Voyage

Rating:
Summary: What might have been? Definately!
Review: Alternate history. It's a fun concept to fiddle with. . . what if Hitler had won? What if VonBraun had went to the Soviet Union after WWII? What if Kennedy had not died.

Stephen Baxter answers the last question in grand form in the novel Voyage. Voyage is the story of a manned mission to Mars in the 1980's, or perhaps, more specifically, the build up to and execution of the mission.

Baxter brings his aeronautical expertise to this book, as well as a good command of history (aborted and realized). The story of Voyage, the tech, the flow. . . all are believable and the story is told quite well. It reminded me of watching "From the Earth to the Moon" to be quite honest.

Give Baxter a few evenings of your time, and you'll get a good read from it. Just ignore the rather frequent use of the Lord's name in vain. ;-)

Rating:
Summary: Another good concept ruined
Review: As a big proponent of a manned mission to Mars, I looked forward to reading this book. While Baxter's characters showed a lot of promise, the slow pace of the story and lack of any possible conflict failed to keep my interest.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent story. I highly recommend it.
Review: I am a fan of 'Sciene Probable'. That is to say, science fiction that is based on fact and known science.

This book hits that mark dead on.

The adherence to the technicals and history of the Apollo program is well done and worked seemlessly into this alternate history. The description of science is detailed enough for those so inclined while not going so overboard as to bore the less technical reader.

The structure of the writing is perfect for a story that must cover such a long period of time. Baxter is able to carry the story over decades without ever losing momentum or the interest of the reader.

The character development is great. The story is progressively told from the perspective of different characters, in the third person.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. One of the best I've read.

Rating:
Summary: It really could have happened
Review: I can remember, as a child of 10 or so, watching the ghostly pictures on television of Armstrong and Aldrin walking on the moon. I was hooked on the adventure and became an avid Apollo watcher until December '72 when the last mission flew.There was a lot of speculation that the Americans would follow up their moon triumph with a push at the big one and go to Mars. Despite the good reasons, I was always disappointed that it didn't happen. I'm sure many others were too and, especially if you are one of them, it is therefore with some excitement that you should approach this book. Stephen Baxter has created a wonderful 'could have been' story of the first manned flight to Mars in the mid 1980s. It is all so plausible - and there are even some real life characters. Anyone who has read Andrew Chaikin's "A man on the moon - the voyages of the Apollo astronauts" or Henry Cooper's "Thirteen: The Apollo flight that failed" will find resonances from these factual accounts in Baxter's story. The characters are very well crafted and, after reading the book, you will find it difficult to separate Stone, York and Gershon, Baxter's astronauts, from Armstrong, Conrad, Schmitt and all the others who really did fly in the great adventure.Read this book - a very believable and gripping tale

Rating:
Summary: A manned trip to Mars - 15 years ago!
Review: I loved Tom Hanks HBO mini-series "From the Earth to the Moon." If you did, buy this book!

Mr. Baxter takes the reader through an alternate history of the exploration of space where Nixon followed Cap Weinberger's suggestion to keep the space program focused on going to Mars instead of trying to build a reusable shuttle.

A more Soviet approach of continuing improvements in Apollos and Saturns, ever lowering launch costs and keeping aerospace workers employed results. Further developments along the path to Mars that we never took are explored in this wonderful and technically believable story and a cast of characters that is well above the average of the typical alternate history novel.

As a long time believer that we made a mistake in not going to Mars in the '80's, (Von Braun planned a trip in 1982) I finished the book believing we are better off in our space exploration because we didn't take this trip at that time. I don't think that was the intention of the author, but he's laid the story out so realistically, the conclusions of the reader are just like in real life!

It's a rare novel that changes my point of view so fundamentally. I think you'll find it surprising as well.

Rating:
Summary: A manned trip to Mars - 15 years ago!
Review: I suppose I'm glad Stephen Baxter didn't manage to become an astronaut! I think he is still longing to go into space, and his novels give him -and us - the opportunity to go after all.

