- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Tor Books (Dec 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312872011
- ISBN-13: 978-0312872014
- Product Dimensions: 24.9 x 2.5 x 16.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,220,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
So, what would you do as the commander of the third manned Mars mission who's discovered, after a back-slappingly successful landing, your ride home is busted and Earth can't send a rescue cab? Wow, talk about the potential for a nasty mood swing!
In MARS CROSSING, this is the dodgy predicament facing John Radkowski and his crew of five (Ryan, Tana, Estrella, Chamlong, and Trevor) in 2028. Their return vehicle, previously landed on Mars to robotically manufacture fuel from the planet's atmosphere for the trip back, didn't function as its instruments indicated. As a matter of fact, it's now just so much scrap metal. The only solution is to travel 4,000 miles to the polar cap and the landing site of the first Mars mission - Brazilian no less! - in 2020 whose crew mysteriously died on the surface. Their return vehicle is presumably still intact and ready to go. Trouble is, it only has room for two pilgrims.
I rarely read space sci-fi because the plots, ETs and technology are so exorbitantly far-fetched. I suspect life will be less fanciful, even in the far future. However, in MARS CROSSING, author Geoffrey Landis, a working NASA scientist, has crafted a solid tale around plausible new technology and the planetary knowledge gained from the Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor projects, both of which he was a part. Even the low key villains of the piece, for example the itchy life form that doomed the second Mars manned mission in 2022, are relatively mundane. (At least it wasn't Tinea cruris!)
I especially liked some aspects of the mission's technology, such as the Spectra 10 super-fiber rope, almost as thin as a spider's web, which can hold thousands of pounds, and the super-light Butterfly airplane. Pretty neat stuff!
I did find the composition of the crew slightly improbable. Estrella was the wife of the long-dead Brazilian mission commander. And Trevor's only reason for being there - talk about Dead Weight - was that he won the $1000 per ticket lottery that helped finance the cost of the expedition. Now, really! However, once I got over that credibility hiccup, I enjoyed this book very much and, since it is the author's first novel, much credit is due.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you're looking for a true feel of Mars, you're better off reading the introductory sections of "Red Mars". Landis' planet left me with only a very superficial impression, and for this reader, lacks any real feel of adventure or wonder; perhaps this is his aim, as he is concentrating on the human characters, but these too are pallid and largely uninteresting.
The pace of the plot suffers from interpolated biographical flashbacks, which on occasion have something of interest, but largely get in the way, and although he tries to add depth to his characters, I found none of them sufficiently compelling to care what happened to them. Landis does help us out here, by getting rid of a few of them during the narrative, but I only felt any sort of slight involvement with one of the victims.
This is a lightweight read, enjoyable enough, but suffering from too many coincidental events, and unlikely bootstrappings. Fortunately, it is so structured that you can miss out quite a bit if you dislike the biographies. Don't expect it to surprise or inform you if you are already a Mars buff. I don't know if Arthur C Clarke read the same book as I did, but I would advise you to be wary of the blurbs. "Epic" this isn't.
Format:Hardcover
This story succeeds both because the very human characters pique our interest and because Landis's real scientific background with the US space programme provides an entirely accurate flavour to the science involved. The description of Valles Marineris, for example, throws a sharp focus upon the stupendous scale of the geology on the Red Planet.
Truly this is science fiction of the highest calibre.
Truly this is science fiction of the highest calibre.
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