Rating: 
Summary: Best mars sci-fi book I've read
Review: The martian race is a very good hard sci-fi novel. NASA gives up going to Mars and instead offers a prize of $30 billion dollars to the first company that can safely land, conduct research and return. There are two companies that decide to take up the challenge, the first an american company run by John Axelrod and the second an asian/european company. The book is set from the point of view of the only woman (and wife of the mission captain) of the american team. After a stay of 18 months on the planet the american crew is about to lift off when complications with their 'borrowed' return vehicle arise. To make matter worse the asian crew are about to land then leave almost immediately, to beat them back, in a quick snatch and grab operation. In the end it all boils done to a race on who can get of the planet and back to Earth first and claim the price. Overall it was a good action/adventure type book that had just the right amount of believable science in it so that if you read the story in the paper tomorrow it wouldn't be hard to believe. Not a fantasy sci-fi but a believeable sci-fi. Like Jurassic Park. The only drawback of the novel I found was a slight lack of punch at the end, but still very good. I would definitely recommend this book to any reader.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Read - Bad Book
Review: This book is an excellent read with a couple great characters, and an extremely plausible story. There are some places in the book that are cut short and others that are focused on too much. For instance there is too much time spent on the economic race and not enough on the possibility of life on mars. When I read another readers review about his book falling apart at page 92, I couldn't believe it. Mine fell to pieces around page 50. The worst bound book I've ever seen.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard Sci-Fi.
Review: This is "hard sci fi," just as I like it. The title refers to a race to Mars, not a race of Martians (although it comes close to that, too). It's as much an example of "how to" on the cheap as it is a story. Benford is down on NASA (or the Federal government, or both), postulating a competition to Mars with a huge purse ($30 billion) as the way to get a human expedition there. That might be what it takes. Yet it's also a call for cooperation rather than competition. He shows the downside of human nature -- competitiveness, going for the gold, the potential for a breakdown of discipline in difficult situations. He advocates nuclear propulsion systems for planetary exploration, rather than today's chemical systems. He stresses how difficult planetary exploration will be -- especially the early stages, when improvisation and self-sufficiency are critical and thereby makes a case for on-the-spot decision-making rather than relying on orders from Mission Control. He also looks forward to life (past or present) on Mars. He was very creative in his depiction of what it could be like. In fact, this novel once again demonstrates to me the limitations of my creative abilities. Maybe I'm just intimidated, but I can't imagine writing a novel this well put together, this imaginative yet full of sophisticated technical detail. Heck, I wonder if I could even come up with a good idea for a "beginning, middle, and end." At any rate, it was an excellent adventure story, notwithstanding the fact that the end was predictable two-thirds of the way into the book. Benford put his lead characters through so many troubles (it actually got depressing at one point) in order to show the extent of danger and difficulties he expects planetary explorers to face that he left them only one way out. Arguably, that aspect of it could have been better written. And the way the threads came together in the end just fit too well.
Still, I enjoyed it immensely.
Rating:
Summary: Hard Sci-Fi.
Review: This is "hard sci fi," just as I like it. The title refers to a race to Mars, not a race of Martians (although it comes close to that, too). It's as much an example of "how to" on the cheap as it is a story. Benford is down on NASA (or the Federal government, or both), postulating a competition to Mars with a huge purse ($30 billion) as the way to get a human expedition there. That might be what it takes. Yet it's also a call for cooperation rather than competition. He shows the downside of human nature -- competitiveness, going for the gold, the potential for a breakdown of discipline in difficult situations. He advocates nuclear propulsion systems for planetary exploration, rather than today's chemical systems. He stresses how difficult planetary exploration will be -- especially the early stages, when improvisation and self-sufficiency are critical and thereby makes a case for on-the-spot decision-making rather than relying on orders from Mission Control. He also looks forward to life (past or present) on Mars. He was very creative in his depiction of what it could be like. In fact, this novel once again demonstrates to me the limitations of my creative abilities. Maybe I'm just intimidated, but I can't imagine writing a novel this well put together, this imaginative yet full of sophisticated technical detail. Heck, I wonder if I could even come up with a good idea for a "beginning, middle, and end." At any rate, it was an excellent adventure story, notwithstanding the fact that the end was predictable two-thirds of the way into the book. Benford put his lead characters through so many troubles (it actually got depressing at one point) in order to show the extent of danger and difficulties he expects planetary explorers to face that he left them only one way out. Arguably, that aspect of it could have been better written. And the way the threads came together in the end just fit too well.
Still, I enjoyed it immensely.
Rating:
Summary: I would have gave it a 5 but the ending is a little weak
Review: This is a great book overall. He does a great job of sucking you into the story and keeping you there. It is near future fiction so there are not mind blowing technical advances, but the action is fast pace. It's interesting thinking about how private enterprise could sped p the space race.
Rating:
Summary: I would have gave it a 5 but the ending is a little weak
Review: This is a great book overall. He does a great job of sucking you into the story and keeping you there. It is near future fiction so there are not mind blowing technical advances, but the action is fast pace. It's interesting thinking about how private enterprise could sped p the space race.
Rating:
Summary: Well-paced, interesting Mars novel
Review: This is near-future, hard (no "warp drive", ESP, or even nanotech) SF. Benford doesn't really milk the tension of the race to return from Mars, which is probably a good thing. Instead he mixes that drama with character development, the story of exploring Mars, and trying to survive on Mars. All in all, it's a fairly well-paced book. It never really elevates itself to a gripping, "just one more chapter before I go to bed" level. But it never really drags either, so I never really found myself bored and wanting to put it down.
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST MARS NOVEL EVER
Review: This is the real, hard stuff--an informed look at how we might go to Mars, for the very best reasons, both scientific and personal. Better than the Robinson because it's about what we can do NOW, not political dreams. A great read, fast pace, real characters.
Rating:
Summary: Stick with it
Review: This work is very tightly based around the Mars Direct architecture developed by Robert Zubrin and others, but the technical details do not weigh down the narrative. It takes a while for the story to pick up momentum. Benford has employed a broken time-thread, whereby he breaks back and forth between past and present. This is occasionally annoying, but the excitement of the story lets him get away with it. It is easy to see how this could be made into a TV series. All up, a good read.
Rating:
Summary: Very entertaining
Review: Very entertaining reading, with lots of realistic details. I doubt however that Mars exploration will be a private venture. And what a strange idea to have called the Euro-Chinese consortium 'Airbus'!
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