|
|
|
||||||||
|
Mark and Gerry's Science Fiction Reviews, continued
see also below this review....for links to related non-fiction articles and fictional novels about Mars....at the bottom of this page
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The Martian Race by Gregory Benford
review by Gerry
Interest in Mars has grown exponentially thanks to the successful Mars Pathfinder Mission in 1997 (with its little Rover that could) and the multitude of photos from the Mars Global Surveyor. That increased interest has fueled many new books and movies with the theme of the first manned mission to Mars. A recent entry in that area is The Martian Race by Gregory Benford (1999).
An underlying problem addressed in many of these stories is the prohibitive costs of a manned mission. In Benford's novel, the advanced nations of the Earth have banded together to offer a Mars Prize of 30 billion dollars. The money will go to the first explorers who go to Mars, fulfill a specific program of scientific exploration and study, and bring back samples to Earth. In 2015, NASA plans a mission to Mars, hoping to claim the prize. But NASA gets bogged down in internal reviews after all of their prospective crew are killed in a launch pad accident. Enter a wealthy multibillionaire businessman, John Axelrod, along with his Consortium of other big corporations. The Consortium funds a new mission to Mars, in hopes of getting the big prize at the end. Axelrod convinces four NASA astronauts to leave NASA for his team. The Consortium has an unNASA like program, where "faster and cheaper" truly are the mottos, but better and safer are not always possible. The Consortium team launches to Mars in 2016, and plans to return to Earth in 2018. Meanwhile, another group based in China, develops a different, nuclear rocket design, known as the Airbus. The highly secretive Airbus group is starting later, but can go to and from Mars more quickly, and safety is definitely not their priority. It's a little like a crazy space version of the tv show Junkyard Wars, but with highly unfriendly competition, since the financial stakes are so high.
The Martian Race chronicles the experiences and thoughts of one of the Consortium astronauts, Julia Barth. Julia is a biologist, the only woman in that group, and recently married to Viktor (another member of the crew). The story begins in 2018, at a time when Julia and the others are getting ready for their return trip to Earth. The early part of the book shifts back and forth in time between the months when Julia is preparing for the mission (2015-2016) and Julia reluctantly preparing to leave (2018). Usually, the time shifts are clearly marked, but sometimes, when Julia is having a flashback within a flashback to earlier events, it gets a little confusing. As the story opens, Julia has long since found fossils of something like bacteria on Mars, but is hoping to find more. Sure enough, in the early pages of the book, she finds a thermal vent containing what looks like living anaerobic organisms, but a minor accident involving Viktor forces them to return to their base. Once back at the base, Julia longs to return to the vent, but there is no time, as the crew's attention is dedicated to trying to repair their damaged return vehicle.
In some space stories, the interpersonal interactions of the characters are so dominated by their emotions, jealousies, eccentricities, etc. that the reader can't help but wonder why a space agency would ever hire such people. Contrary to that, Benford's astronauts are much more professional. At first, it is a welcome change, but he goes almost too far in the opposite direction, to the point where his characters seem unreal. For example, Julia and Viktor are newlyweds, but even when they're alone, they seem friendly but not too close. Another member of the crew, Marc, is initially bumped from the mission due to Julia's intervention for Viktor. Ultimately Marc is reinstated, but while he hasn't forgotten what happened, his lack of reaction about it is hard to imagine. The closest thing to a passion to be found in this story is in Julia's dedication to her scientific research.
The first half of the book is relatively dry and slow moving. However, the story does pick up, and more dramatic events occur during the last half. Julia does find more interesting material to study, with curiouser and curiouser results. The situation with the Consortium crew becomes more tense, as the condition of their return vehicle to Earth goes from bad to worse. And a great deal of suspicion surrounds the Airbus crew, and questions about how far they might go to try to win the prize. A crucial theme becomes the question of which is better: competition or cooperation.
As an aside, one of the dramatic events involves a topic which people enjoy debating. One crew member has to make a short but difficult run for safety in the low pressures and very low temperatures of Mars, with no helmet. One thing Benford's character does to try to survive, aside from moving quickly to safety, is to keep breathing.
On the whole, The Martian Race does present an interesting story, and a reasonable view of what a first mission to Mars might be like. The parts dealing with Martian life seem highly improbable, but they do spice up the story, and some of the notions presented about anaerobic life are engaging. The Martian Race is not a landmark epic like Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books (see earlier review), but it is well worth the time if you enjoy Mars stories.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Links to Mars articles and novels:
1. Signs of life in meteorites from Mars
2. pictures from the Mars Global Surveyor
3. review of Kim Stanley Robinson's books "Red Mars", "Blue Mars", and "Green Mars", page 4 of Mark and Gerry's Science Fiction Reviews
4. another space race, with a big prize for the winning ship: see review of Ben Bova's "Venus", page 19 of Mark and Gerry's Science Fiction Reviews
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| page created with Easy Designer |