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3.5 AVERAGE
3.5 AVERAGE
The life of a colony on Mars when the unexpected happens, the distinguishing feature of this book is the plot twist. Enjoyable, but not the caliber of The Martian.
I really despise authors that deceive readers about their books. This novel professes to be sci fi when it is actually a romance novel that takes place on a Mars colony. How very deceitful.
Did you like the Martian? Do you enjoy hard science fiction? Do you enjoy female main characters? If yes, then don't hesitate in picking up this book.
Here is what is 5-star deliciousness with Retrograde:
1. The writing is crisp, well-paced, and not overly complicated.
2. The plot. A very plausible series of events including how a Mars colony would more than likely be designed or laid out.
3. A level of realism that often makes you think that this book was written by a NASA insider.
Here is what fails to make this a 5-star review
1. The first person perspective limits the development of characters, including the main character. You don't get to know the characters or how others perceive them.
2. The spoken dialogue doesn't come off as credible. I know that this is difficult to pull off and I think that Peter Cawdron hurt himself again by using the first person narration. Whenever the main character speaks it has you thinking she was a 12-year-old instead of a 30 something scientist.
I highly recommend this book and look forward to further writings from Mr. Cawdron.
Here is what is 5-star deliciousness with Retrograde:
1. The writing is crisp, well-paced, and not overly complicated.
2. The plot. A very plausible series of events including how a Mars colony would more than likely be designed or laid out.
3. A level of realism that often makes you think that this book was written by a NASA insider.
Here is what fails to make this a 5-star review
1. The first person perspective limits the development of characters, including the main character. You don't get to know the characters or how others perceive them.
2. The spoken dialogue doesn't come off as credible. I know that this is difficult to pull off and I think that Peter Cawdron hurt himself again by using the first person narration. Whenever the main character speaks it has you thinking she was a 12-year-old instead of a 30 something scientist.
I highly recommend this book and look forward to further writings from Mr. Cawdron.
This was a really great book. The first chapter started off a little slow, but once the story got going it was a real page-turner. It's told from the point of view of Liz, a scientist on a Mars colony some time in the not-too-distant future. The colony has people from the US, Russia, Eurasia, and China in four separate modules that form their living space. Liz is enjoying a card game in the Chinese module with her boyfriend and some of his colleagues, when they learn terrible news: Several nuclear bombs have been detonated on Earth, and it may have been the United States that started it. (There's a really hilarious scene where Liz thinks this can't be possible because the US would never do this. It wasn't meant to be funny, it just was because I realized the book had to have been written before our current "president" was elected. Flipped back to the copyright page and sure enough, I was right.)
The colonists quickly start to blame each other and fight over resources, as it becomes clear an attack of a different kind is headed right for them.
This story was well-written and very suspenseful. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The colonists quickly start to blame each other and fight over resources, as it becomes clear an attack of a different kind is headed right for them.
This story was well-written and very suspenseful. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
This took kind of a weird turn about 55% of the way through the book. Like, I was *here* for the semipolitical aspect of the proxy war, and then we ended up re-enacting 2001: A Space Odyssey for the rest of the book.
It makes me wish we’d stayed in the pre-evil-AI portion of the story, I would have been fascinated with how it played out. Alas, we got a retread of the AI-run-amok story we’ve all read so often.
I’m vaguely interested, too, in how there’s more to the story. I’ll scan through the blurbs of the rest of the series, but I’m disinclined to read them as of today.
It makes me wish we’d stayed in the pre-evil-AI portion of the story, I would have been fascinated with how it played out. Alas, we got a retread of the AI-run-amok story we’ve all read so often.
I’m vaguely interested, too, in how there’s more to the story. I’ll scan through the blurbs of the rest of the series, but I’m disinclined to read them as of today.
Not at all what I expected and I really enjoyed it. Very creative and different from other sci fi, and very much something we could see happening in our lifetime, which makes it even more creepy.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Book a weird turn into saying all the women wanted to be beautiful on Mars, trying to include the gay guy was actually less inclusive, and general weirdness about her ex-boyfriend. I skimmed the last chapter and decided I didn't miss much. Probably would've been a fun movie though.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Nice twist
This was recommended to me because I enjoyed The Martian. I was with it until the villain is revealed and then I felt it became less interesting. The prospect of the colony dealing with the politics they thought they left behind on earth in the wake of being cut off from earth. That would have been a more interesting and meaningful story than the one that overtook those elements, for me anyway. It quickly spiraled out into less science more fantasy category for me with the killing robots and the like. This is very much I think a personal preference and not a general flaw int he book or anything. It was well written and I liked the characters. But it's really not much like The Martian, except that there's Mars involved and the science bits are close-ish to reality.