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A review by kynan
Mars by Ben Bova
3.0
Mars has been in my to-read pile for five years. I bought it at the same time as Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, but by the time I reached the end of *that* I was all Marsed-out.
Ben Bova's story of the first manned mission to the eponymous planet is a more succinct read. It's hard sci-fi with plenty of detail on the hows and whys regarding long-term space travel, living on a planet that isn't Earth and the research to be done in places that aren't Earth. For a "hard" sci-fi book, it's relatively light on infodumps. It does talk about geology, biology, chemistry and some basic physics but, similar to the KSR trilogy, also delves a little bit into the social and psychological impact that such a long trip would have on the cooped up humans.
There isn't anything to really say about the plot that the back of the book blurb hadn't already covered without getting into potential spoiler territory so I'll just state that I really enjoyed the way that Mr Bova carefully trod the "is/was there life on Mars?" plotline! I'm not giving anything away, suffice it to say that they've gone looking for it and it's a tangible thread of tension throughout, all the way to the final paragraph.
Speaking of which, the ending was strangely reminiscent of another book we read last weekend, My Teacher Is An Alien. Both books wrap up with a wistful and a very geeky 90s-esque (which, given its publishing date, Mars can be forgiven) call to arms, almost a throwback to the 60's space race propaganda of "do science, for great good and personal enrichment!".
I didn't realise I was heading into a trilogy. I guess in this case is not so much a planned thing as a revisiting of the same place and characters. There's enough left open at the end that finding out what happens next is reason enough to dive straight into Return to Mars!
Ben Bova's story of the first manned mission to the eponymous planet is a more succinct read. It's hard sci-fi with plenty of detail on the hows and whys regarding long-term space travel, living on a planet that isn't Earth and the research to be done in places that aren't Earth. For a "hard" sci-fi book, it's relatively light on infodumps. It does talk about geology, biology, chemistry and some basic physics but, similar to the KSR trilogy, also delves a little bit into the social and psychological impact that such a long trip would have on the cooped up humans.
There isn't anything to really say about the plot that the back of the book blurb hadn't already covered without getting into potential spoiler territory so I'll just state that I really enjoyed the way that Mr Bova carefully trod the "is/was there life on Mars?" plotline! I'm not giving anything away, suffice it to say that they've gone looking for it and it's a tangible thread of tension throughout, all the way to the final paragraph.
Speaking of which, the ending was strangely reminiscent of another book we read last weekend, My Teacher Is An Alien. Both books wrap up with a wistful and a very geeky 90s-esque (which, given its publishing date, Mars can be forgiven) call to arms, almost a throwback to the 60's space race propaganda of "do science, for great good and personal enrichment!".
I didn't realise I was heading into a trilogy. I guess in this case is not so much a planned thing as a revisiting of the same place and characters. There's enough left open at the end that finding out what happens next is reason enough to dive straight into Return to Mars!