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4.17 AVERAGE
4.17 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Loveable characters:
Complicated
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Really captivated me from the first chapter and made me want to know what the hell was happening on mars while maintaining interest in the character and her family life
I will start by saying I did not read the other two in the series. This was recommended to me on Net Galley, and so I was unfamiliar with the world or, if they showed up in former books, the characters.
The plot synopsis sounded interesting.
The writing was engaging.
It's missing three stars for a few reasons.
1) Anna (our MC) spends an inordinate amount of time talking about how she didn't want to be a mother, didn't really like her husband, and all the associated guilt that went with that. This would have been a nice payoff if those factors played hugely into the super surprising ending, but they didn't really, so it was just a lot of pages I ended up skimming.
2) The excitement took about 2/3rds of the book to build up, and I almost DNFed it in that time. Newman did a good job of building up the "am I crazy or is this really happening?" in Anna's head, but it was interspersed with too much drama and dialogue and got a bit bogged down.
3) There were actually lots of cool bits in this story that I wanted to know more about, but didn't learn anything. Like Anna's parents, for instance, and their whole schtick. (Maybe they were another book? I don't know? The synopsis' of the other ones didn't indicate that.)
4) The ending felt a bit rushed. Epsecially one bit. You can message me for further thoughts if you want, but I won't spoil it. But I didn't care for the epilogue much.
Pluses: non binary character ftw!! Space! Cool technology!
All in all, two stars. Could have been better.
P.S. Got this as a review copy from Net Galley and reviewed it ridiculously late. Sorry, NG.
The plot synopsis sounded interesting.
The writing was engaging.
It's missing three stars for a few reasons.
1) Anna (our MC) spends an inordinate amount of time talking about how she didn't want to be a mother, didn't really like her husband, and all the associated guilt that went with that. This would have been a nice payoff if those factors played hugely into the super surprising ending, but they didn't really, so it was just a lot of pages I ended up skimming.
2) The excitement took about 2/3rds of the book to build up, and I almost DNFed it in that time. Newman did a good job of building up the "am I crazy or is this really happening?" in Anna's head, but it was interspersed with too much drama and dialogue and got a bit bogged down.
3) There were actually lots of cool bits in this story that I wanted to know more about, but didn't learn anything. Like Anna's parents, for instance, and their whole schtick. (Maybe they were another book? I don't know? The synopsis' of the other ones didn't indicate that.)
4) The ending felt a bit rushed. Epsecially one bit. You can message me for further thoughts if you want, but I won't spoil it. But I didn't care for the epilogue much.
Pluses: non binary character ftw!! Space! Cool technology!
All in all, two stars. Could have been better.
P.S. Got this as a review copy from Net Galley and reviewed it ridiculously late. Sorry, NG.
While Before Mars is the third book in Emma Newman’s Planetfall series, it has a completely new protagonist and functions as a stand alone. You don’t need to have read the prior two novels, but if you’re interested, they’re Planetfall and After Atlas.
Anna Kubrin is a geologist, but that’s not why she’s sent to Mars; she’s also an artist, and the wealthy executive who owns all rights to planets has plans to sell her paintings for a fortune. So, when Anna on the Mars base, it’s not completely unpredictable that she encounters some animosity and doubts as to her scientific background. Only… that’s just the tip of the iceberg. She also finds a note written in her own handwriting, telling her not to trust the base psychologist, and her wedding ring has been replaced with a near-identical copy. As far as she can tell, there’s only two explanations: she’s caught up in a giant conspiracy, or, more likely, she’s finally gone insane, falling victim to the same paranoia and hallucinations that afflicted her father.
I don’t think I enjoyed Before Mars quite as much as the other two books. But I really, really loved both Planetfall and After Atlas, so that’s not much of a slight on Before Mars. Why did I like it less? I think a large aspect is that, having read After Atlas, I already knew a fairly sizable plot twist that happens near the end. If you’ve read After Atlas, you’ll know what I mean. If you haven’t… well, I bet you’ll never see it coming.
The other reason is that the pacing wasn’t exactly right for me. Again, not that it was bad! There were just a few moments where I caught myself wishing things were moving faster. A large part of the book is Anna turning over different discoveries in her mind, trying to figure out if they’re real or hallucinations. Occasionally, these scenes went slightly too long for me, although I do think they’re important to the overall story.
