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jeffmauch's review
4.0
This one was a hard one to put down once it got going, and I really wish it had been a bit longer to develop the story more, but I think the author was shooting for a very tight time frame from beginning to end in order to ratchet up the suspense. This is a hard science fiction story that reminds me heavily of Weir's The Martian" and if that was a book you enjoyed, go pick this one up immediately, you won't be disappointed. It's very realistic and doesn't seem at all far fetched and the female protagonist is very relatable and is well developed for the shortness of the novel. Pick this up if you like good suspense, the perceived problems of living on Mars, or the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
tome15's review
3.0
Cawdron, Peter. Retrograde. Afterword by Andrew Rader. 2016. Mars Endeavor No. 1. Mariner, 2018.
Strange things can happen to books after an author sends them out into the world. In the case of a book called Mars Endeavor by journeyman Australian writer Peter Cawdron, its Forward became an afterword, and it acquired a new title, one supposes to separate the first volume from the name of the series. In any case, Kindle editions are available under both titles, and Goodreads does not seem to know they are the same book. All the publishing muddle aside, Retrograde is a worthy, though not outstanding, novel about a near-future effort to colonize Mars. Cawdron is honest in saying he was influenced by Kim Stanley Robinson and Andy Weir, and he profits from some of the discoveries about the Martian environment made since Weir and Robinson wrote their novels. He suggests that underground habitats may be necessary to protect colonists from radiation, and he does not play fast and loose with air pressure, as Weir does. But his characters never bounce off the page the way those of Weir and Robinson do. Any 200-page book that feels it necessary to put a dramatis personae at the beginning, probably doesn’t trust his readers to know who’s who. Finally, all three authors include plot devices that strain one’s ability to suspend disbelief. Caudron, in particular, throws some AI melodrama at us that seems to belong in a less hard-science novel.
Strange things can happen to books after an author sends them out into the world. In the case of a book called Mars Endeavor by journeyman Australian writer Peter Cawdron, its Forward became an afterword, and it acquired a new title, one supposes to separate the first volume from the name of the series. In any case, Kindle editions are available under both titles, and Goodreads does not seem to know they are the same book. All the publishing muddle aside, Retrograde is a worthy, though not outstanding, novel about a near-future effort to colonize Mars. Cawdron is honest in saying he was influenced by Kim Stanley Robinson and Andy Weir, and he profits from some of the discoveries about the Martian environment made since Weir and Robinson wrote their novels. He suggests that underground habitats may be necessary to protect colonists from radiation, and he does not play fast and loose with air pressure, as Weir does. But his characters never bounce off the page the way those of Weir and Robinson do. Any 200-page book that feels it necessary to put a dramatis personae at the beginning, probably doesn’t trust his readers to know who’s who. Finally, all three authors include plot devices that strain one’s ability to suspend disbelief. Caudron, in particular, throws some AI melodrama at us that seems to belong in a less hard-science novel.
avid_d's review
2.0
Readable but nothing more.
The initial set-up had me hoping for a far deeper story than it is.
The repeated interruption of the narrative with bits of back story did not help.
The initial set-up had me hoping for a far deeper story than it is.
The repeated interruption of the narrative with bits of back story did not help.
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