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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Surprisingly compelling, 16 Nov 2004
The subject matter of Voyage - an alternate history where NASA landed men on Mars in 1986 - doesn't sound too compelling, and to begin with this is certainly a dry and uninvolving book. Baxter's scientific credentials are beyond question, and undoubtedly the technical descriptions of space flight and NASA procedures is accurate, but technology can only be interesting up to a certain point.Baxter also initially looks to have bitten off more than he can chew with the books structure, as the novel follows every step of an 18-year long NASA program there is a huge unwieldy cast of characters. Amazingly though, after a fairly drab first couple of hundred pages, Baxter starts pulling all his threads together, and the novel develops into a real page-turner. The actual flight and landing on Mars only take up a small part of this novel, as for the most part Baxter concentrates on the struggles to get the mission off the ground. There are moments of high drama as one of the testing crews meets with a fatal accident whilst testing an experimental nuclear rocket in orbit, and compelling moments of human drama, such as when we see small time contractor JK Lee ground up by the NASA machine as he overworks himself into virtual psychosis. The political manoeuvrings that NASA goes through to ensure the flight to Mars are intriguing, and Baxter is brave enough to have even his lead astronaut question the real value of putting a man on Mars whilst people on Earth die from starvation. Admittedly, due to it's realistic basis, Voyage lacks the scope of Baxter's previous science fiction with all it's aliens, time travel and exotic ideas, but for a change of pace to a more serious novel Voyage is surprisingly compelling stuff, and the final scenes on Mars more than fulfil the promise of the journey.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A manned trip to Mars - 15 years ago!, 9 Aug 2001
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 a expensive price ticket. A lot of other things 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 what 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 nations 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!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
As over-ambitious as the Mars mission itself., 4 May 2000
By A Customer
This book is absolutely brilliant, it really is. It's also too big. This leads to all sorts of problems: Structuring- some of the parts just fade out rather than ending on an inspiring passage or a cliffhanger. Nevertheless, the book is a total pageturner due to the gradual revealing of the mission profile and the device of moving back and forth in time from the flight, to the build up to the flight. Characterization- The astronaut York is the central character and is drawn superbly. But of the other crewmembers we get not much more than hints of depth. This is particularly annoying with Gershon- he is obviously a deep complex man with a fascinating life. This reader wanted to know more! Some characters, such as Donnelly, seem created just to do little more than fill a space and observe the action. Others, such as Lee, Seger or Muldoon deserve whole novels to themselves. Style- The challenge of this book leaves Baxter stumbling around as if this was his first novel. Where is the confident hand we see in much earlier works such as 'Raft'? Plotting- The plot is broad, and the characters' lives intertwine- but that is no excuse for a glaring continuity error. On page 160 Dana enters space for the first time. On page 260... Dana enters space for the first time. What was Baxter thinking of? Where the hell was the Editor! Also, we get mere glimpses of what could have been great moments, such as the confrontation between a German rocket scientist and a scientist who worked under him in a concentration camp. I wanted much more of that. But this book triumphs over the faults. The accident in space is a wonderful piece of writing, exciting and moving. This book superbly researched, though perhaps Baxter does lean a little too heavily on Andrew Chaikin's 'A Man On The Moon'- some parts are almost directly copied from it. The landing on Mars is not only lip-bitingly exciting, it is also astonishingly real. In fact, this is the most realistic science fiction novel I have ever read. What a great, great book.
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