All the books in this series deal with mental health issues, a topic I’d love to see more of in science fiction. Besides Anna wondering if she’s becoming paranoid or suffering hallucinations, she’s also dealing with postnatal depression and an unhealthy marriage. She didn’t feel that instantaneous connection that so many other mothers discuss, and she struggles with not feeling like she fits into society’s conceptions of motherhood (and additionally, the way once a woman gives birth, her identity is flattened into “mother”). It’s a topic I’ve never seen addressed in a science fiction or fantasy novel before, I’m so glad Emma Newman made this choice.
Before Mars is a character focused story that’s set alongside a science fiction mystery. The conspiracy elements are intriguing — what happened to her wedding ring? Did she really write the note? If so, why can’t she remember it? But the true draw to the novel is the character of Anna, who may be on an entirely different planet but is still wrestling with her past on Earth.
Before Mars may not have reached the same heights as After Atlas or Planetfall for me, but it’s still a wonderful book that I’m very glad to have read. This series is unlike anything else out there and consistently of stupendous quality. I’m so glad there’ll be a fourth novel!
Review from The Illustrated Page.
Anna Kubrin is a geologist, but that’s not why she’s sent to Mars; she’s also an artist, and the wealthy executive who owns all rights to planets has plans to sell her paintings for a fortune. So, when Anna on the Mars base, it’s not completely unpredictable that she encounters some animosity and doubts as to her scientific background. Only… that’s just the tip of the iceberg. She also finds a note written in her own handwriting, telling her not to trust the base psychologist, and her wedding ring has been replaced with a near-identical copy. As far as she can tell, there’s only two explanations: she’s caught up in a giant conspiracy, or, more likely, she’s finally gone insane, falling victim to the same paranoia and hallucinations that afflicted her father.
I don’t think I enjoyed Before Mars quite as much as the other two books. But I really, really loved both Planetfall and After Atlas, so that’s not much of a slight on Before Mars. Why did I like it less? I think a large aspect is that, having read After Atlas, I already knew a fairly sizable plot twist that happens near the end. If you’ve read After Atlas, you’ll know what I mean. If you haven’t… well, I bet you’ll never see it coming.
The other reason is that the pacing wasn’t exactly right for me. Again, not that it was bad! There were just a few moments where I caught myself wishing things were moving faster. A large part of the book is Anna turning over different discoveries in her mind, trying to figure out if they’re real or hallucinations. Occasionally, these scenes went slightly too long for me, although I do think they’re important to the overall story.
All the books in this series deal with mental health issues, a topic I’d love to see more of in science fiction. Besides Anna wondering if she’s becoming paranoid or suffering hallucinations, she’s also dealing with postnatal depression and an unhealthy marriage. She didn’t feel that instantaneous connection that so many other mothers discuss, and she struggles with not feeling like she fits into society’s conceptions of motherhood (and additionally, the way once a woman gives birth, her identity is flattened into “mother”). It’s a topic I’ve never seen addressed in a science fiction or fantasy novel before, I’m so glad Emma Newman made this choice.
Before Mars is a character focused story that’s set alongside a science fiction mystery. The conspiracy elements are intriguing — what happened to her wedding ring? Did she really write the note? If so, why can’t she remember it? But the true draw to the novel is the character of Anna, who may be on an entirely different planet but is still wrestling with her past on Earth.
Before Mars may not have reached the same heights as After Atlas or Planetfall for me, but it’s still a wonderful book that I’m very glad to have read. This series is unlike anything else out there and consistently of stupendous quality. I’m so glad there’ll be a fourth novel!
Review from The Illustrated Page.
The third of Emma Newman's Planetfall books gives us a third protagonist and a third planet on which the story is set. As this planet is Mars, the setting is similar to that of the previous novel, After Atlas, in that the hypercapitalist, post-democracy Earth has control of Mars, in particular Stefan Gabor of GaborCorp. The protagonist is Dr Anna Kubrin: artist, geologist, and reluctant mother. On arrival, Anna begins to find troubling discrepancies in her experience of Mars: a note she painted to herself, telling her not to trust the colony psychiatrist; a footprint in a place where no human is ever supposed to have been. It's an eerie, interesting, and largely successful premise.