This longing is very obvious in 'Voyage'. Baxter decides to take a crucial point in the history of the U.S. space program - Kennedy's call to go to the moon and Mars. Kennedy here survives the assassination attempt and goes on proclaiming manned space missions. At the end of the sixties, Nixon decides to expand the manned missions to go to Mars as well...

A fever possesses NASA. Almost everything goes to Ares - the name for the Mars mission. And almost a generation later, in the mid-eighties, 'man' (i.e. woman) stands on Mars... Ohhh yes, it would have been so nice.

The Ares mission to Mars has an expensive price ticket. A lot of other missions have to be cancelled, there is simply not enough money for them in the NASA budget. So, there are never more then just three Apollo missions; there is no space shuttle. Many other missions are cut down: no Magellan to Venus, no Voyagers 1 & 2 to the gas giants. We don't know anything about them that we do know in our own universe.

Are we better off in this alternate universe? Maybe not for non-Martian planetary scientists. But by going to Mars so soon, NASA and at least the U.S. commit themselves to the red planet - and maybe other nation will get Mars fever as well, and start lowering their weapon budgets. I suppose NASA in the 'Voyage' universe will get a huge increase in their post-Ares budget

Buy and read this book!

Rating:
Summary: Uh...Wow....I guess
Review: If Tom Clancy is the "Tom Clancy" of warfare, Baxter may be his equal in Engineering. The book is written in near scholarly text when explaining the nueclear rockets, and chemical propellant vehicles that mankind would have used to go to Mars in the 1980's. That was a turn-off. Another turn-off is the non-chronological sequence the story is told in. The first passages have the crew that is going to Mars on the pad. Then the book retreats from there to when Natalie York, Mission Specialist and one of the many protagonists in the book, decided to become an astronaut. And then it comes back to different points in the Mars Mission inter-mixed with the life stories of the other two Mars explorers going to the Red Planet with her, the bids to build the hardware going on the voyage, the shakeups at NASA, even York's search for an apartment near NASA. It would have been better if it was told from point A to B. I found this to be a terrible way to have to read the book. For instance, you knew the Nueclear rocket program had it's problems before he wrote about them since it was explained earlier in the book.

On the plus side, and there are many plusses, the book explains from an "insider's" viewpoint what these astronauts go through. It isn't pretty. The sterile appearance of the space program is stripped away with broad strokes. These people are street fighters who look at competitiveness as one of the four food groups. The politics of NASA, the in-fighting, the seemingly ordinary choices these men and women made that would effect how history books are written decades later are described in hard-headed, unromantic terms. All at once you are enamored and a little bothered at what is written. "Could it be that superficial and heroic at the same time?" was a question I kept asking myself.

And then there is the subtext of the book. Let's go to Mars. We knew we could do it in the 1970's and the fact that we haven't done it has deposited this country at a destination that is subordinate to its destiny.

Rating:
Summary: Technically excellent, but overwhelmed by back story
Review: Stephen Baxter's VOYAGE takes place in an alternate past: What if John F. Kennedy had survived assassination and lobbied for NASA to send astronauts to Mars in the 1980s, instead of building the space shuttle? It's a fascinating premise and certainly one worthy of a unique Mars novel.

Baxter himself holds a doctorate in engineering, so it's no surprise that he really knows his way around the technical stuff of spaceflight. He's quite knowledgeable in space history, as well. He presents an impressive amount of authentic detail, far more than I've seen in any other novel of its kind. Perhaps too much, in fact, because many spaceflight scenes repeat events and dialogue from real-life missions almost verbatim. On the whole, VOYAGE feels quite faithful to the era described, even if it's somewhat too faithful. It's also interesting to catch him using a few historic dates in spaceflight -- July 1976, April 1981, January 1986 -- so we can contemplate the differences in his alternate past.

