Rating: 
Summary: Great read
Review: In 2026, humanity faces a new crisis. There is a humongous biological growth in the Pacific that threatens to destroy the food chain. NASA believes that the Slick is a result of a find by the Chinese on the Martian polar cap. Microbiologist Mariella Anders joins a team of scientists investigating the Martian northern icecap to determine what the Chinese actually uncovered. However, the idealistic Mariella must contend with bottom line scientist Penn Brown of Cytex, who wants to monopolize whatever is discovered, especially the means to eradicate Slick. On Mars, the Chinese team working at the site where the organism was originally found flees the area as they are now contaminated. The NASA team finds samples of the original organism and Mariella makes a desperate effort to return them to earth, alienating Cytex, the Chinese, and NASA. THE SECRET OF LIFE is an engaging science fiction novel that once again shows how talented Paul McAuley is in getting his message across within an entertaining plot. Mr. McAuley rips extremists on either side of scientific discovery through his intrepid lead character. The greed and the ban without debate types are skewered and ridiculed for their intolerance towards the common good. However, the secret to what enables Mr. McAuley's books (see his Confluence stories) so good is he rips skin, but does so inside a believable, terse futuristic tale. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Tough to read...
Review: Ok, I'm not actually done with the book, but even as an avid reader, I found it hard to get started with this book. The most annoying thing is his style of writing everything in the present tense. (example: She SAYS, " How are you doing?", instead of She SAID, "How are you doing"? He WALKS to the curb, instead of He WALKED to the curb.) A fine point, to be sure, but YOU try reading like that for hundreds of pages. If it doesn't grab me in the next fifty, I'm done. UPDATE: I actually did finish, but wish I'd given up like I said I would. The pacing stinks, the charaters are launched around from location to location seemingly at random intervals, and that lousy use of tenses continued to bug me. Unless you are a hardcore fan of this writer and his style, I would avoid it like grim death.
Rating:
Summary: First Class Science And Exploration
Review: This near term hard science fiction novel covers a lot of territory, the politics of science being one of them, Paul McAuley is a scientist so he illuminates some of the in-fighting that occasionally occurs in scientific research. I thought the story was very well executed, and characterization was superb. The plot concerns a microorganism that is spreading in the Pacific ocean and threatening the food chain, and may have part or all of it's origin on the planet Mars. Dr. Mariella Anders, a microbiologist, does her part to investigate, and is also sent to Mars for further investigations, with a greedy corporation seeking to monopolize the research. Mariella is also a free spirit, delighting in the pleasures of living, well done, and not another puritanical novel here! Paul McAuley throws in some dead accurate social commentary in this novel also, and you can even learn a bit about biology in addition. But beware, this is not a shoot-em-up space opera, it is very cerebral and may cause a reader to actually think, but it still has it's share of action and suspense, and the trek across the surface of Mars is a masterpiece. I found this novel to be very readable, it drew me in as I read more and more each day to get to the end to see what happens, and it is not far-out as some science fiction is today that lose touch with reality. This novel has as it's centerpiece a great biological mystery that I found fascinating, wrote in an easy to read, flowing style.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Mars scenes, interesting speculations
Review: Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick Awards, McAuley ("Confluence Trilogy") sets "The Secret of Life" in 2026, when global warming has submerged portions of the US coast, new viral infections menace humanity, and corporate greed reigns. The newest threat is a fast-growing slick in the Pacific, absorbing all nutrition in its path. Genetic examination suggests the slick is of Martian origin, probably brought back by the Chinese. As life has never been found on Mars, this discovery excites scientists for numerous reasons, few of them altruistic. The protagonist, brilliant, bohemian, holistic biologist Mariella Anders, joins her nemesis, corporate-funded biologist Penn Brown and a NASA geologist, Anchee Ye, on an emergency Mars mission. Stalked by radical greens and shadowed by FBI, a rebellious impulse compromises Mariella's position, forcing her to leave for Mars under contract to Brown's employer, Cytex. Not wholly believable. The Chinese have also mounted another mission and the tensions escalate as Brown, Mariella and Ye race across the desolate Mars landscape toward the pole and the rumor of life. Greed, accident and miscalculation leave the mission in perilous disarray and Mariella, trusting only herself, seizes the samples and flees. There's plenty of action and speculative science on the origin of life but it's hard to believe even the most ruthless among us would risk sacrificing the entire human race for profit. If there's no people, where's the profit? An excellent writer, McAuley is at his best describing the eerie Martian terrain, truly evoking the strange, harsh, beauty of land without life.
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