Red Planet

Peter Telep is a master of a unique form of literature sadly not yet appreciated -- the script adaptation. His takes on Space: Above and Beyond, Wing Commander, Descent and now Red Planet have all turned medicore games and movies into excellent stories! Read Red Planet because you're looking for engaging science fiction, not because you're familiar with the movie.

Peter Telep's Red Planet introduces handyman Robert Gallagher, a mission specialist aboard the spaceship MEDEA ONE. The author comes by his handyman-as-mission specialist honestly. Our 19th Century seafaring ancestors had their handyman-mission specialists... ship's carpenter, sail-maker (wind engineer?), etc. The ship's carpenter patched leaky hulls, repaired battle damage, stepped new masts, and moved and fabricated internal bulkheads. H.M.S. Beagle's five-year voyage (1831-36) contributed to Darwin's theory of biological evolution. While the deckhand, cook, carpenter, sail-maker - mission specialists all - kept the fragile Beagle out of harms way. And does SF writer A.E. van Vogt have these thoughts in mind when he places a 'Know-man' aboard the starship Space Beagle in the novel 'Voyage of the Space Beagle?'Telep also reminds us that, "Wherever we go, our behaviors come with us." After all, it's these behaviors that make us... interesting! So hit the MEDEA ONE with a cataclysmic solar flare while she's in Mars orbit. Leave five crewmen stranded on the martian surface by crashing the Mars Entry Vehicle during decent. Have the MEV's piggyback robot go psychotic as a result of the crash. Discover the habitat you need for survival is totally destroyed. Then, let the handyman and his interesting shipmates work it all out while reacting to each other's paranoia, angst, love, hate, and murder - yes, murder! Did I mention the worms?Through Gallagher's experiences, we are privy to a little social consciousness, spirituality, and philosophy... but there's not enough regolith there to scratch your faceplate.Ultimately, survival is dependent upon two females! Mission Commander Kate Bowman orbiting above in a crippled spacecraft and AMEE who's lurking just over the martian horizon. Gallagher needs them both to escape the martian surface and effect a suborbital rendezvous. After reading Peter Telep's novel I'm reluctant to see the Warner Brothers film. It's just too darn satisfying to use my imagination in consort with the author's word pictures. That's why I read fiction! Mr. Telep's Red Planet is good old fashion SF - one cliffhanging chapter after another! Peter, if and when you revisit Gallagher... be sure to take us along.

I enjoyed this book a lot. It was well written, and the story line flowed nicely, always keeping the reader in suspense. The book was very thought provoking, not just an average science fiction story. Although I have not seen the movie yet, I hope to soon, and I can only hope that it will be as good as the book. A fine job by Peter Telep, and I look forward to reading more of his works.

Red Planet was very enjoying for me to read. I liked how the chapters were setup into small bursts of excitment, unlike many other books that trundle on in each chapter twenty pages too long. I am a fan of future settings and future technology so this book also quenched that thirst too. The one thing that I thought was cool about the whole book is that it would be able to fit into a 2 hour movie. So you would be able to go watch the movie to further clarify some situations that your own imagination may have gone over board with. Not to long ago I read Battle Field Earth before it came out at the movies. I thought that book was really good too, but I was REALLY disapointed when I went to see the movie. I should have known better to think that a director would be willing to justify all 1600 pages of the book on film. Well I am truly looking forward to more work from Peter Telep, and if the movie doesent live up to the quality of the book that wont be a suprise, but I do think that it has a good chance of being a carbon copy of the book. One last thing, if you are a reader like me with little time to dedicate to reading I would highly suggest this book because it is setup so you can break in the action and put it down with out loosing too much perspective. Good luck and good reading

`Red Planet' is an very well written and entertaining read. I tend to read novelizations before i see the film because often a movie will gloss over, bypass or ignore details that a book will take note of and make the characters and their situations much more interesting. Mr. Telep has done a excellent job with that because he explores the relationships between the astronaunts (the best part of the book) and their reasons for going to Mars, other than the mission, in such a way that only a book can divulge. This is a good old astronaunt story...no ET, no giant ant-like creatures, no Darth Vader - but there is...something up there. Read this book and you will believe you are walking the surface of Mars. If the movie is half as good, and believable, as the book then they have a blockbuster on their hands.