Geologist Natalie York is VOYAGE's most reliable protagonist; she comes across as determined but not easy to root for. Baxter makes a few generalizations based on astronaut mythology, and he rarely hides his disdain for NASA's old "pilot vs. scientist" culture. One veteran astronaut is so surly that in the real space program he would have been permanently shelved from flight status (a la Wally Schirra). Nonetheless, Baxter avoids many of the stilted stereotypes of Ben Bova's Mars novels, so at least these characters are more subtle and level-headed. For the most part, he steers clear of the soap-opera style plotting that cripples most Mars books, and that alone is commendable.

VOYAGE's "major malfunction" is that Baxter spends far too much time laying the groundwork for going to Mars, and it dominates the pace of the novel. Almost nine tenths of this book is back story. The launch of the Mars flight opens the book, but by page 200 we're only up to Day 3 and we've barely left the earth behind us. At page 466, we've reached Day 171 of the flight, yet we've only arrived at the swingby of Venus, and we're still almost seven months away from the red planet!

While the author deserves praise for presenting a credible rationale for going to Mars, you can only go so far with a book about a Mars flight without actually describing the flight. I kept pleading for Baxter to get away from the project's early days and get to the damn point, but it practically never happens. Once I figured out how diminished the Mars flight was, it took me ages to finish reading. Because it is so dominated by background, this 772-page story unfolds in almost geologic time.

Even with my complaints, VOYAGE is easily the most technically accomplished and reasonable Mars novel I've ever read, and I've read a great many of them. It is frequently interesting and packed with details, but I just wish Baxter had spent more effort flying the mission instead of building his case. It is a solid four-star novel if not for the heavy reliance on background.

Rating:
Summary: Great build-up to the big ending, and fizzz
Review: This is an interesting book about how NASA might have gotten a manned mission to Mars by now. The story revolves around one very dedicated geologist, and her issuance into the boys club of astronauts. The book starts well, but about half way through, Baxter gets bogged down--as so many books about NASA and US space missions seem to--in the details of the mission. The book loses touch with human elements, and is a bit boring.

But, again following previous themes, disaster wakes the plotline up, and Voyage runs with good inertia to the end.

The plotline is well conceived and interesting, but any of you that are interested in the alternative history (which I have read only one other book about), Baxter may disappoint you. There is very little in Voyage of any political or historical consequence (well, other than NASA getting a manned mission to Mars). Real figures in history (such as JFK) take a very big back seat, and add almost nothing to this book. I found this lack of tie-in disappointing (especially with the teaser on the back cover mentioning JFK).

And finally, I was dismayed with the last four pages of this book. Baxter builds everything up nicely for the finale, and completely misses. The ending is completely out-of-character, and performs a jump back to "NASA mission mode" (i.e., downplayed and disappointing). Too bad, as otherwise, Voyage was an interesting read.

3 of 5 stars

Rating:
Summary: Voyage Defines What Science Fiction Should Be
Review: Voyage provides a benchmark for what true science fiction should be...Taking what is known about science and playing 'what if'...And in this case, Stephen Baxter adds a twist by changing the course of history...

Anyone who knows the stories of Project Apollo and the post-lunar Apollo Applications Program, which included Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz, will feel right at home with Voyage...This book makes me proud because of its technical accuracy and attention to detail...Even more stunning and exciting is that someone had the gumption to take one of our greatest 'what ifs' and making it come to life...

And although the inter-center rivalry that plays out in the story (Langley vs. Marshall) seems like a dramatic touch, it really isn't...That rivalry has been documented in a number of non-fiction works in the past...

The book isn't perfect, though...I really could've done without the broken-romance angle that poor Natalie York is plagued with, and the seemingly one-note performance by Ralph Gershon...But the other elements are there, straight from America's proud spacefaring legacy...

At one point, we may yet reach Mars...Much like our missions to the moon, it will be a journey requiring all the resources and talent the United States can muster...