First Landing [Hardcover]

Having seen the earlier review, I was almost preparing for disaster, but it turned out to be a pretty good read. For very Hard SF fans, it's not really up there with the likes of K S Robinson or Baxter, but it's not a bad near future adventure on the Red Planet. Also, I think if you're looking for perfectly formed character development and study, there are better types of literature around for these indulgences. For we hard SF fans, we just want "the science", nicely served up. We don't mind characters being a bit unreal, just as classical literature fans don't get too upset when their favourite authors annoyingly misconstrue the perturbation of Mercury's orbit for example.

Slight downsides: I didn't quite feel the fear of the closeness of death that constantly hounds the Mars explorer, or the nip of frostbite; nor even the whiff of the overused and unwashed pressure suit! But its not a bad story with some interesting political takes on the whole venture. This book is perhaps more like the stories of Ben Bova if you want a closer comparator in my view.

I'll be honest. Robert Zubrin has been - in a non-professional sense - a colleague for a decade. Both of us are involved in the Mars Society (albeit in different parts of the world) and I've admired the way he has evangelised - and made very human - the ideal of manned missions to Mars.

Given his expertise in the field of Martian exploration, including his ground-breaking, co-authored proposal for "low cost", and "safe" human missions to Mars (called Mars Direct), any novel of his on the subject would, one would hope, cast the pros and cons of a mission and the hard reality of all that it entails, a gripping read.

Unfortunately, I've got to say, this is far from the case.

Almost everything that makes a human mission to Mars such a wondrous prospect - and potentially the greatest _international_ activity the world will likely undertake this century is subsumed in a highly-contrived plot of sabotage, shallow political point-scoring, paper-thin characters and the author's own right-wing bias.

The book opens solidly enough: an emergency prior to the good ship Beagle arriving on Mars that must be overcome - one of a series of events that can only be the work of - shock horror! - a saboteur among the crew.

It's then downhill from here.

I could have lived with the story if the characters were at least fleshed out - or even internally consistent. Sadly, this is not the case. Zubrin is rather well-known for pooh-poohing the psychological aspects of long duration crew selection; and it is fairly evident this bias is carried over to the crew of the Beagle. None of whom appears to have undergone any psych evaluations by NASA at any time in their training to ascertain whether they are fit enough to go on the mission, or are in any way compatible. Indeed, did these people even actually train together for the mission?

Certainly, none of them are the kind of people I would particularly wish to spend two-and-half weeks of my life with - let alone the two-and-a-half years required by a mission to Mars.

The major flaw in the characters - aboard ship and on Earth - is that they none of them develop past their initial stereotypical thumbnail summary - the jet jockey, the liberal, the religious woo-woo. Instead they come across as puppets through whom the author (consciously or not) project his own inate dislikes and political bias. From the aforementioned archetypal jet jockey mission commander aboard the Beagle through to the conniving politicians on Earth, Zubrin's two-dimensional preconceptions of people shines through. The military is, of course, Always Right; politicians are lollypop-stealing, myopic, shallow creatures who cannot see further than their own pocket or the next election; anyone born south of the Mason-Dixon line is, obviously a Redneck - or worse - a Redneck Christian Fundamentalist, hell-bent (if you'll pardon the pun) on upholding the Truth of the Bible - proving them to be Redneck Idiotic Christian Fundamentalists.

Actually, "idiotic" is a term that could be used to describe just about all of the major and minor characters at one or more points of their stagnation (I really cannot use the term "development") throughout the novel. Of them all, only one shines to any degree. And surprise, surprise, that person is the Scientist....just as Zubrin is a scientist. In this, she is like the military - Always Right. But then, so much of Zubrin himself seems to be projected through her....this isn't surprising.

I could go on, but enough has been said. Frist Landing is truly disappointing. As stated above, given the author's outstanding (and unequalled) standing in humans-to-Mars advocacy, this should have been a book to entertain and inspire, soaring upwards with vision and ideas. With forethought and care of plot, it could have been the fictional equivalent of Zubrin's co-authored non-fiction masterpiece "The Case for Mars", and served to bring a new audience in the fold of pro-Mars exploration.

Instead, First Landing doesn't so much soar as crash-land. Badly.

As His Holiness A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupadha has pointed out, nobody can go to Mars except devotees of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). The author of this book cannot go. That's simply a fact. One cannot reach other planets without spiritual preparation. Robert Zubrin and the Mars Society might whine about it for as long as they care, but they lack the inner qualifications. They'll never reach Mars.

Nor have we been to the Moon. The Moon landing was a hoax, perpetrated by the New York Post in association with Hollywood, Bollywood, Nittywood and one "Buzz" Aldrin (actually a nephew of recently deposed Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi). Swami Prabhupada exposed the Moon landing hoax already in 1968, over the objections of faint-hearted gurus and assorted hippies and libertarian "space cadets".

Yeah, you can whine about this too, Mr. Zubrin, but the facts remain. Lord Krishna stopped humanity from reaching the Moon.

Besides, what on Earth (pun intended) do we want to do on Mars anyway? Let's all go down in lotus position at the shores of Goa, smoke some hash, and meditate like crazy to the sound of the Great AUM. Then we'll eventually reach Mars, but beyond that, we'll find the Atman, not to mention the groves where the Lord plays his transcendental flute and dances with Radha and the cow-herd girls. Really, who needs Mars anyway? It's just a big, red rock suspended in a vacuum.

The inner journey is clearly more important.