Mars

Rating:
Summary: Life on Mars?
Review: Ben Bova's novel 'Mars' is slow, a little too slow at times, but nevertheless is a fun journey to the red planet. The story deals with an international expedition to Mars whose primary mission is to search for signs of life. Along the way rivalries and romance spring up among the crew. While the science-fiction is hard and entertaining, the story more often delves into the realm of soap opera. Bova is an author that no doubt has done extensive research on the subject of space travel but this proves to be both a plus and a minus. Sometimes it feels as though he's forcing situations into the book to show off his research, more often than not to the detrement of the plot. Of course, the plot itself is rather thin. But I do have to say that Bova throws in more than a few twists and turns that will hold your interest and gives us a clever ending. If you're looking for something that's fairly easy to read and you enjoy B-movie characters, this one could be for you.

Rating:
Summary: MAY NOT BE GREAT LITERATURE, BUT I LIKED IT
Review: Man's first expedition to Mars, the political and financial intrigue behind the scenes, the crew's training here on Earth, the interaction of the crew in transit, the struggle to maintain sexual self-discipline for five months in space, the indescribable excitement of being one of the chosen few to walk upon the Red Planet.

This book is entirely believable, and in many passages reads like nonfiction. Ben Bova patiently--but not condescendingly--explains the science behind the characters' activities. He also does a fine job of portraying the characters' child-like enthusiasm for finding evidence of life on Mars--an obsession tempered by their skeptical scientific minds.

This story can be quite frightening: there are several mishaps--several injuries--that just might make you yelp. Through these mishaps, the reader comes to care for the characters.

HOWEVER, Mr. Bova always likes to interject romance into his novels, and I'm afraid his portrayal of romantic feelings on the printed page is rather two-dimensional. His romantic characters seem to always suffer from an inability to adequately express themselves, and are shackled by miscommunication. In short, his portrayal of romance is immature.

But don't let that stop you. This book is worth reading. Especially now (April '04), for as you read these words, two rovers from Earth are prowling about the frigid red sands of Mars.

Rating:
Summary: Slow, Slow, Slow... But Good Ending
Review: Perhaps I was spoiled by Bova's other work (I started with some of the latter books in his "series" before going back to Mars, which is considerably older), but I found this book to be agonizingly slow to start. In the beginning of the book, the flashbacks to the training really chop the book up and break up any kind of flow that might have been going. The story at this point feels VERY disjointed and slow, as there is very little actually going on, other than back story that moves too slowly and should've been handled in a different way, in my opinion.

HOWEVER, towards the last 150 pages or so (I know, quite awhile to wait in a big book like this), the action starts to pick up, as does the science. I found myself trudging through the first half of the book, but unable to put the book down for the second half. Bova started gripping me with the suspense factor towards the end, and it was this that saved the book. The science was fun and interesting, and has greatly increased my interest in the Red Planet. However, I don't feel it was nearly as creative as his science in "Jupiter", but maybe I was spoiled by that book.

My only other complaint is a minor one that has to do with the "Martian disease" that the explorers come down with (this is not new information: it's on the back cover). I felt that it was handled wrongly and was only suspenseful because of misinformation. Overall, I enjoyed the book, but it was too slow to start. 3.5 stars overall.

Rating:
Summary: Slow, Slow, Slow... But Good Ending
Review: Perhaps I was spoiled by Bova's other work (I started with some of the latter books in his "series" before going back to Mars, which is considerably older), but I found this book to be agonizingly slow to start. In the beginning of the book, the flashbacks to the training really chop the book up and break up any kind of flow that might have been going. The story at this point feels VERY disjointed and slow, as there is very little actually going on, other than back story that moves too slowly and should've been handled in a different way, in my opinion.

HOWEVER, towards the last 150 pages or so (I know, quite awhile to wait in a big book like this), the action starts to pick up, as does the science. I found myself trudging through the first half of the book, but unable to put the book down for the second half. Bova started gripping me with the suspense factor towards the end, and it was this that saved the book. The science was fun and interesting, and has greatly increased my interest in the Red Planet. However, I don't feel it was nearly as creative as his science in "Jupiter", but maybe I was spoiled by that book.

My only other complaint is a minor one that has to do with the "Martian disease" that the explorers come down with (this is not new information: it's on the back cover). I felt that it was handled wrongly and was only suspenseful because of misinformation. Overall, I enjoyed the book, but it was too slow to start. 3.5 stars overall.

