Mars Crossing

In this near term science fiction novel, circa 2028, Geoffrey Landis gives us an exciting long distance trek across the surface of the planet Mars in a desperate attempt to save themselves after a major equipment malfunction puts them in deadly peril. Two previous Martian missions have both failed. This is an exciting adventure and kept me turning the pages. The plot and character development were excellent, with several flashbacks that brought out the backgrounds and personalities of the astronauts in meticulous detail without becoming monotonous. In some science fiction novels an author sometimes creates too many characters, but here Landis gets it just right. There are many chapters, all very short. Landis is a NASA engineer, so the technical aspects of this novel are superb, and as in all great science fiction the technology takes on a supporting role to the story and the lives of the people involved. This is a well written novel, earthy at times, not stodgy, a joy to read, a brilliant literary work. And you may even learn a little about the real planet Mars, after all, that is what science fiction is all about, a look at future possibilities in an entertaining way, and there is also a surprise ending.

A most excellent Sci-Future(my term)book, Landis presents a novel angle(forgive the pun)of presenting a possible Science Future of multiple explorations of the "Planet of War'Mars'". Found myself truly rooting for a particular charactor to survive. Landis has a way of making all his characters so real that one cannot but help feel solidarity with the reasons behind each one's goodness, roughness, sorrow and joy of their lives. Found myself weeping with sorrow and yes even joy at Landis' finality of the tale- also hoping for a continuation of humanity's insatible need to understand the planet Mars via a sequel to 'Mars Crossing'.

This book is excellent!Landis has written the book in short chapters as in the style of Arthur C Clarke so that it is very readable - I found I could not put it down however.The characters are very carefully developed unlike so many Science fiction writers, so that one really does begin to care about what happens to them. Their very different motives are explored in detail. Why would anyone want to be on the third mission to Mars? When things start to go wrong the crew conceive a desperate plan involving crossing half the planet. Landis manages to capture the realism through very careful images and a sound technical basis for his story. Whilst the mission is set in the future one really has a feeling that the mission could be happening today thanks to his use of Dr Robert Zubrins (The Case for Mars, and Entering Space)mission concepts and descriptions of manned versions of hardware already being develped. The tension is as real and palpable (remember Apollo 13?). The easy style with which the author writes about Mars is reminiscent of some of Gareth Lynn Powells short stories. Whilst this book is not up to the heavyweight standards of Kim Stanley Robinsons Red Mars, It does not run out of steam as with K.S.Rs later works Green and Blue Mars.Do the crew survive? You will have to read the book to find out but I promise you, you will care what happens. I only hope someone at NASA reads the book in advance of planning the real mission!More people will be asking. If we can go to the red planet with todays technology why arn't we trying?On To Mars!!

After last summer's horrid "Mission to Mars" and the disappointing "Red Planet," I was hesitant to invest my time in yet another Mars story. Besides the above mentioned movies, I also found Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars somewhat disappointing (I have yet to read Ben Bova's recent Mars books), so I began this book with some trepidation.After the first few chapters of the book I was looking forward to kicking a few of the characters out the air lock; one in particular was very annoying. However, Geoffrey Landis did a good job of making me care for the characters by the end of the book. Landis accomplished this through frequent flashbacks to develop the characters. Some may find this style of writing distracting, but I found it important because I would not have found the tension in the story if I did not care about the characters.The basic story is very similar to the movie "Red Planet," a team of astronauts fly to Mars in one ship and trek a short distance to a return vehicle only to find it damaged beyond repair. Their only hope is a long distance voyage across most of mars to use another ship as an escape vehicle. The problem: the vehicle cannot hold them all. Despite the lack of "Red Planet's" flesh eating explosive insects and psychotic attack robot, I found the adventure in this "Mars Crossing" much more exciting, largely because it felt real.If you are a fan of space exploration and have been following the various real missions to Mars (at least the ones that worked), you will be treated to the additional pleasure of having the recent knowledge gained from these missions woven into the story. Science, when presented well, can be an adventure.

There is a category of Science Fiction, that we like to call "hard" science fiction, frequented by the likes of Steven Baxter, Greg Egan, and David Brin. Then there is this stunning first novel by an author that I would have to call "ultra-hard" or "Real world" science fiction. That is because Geoffrey A. Landis really works on Mars technology! His "real" job is a Scientist at NASA Jogn Glenn Research Center, working on Mars technology. So if there ever was anyone qualified to write a novel on Mars, he is. We have waited for years for his first novel, since all his short story quality has been so consistently excellent. He has already won Hugo and Nebula awards for his short stories. In this first novel, the scientific explanation is full and authehtic. But the characters and their development is also splendid. The story has the epic quality of real-world adventures. It is high-quality hard science fiction with the authenticy of a NASA insider. This should be the Hugo award winner for the best Science Fiction book of 2000.