from mother Earth when there is an economic depression on Earth, and Earth can no longer afford to support the colony.
Tom Jeffreys, the Martian colonist leader, might be regarded as the Thomas Jefferson of the colony. Just about the entire story takes place within the domes, and the book is mostly about discussions of Martian utopia, political systems, the problem of consciousness and how it relates to quantum mechanics, and, to a great extent, elementary atomic particle physics.
It is a very slow moving, slow-paced story, but very sophisticated. You really need at least a degree in physics to follow many of the discussions. It's good that that the domes seem to function automatically, because nobody seems to do anything except discuss things.
Roger Penrose, the coauthor is a well-known scientist, and his contributions are probably the source of the sophisticated material in the book. An unexpected Martian life form shows up near the end, to liven things up.
Except for the highly improbable Martian life-form, and for glossing over all the technical problems connected with producing food and shelter for 6,000 people, the depiction of the little bit of Mars covered is reasonably realistic. Much is omitted though, since the book was obviously written before the very revealing images and data from Mars Global Surveyor became available. Because of the very limited content about Mars outside the domes, the reader cannot not get much sense of Mars from this novel. It also contains considerable erotic material, and may be unsuitable for younger readers. Estimated word count: 90,000 words.
NOTE: Brian Aldiss is a well-known English science fiction author, with many novels to his credit. Dr. Roger Penrose is a respected theoretical physicist, university professor, and the author of many technical books. He has done extensive work on the origin of consciousness.
Tranfer directly to the book at Amazon's online book store for further details, including an excerpt.
The book is listed at the
Mars Society Bookstore. If you purchase the book at Amazon via the Mars Society Bookstore you will be giving a percentage of the sale to the Mars Society.
NASA is undertaking a Mars mission, and has successfully placed an Earth return rocket on Mars, making its fuel for the return trip. At this point NASA has a launch explosion at the Cape, and decides to give up. The U.S Government announces a $30 billion prize for the first group to get to Mars, do some science, collect some rocks, and come back.
A U.S. billionaire gives it a try, buys NASA's hardware, including the return rocket on Mars, and sends a team of four. Two team members are a married couple, who initially have trouble in getting themselves both on the mission. The adventures of the team include trying to repair the return rocket, which turns out to be damaged, and the discovery of green slimy life forms in a vent. And then the Europeans arrive to try to win the race by fair means or foul.
All the action on Mars takes place inside a single crater, Gusev Crater, about a hundred miles across, just south of the equator. (The floor of Gusev Crater seems to have once been a lake bed, and some scientists believe that signs of ancient life may one day be found there, making the crater a candidate for a future landing site.)
The book begins with just two weeks remaining for the U.S. mission, with lots of flashbacks in the beginning to get the reader up to speed.
There is considerable emphasis on the green Martian life forms, which turn out to be downright dangerous. The ending is not what you are expecting.
Except for the green life forms, and for glossing over many technical problems connected with producing food on Mars, the depiction of Mars is realistic, with accurate science, but inevitably written prior to NASA's Mars Global Surveyor mission.
The tale unfolds at a fast pace, even allowing for all the flashbacks in the beginning. There is a useful map of the Gusev Crater region in the book. Estimated word count: 110,000 words.
NOTE: Dr. Benford is a respected physicist and university professor. He is an acclaimed and prolific science-fiction writer as well, and winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards.
Tranfer directly to the book at Amazon's online book store for further details, including an excerpt.
The book is listed at the
Mars Society Bookstore. If you purchase the book at Amazon via the Mars Society Bookstore you will be giving a percentage of the sale to the Mars Society.
A billionaire businessman decides that he can make money out of a Mars mission, following a successful government Mars mission some years earlier (Ben Bova's earlier novel "Mars"). The story's hero, from the previous mission, is selected as mission commander. The problem is that the rich businessman also selects a spoiled geophysicist son to go too, and the son and the hero do not get along at all.
There are some adventures, such as a trip by air to the top of Olympus Mons, and a rover trip to the Pathfinder landing site that gets caught in a dust storm. There is a lot of interpersonal rivalry in the mission, and more about the ruins of the ancient civilization discovered in Tithonium Canyon, which the businessman wants to exploit as a tourist destination. The hero has a few ideas of his own about this plan, however.
The mission also encounters lowly life forms. There are only a few flashbacks. The landing site is just north of Tithonium Canyon West. That's on the eastern side of Olympus Mons. (The White Mars folks were on the opposite side.) There is also some intrigue and a sabotage mystery involving mission members, to heighten the reader's interest.