The biggest success is perhaps the question of Anna's paranoia. We are given plenty of information about her background and family history that implies she may not have complete control of her faculties. And yet, given Anna's first-person narration, we are also inclined to be sympathetic towards her, even if we question her experiences as she does. In the earlier parts of the novel, Anna retreats into 'mersives' - immersive recordings of past events, although games and shows also use this technique - and into memories in ways that she finds indistinguishable. I loved this method of flashback storytelling, which I found very effective at establishing not only events but also Anna's mental state. Later on this is less successful, as she also just reports past events, particularly regarding her marriage, in a way that I found much more bland. But significantly the story is interesting, so even if I think the success at telling it varies, the desire to press on and consume more of it persists.
To reference Before Mars' predecessors: it recalls the structure of After Atlas, with the mystery and personal life subsumed into (inter-)global events, but the emotional intensity of Planetfall, in that there were times in this book where I had to stop reading to gather myself before I continued. Here are some spoilers for both Before Mars and After Atlas:In After Atlas, the nuclear apocalypse takes place in literally the final pages of the novel and has little chance to have any kind of an impact. In Before Mars it comes a few chapters earlier, but still close to the end and the emotional impact is too big for me to really process - I was much more capable of empathizing with Anna's frustration at being disbelieved regarding the mystery unravelling around her and her mental health. There is something here, something relevant to the modern world, which is the idea that one's personal trauma and struggles can often feel subsumed by global events, events which make it difficult to come to terms with what's happening to you. But what I really want from the promised fourth book in the Planetfall series is some kind of resolution to this story; or at least, some kind of follow-through from the endings of After Atlas and Before Mars. (I assume that this will also include follow-through from the ending of Planetfall, too, although I don't feel I need that quite so much).
I enjoy Emma Newman's writing, and most of the plotting, and many of the ideas in these three books are powerful, as are the struggles the protagonists have regarding their mental health and the worlds on which they live. I certainly want there to be more books in this series, and continue to look forward to them.
The biggest success is perhaps the question of Anna's paranoia. We are given plenty of information about her background and family history that implies she may not have complete control of her faculties. And yet, given Anna's first-person narration, we are also inclined to be sympathetic towards her, even if we question her experiences as she does. In the earlier parts of the novel, Anna retreats into 'mersives' - immersive recordings of past events, although games and shows also use this technique - and into memories in ways that she finds indistinguishable. I loved this method of flashback storytelling, which I found very effective at establishing not only events but also Anna's mental state. Later on this is less successful, as she also just reports past events, particularly regarding her marriage, in a way that I found much more bland. But significantly the story is interesting, so even if I think the success at telling it varies, the desire to press on and consume more of it persists.
To reference Before Mars' predecessors: it recalls the structure of After Atlas, with the mystery and personal life subsumed into (inter-)global events, but the emotional intensity of Planetfall, in that there were times in this book where I had to stop reading to gather myself before I continued. Here are some spoilers for both Before Mars and After Atlas:
I enjoy Emma Newman's writing, and most of the plotting, and many of the ideas in these three books are powerful, as are the struggles the protagonists have regarding their mental health and the worlds on which they live. I certainly want there to be more books in this series, and continue to look forward to them.
The bulk of the setting and characters was very bland for me and would only merit a 2 or 3 stars. The only parts I enjoyed where the threads connecting to the larger series plot/arc.
In a reread this book both suffered and improved....the bulk of the story remains very dull and very firmly in the two star range. When the little bit of suspense I experienced with the plot during my first time reading was gone the characters were even more annoying and the setting very average and dull, however the main series threads are even better and more exciting when coming to this book having recently read the previous two.
In a reread this book both suffered and improved....the bulk of the story remains very dull and very firmly in the two star range. When the little bit of suspense I experienced with the plot during my first time reading was gone the characters were even more annoying and the setting very average and dull, however the main series threads are even better and more exciting when coming to this book having recently read the previous two.
I think I would have liked this better if I had realized this was not the last book in the series. I was expecting resolution, and got none... however, I did enjoy the book.
Beautiful novel. Suspenseful yet very interior—filled with reflections on motherhood etc that struck me as very profound. Also weaves a perfect thread to Newman’s other novels.
What a wonderful quadrilogy. Can’t wait for the finale.
What a wonderful quadrilogy. Can’t wait for the finale.
Book 2 has been my favourite so far. Though I did enjoy the way this linked to the previous two books.