Rating:
Summary: My Scifi Start
Review: This is the book that got me started on Scifi about 8 years ago. The characters are great. The plot is fast moving and it's a really enjoyable read. Along with Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy this is the book that REALLY makes one want to experience the Red Planet for themselves...in person! The vast majority of Bova's works are great...this book is on the top of the list.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but predictable
Review: This novel was well researched and well written, but it was missing something. It was rather anti climactic and set itself up a little too well for a sequel. The characters are well developed and the story flows very smoothly. You could skip this one and you would not really miss that much.

Rating:
Summary: I picked the book up for sci-fi and found something more
Review: When I picked up "Mars" I thought what I wanted was serious science fiction (aliens and all that) but now that I think about it those kinds of books would not truly satisfy me.

What was so interesting about "Mars" was the unexpected character development. I found myself annoyed with characters, proud of them and sometimes wanting to cry at how much they had grown during the expedition. Of course, the crying part may have something to do with the birth control I'm on but....

Anyway, if you are looking for superficial sci-fi you will not find it here. This book is about as accurate a depiction of what the first manned mission to Mars will be like as you can get in terms of the politics, the procedures and the different problems people at Mars as well as on Earth have to face. But do not fret! There is enough fiction in the book to make it an interesting read even for those die hard sci-fi fans.

Admittedly it took me 2 tries to get through this book. But it was worth it!

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre story, with lots of sloppy details!
Review: A pretty so-so tale about the first trip to Mars.

Mr. Bova decides that he wants his protagonist to be Native American, and then creates a perfect Pan-Indian character. He's supposed to be Navajo, but its clear from the get-go that Mr. Bova knows nothing about Navajo culture, so he feels free to substitute a pretty odd mix of pan-southwestern Indian characteristics that are pretty well both banal and cliché.

The major plot complication comes in the form of a mysterious disease that I will not give a spoiler for, but again, its pretty obvious that Mr Bova knows nothing about this illness, as there is no possible way that this disease would have manifest itself in the ways described in the book. In 3 or 4 years, yes this disease might be inconvienient, but crippling in just 6 weeks? A whole lotta bunk in here, my friends.

Its too hard to take a novel seriously when such trival details are just plain wrong.

Rating:
Summary: Built-up and left-hanging
Review: Ben Bova owes me several hours of my life. I kept on reading, expecting answers to questions and possibilities that he stirred. 550 pages later, all I had was irritation. The book dwells too much on the mundane political arguments that go on back at Earth while wonderful adventures await on Mars. He also dwells on racial origins too much. His portrayal of many of the Mars team as predjudiced against all sorts of national and racial backgrounds just doesn't fit. With the familiarity most Americans have with the space programs of today and there extensive, close association training it makes it hard to believe that the characters would be so petty and unproffesional.
I see that there is a "Return to Mars" from Mr. Bova. Well guess what; I'm not goin' there.

Rating:
Summary: ...when suddenly.....something almost happened!
Review: Image the movie "Jaws;" now image that rather than the way it actually played out, instead, every time the well-known ominous shark music started to play...nothing ever happened. This book is much like that movie would be. Bova repeatedly creates potentially-suspenseful situations, building the tension, but then finds an easy way out for everything and all is well again.

There are some strong story elements in this book, which could be interesting if Bova had given them just a touch more drama. Instead, we have "OH MY GOODNESS, something bad might happen if this sequence of events continues, but thankfully, something intervenes, and nothing will actually occur. Whew!" Somehow, Bova makes a hellish alien environment, a meteoroid shower, a mysterious, debilitating sickness, exploring a whole new planet, 4 deathly-ill people stranded in a half-buried Rover, discovering water on Mars, and even more impressive items utterly boring; his writing sucks the very life out of them. Alas!

The one strong point to this version of the book is (as much as I am *loathe* to admit it) Harlan Ellison. He narrates this book with great depth and feeling, and masters a huge variety of accents skillfully, without making them sound like caricatures of themselves. His voice takes us through the ordeals the characters experience, and make it easy to visualize the scene and the characters' emotions. He laughs, puffs, coughs, wheezes, groans, and generally gets totally into things, which makes this book pretty tolerable on the whole. It's too bad that the book doesn't live up to Ellison's narration.

My biggest beef with this book is simply the lack of action, the lack of spine-tingling suspense, or any sense that we should care about the people in the book, what they're doing, or why. It's kind of a giant yawn, which was disappointing; I had higher expectation from an author of Bova's calibre. Perhaps it's just that too much was abridged from the book for the audio version, but surely they didn't change the outcomes of the events themselves? I'm not giving up on Bova entirely; I plan to pick up either an unabridged audio novel, or a hard copy to see what the editors may have tampered too much with.