Except for the highly improbable Martian life-forms and the ancient civilization, and for glossing over many technical problems connected with surviving on Mars, the depiction of Mars is reasonably realistic. Much is omitted though, and this book too was obviously written before the very revealing images and data from Mars Global Surveyor became available. The tale unfolds at a moderately fast pace. Estimated word count: 160,000 words.
NOTE: Dr. Bova is an acclaimed, prolific and Hugo award-winning science-fiction writer, probably the best-known science-fiction author of our time.
Tranfer directly to the book at Amazon's online book store for further details, including an excerpt.
The book is listed at the
Mars Society Bookstore. If you purchase the book at Amazon via the Mars Society Bookstore you will be giving a percentage of the sale to the Mars Society.
The estimates below are for the overall average of the book, together with a note on any variation in the pace. Remember that the pace can vary a lot within a book: it may start slow and end fast, or start fast and then go slow and then end fast, and so on, in a great variety of possibilities. The entries for other well-known books are included to help you calibrate our (subjective) pace estimates with respect to yours.
[Wheel of Time, Book-1]----------Pace = 10 Steady, relentless
[A Time to Kill]--------------------Pace = 10 Steady, relentless
Glory Be To Mars------------------Pace = 10 Steady, relentless
Martian Race-----------------------Pace = 09 Steady
Give Us This Mars-----------------Pace = 09 Steadily increases
[Dune]-----------------------------Pace = 08 Varies, steadily increases
First Landing--------------------Pace = 08 Steady, but faster at end
Mars Crossing--------------------Pace = 07 Varies
As It Is On Mars-----------------Pace = 07 Varies, steadily increases
Shadows of Medusa----------------Pace = 07 Varies, fastest at end
[Lord of the Rings]--------------Pace = 07 Varies, very fast in parts
[Fountainhead]-------------------Pace = 07 Varies, fastest at end
[Red Mars]----- -----------------Pace = 06 Varies, slow in middle
Return to Mars-------------------Pace = 06 Varies, fastest at end
White Mars-----------------------Pace = 03 Mostly steady, faster at end
[Wheel of Time, Book-10]---------Pace = 03 Steady
NOTE: We are not implying that a book with a higher pace is necessarily "better" than one with a lower pace -- it may be for some purposes, but not for others. For a long plane journey, Martian Race might be just the thing, but for a relaxing, contemplative read in a quiet garden "White Mars" might be better. Pace is just one of many factors a person considers in choosing a book.
The estimates below are for the total pages/words of main, active, unfolding, story content, exclusive of peripheral philosophical discussions, flashbacks for character development, and so on. No allowance is made for how gripping the story is. The entries for other well-known books are included to help you calibrate our (subjective) Story Content estimates with respect to yours.
[Fellowship of the Ring: Lord of the Rings]----------Story = 10
[Dune]--------------------------------------------------Story = 09
Give Us This Mars------------------------------------Story = 09
Glory Be To Mars-------------------------------------Story = 09
[Wheel of Time, Book-1] -----------------------------Story = 09
[Fountainhead]-----------------------------------------Story = 09
Shadows of Medusa------------------------------------Story = 08
As It Is On Mars-------------------------------------Story = 08
[Red Mars]-------------------------------------------Story = 08
Return to Mars---------------------------------------Story = 08
[Moving Mars]----------------------------------------Story = 07
First Landing----------------------------------------Story = 06
Martian Race-----------------------------------------Story = 06
[Emma]-----------------------------------------------Story = 06
Mars Crossing----------------------------------------Story = 05
[Wheel of Time, Book-10]-----------------------------Story = 04
White Mars-------------------------------------------Story = 03
[Foucault's Pendulum]--------------------------------Story = 01
NOTE: We are not implying that a book with a higher Story Content is necessarily "better" than one with a lower Story Content -- it may be for some purposes, but not for others. Story Content is just one of many factors a person considers in choosing a book.
LATEST MARS NEWS
The following web sites are good for the latest news about Mars:
MARSNEWS.COM
MARSTODAY.COM
MARTIANSOIL.COM
MARS SOCIETY
THE ACTIVITIES OF NASA'S MARS ROVERS SPIRIT AND OPPORTUNITY ON MARS
U.S. GEOLOGICAL SERVICE: MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES
Copyright Tharsis Books, 2003.
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