A review by wah38
Before Mars by Emma Newman

5.0

The first book I can remember reading where the ending was spoiled by the previous book in the series. Protagonist wakes up on Mars having apparently just arrived, but with a hand-painted note of hers telling her not to trust the ship's psychiatrist. She has flashes of recognition of the other people on the ship and places she hadn't seen. But once the author starts referring to the date of the start of the book it becomes clear that the book is set in almost the same timeframe as the previous book, which means that right when the capsule is opened on Earth, almost the whole Earth will be destroyed in thermonuclear war. So the protagonist struggles with the obviously-lying AI and the possibly-lying rest of the crew, discovering their innocuous secrets Poirot-style until the big reveal: the psychiatrist erased their memories after they had discovered that the Mars trip (which was sponsored by GaborCorp) was just a ruse to build a ship to go to Pathfinder, just as the Circle cult was the US's ruse to build a ship to go to Pathfinder in book 2. Hard to read the parts involving psychological breakdown, but overall a thrilling mystery not harmed by the fact that the previous book gave away 75% of the ending.