THE SIRENS OF MARS: Searching for Life on Another World, when history isn't a far-away enough holiday escape

THE SIRENS OF MARS: Searching for Life on Another World
SARAH STEWART JOHNSON
Crown
$17.00 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Mars was once similar to Earth, but today there are no rivers, no lakes, no oceans. Coated in red dust, the terrain is bewilderingly empty. And yet multiple spacecraft are circling Mars, sweeping over Terra Sabaea, Syrtis Major, the dunes of Elysium, and Mare Sirenum—on the brink, perhaps, of a staggering find, one that would inspire humankind as much as any discovery in the history of modern science.

In this beautifully observed, deeply personal book, Georgetown scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson tells the story of how she and other researchers have scoured Mars for signs of life, transforming the planet from a distant point of light into a world of its own.

Johnson’s fascination with Mars began as a child in Kentucky, turning over rocks with her father and looking at planets in the night sky. She now conducts fieldwork in some of Earth’s most hostile environments, such as the Dry Valleys of Antarctica and the salt flats of Western Australia, developing methods for detecting life on other worlds. Here, with poetic precision, she interlaces her own personal journey—as a female scientist and a mother—with tales of other seekers, from Percival Lowell, who was convinced that a utopian society existed on Mars, to Audouin Dollfus, who tried to carry out astronomical observations from a stratospheric balloon. In the process, she shows how the story of Mars is also a story about Earth: This other world has been our mirror, our foil, a telltale reflection of our own anxieties and yearnings.

Empathetic and evocative, The Sirens of Mars offers an unlikely natural history of a place where no human has ever set foot, while providing a vivid portrait of our quest to defy our isolation in the cosmos.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Women in STEM fields are still outnumbered by men. I like reading about them because it gives me a hopeful feeling about the pace of change in our world. Once upon a time, Vera Rubin and Lise Mitner and Henrietta Swan Leavitt were just...not talked about, invisible in our public discourse about Science. Now, there are books and movies about the women who have always practiced in the STEM fields like Hidden Figures to educate us on this erased history.

About time, too.

What that doesn't do is tell us anything about the women actively working in the STEM fields, about their motivations and curiosities, their ideas about what the field they're working within is and should be doing. This book's main appeal to me, then, was to tell me about a woman's journey to, and progress within, planetary science—a field I find endlessly fascinating.

I get the whole enchilada here, the story of why the author became a planetary scientist...spoiler alert, the centuries-long Romance of it all had a lot to do with it...as well as her own précis of the state of modern research into the past and present of our neighbor. The reasons we should care about Mars and its past aren't stinted, either.

What I enjoyed most, I think, was her palpable pleasure and excitement as she tells us about the atmosphere of tension and the sense of relief in Mission Control as probes and rovers are launched toward and land on Mars. The description then weaves in the results, the science, that is the reason for all this highly educated and trained labor focusing on this place. Her narrative voice never descends into gee-whizzery. She is definitely writing out of passion and fascination but doesn't become a total fangirl squeeing her way around the world she is privileged to inhabit.

Since that's exactly what I'd do, I was impressed by this restraint. Of course, her long training in the field does instill a certain sense of remove from the raw passion of the fan. It's taken her a lifetime of learning to get to where she is. It wasn't, and isn't, easy to fully dedicate yourself to a passion. The compromises made are always hard...being away from family, the strains on one's marriage...and she deals with all those honestly.

An extensive Notes section offers the non-scientist a roadmap for further reading and discovery. As this is a personal story, a memoir of a woman who chose to serve her passion for science, it isn't a read I judge by how well-sourced her information is. I just went along with this intelligent, erudite guide as I visited the world of a practicing planetary scientist.

You should, too, whatever your sex or gender. Also a good last-minute ebook to gift to your high-school aged girl giftee as a proof that aspirations are very much achievable.

VAGABONDS, first English-language novel from Hugo-winner Hao Jingfang

VAGABONDS
HAO JINGFANG (tr. Ken Liu)
Saga Press
$28.99 hardcover, available now

JUMPNAUTS (book 2) reviewed here

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: A century after the Martian war of independence, a group of kids are sent to Earth as delegates from Mars, but when they return home, they are caught between the two worlds, unable to reconcile the beauty and culture of Mars with their experiences on Earth in this spellbinding novel from Hugo Award–winning author Hao Jingfang.

In 2096, the war of independence erupts when a colony of people living on Mars rebel against Earth’s rule. The war results in two different and mutually incompatible worlds. In 2196, one hundred years later, Earth and Mars attempt to initiate a dialogue, hoping a reconciliation is on the horizon. Representing Mars, a group of young delegates are sent to Earth to study the history and culture of the rival planet, all while teaching others about life on Mars.

Narrated from two perspectives: Luo Ying, an eighteen-year-old girl from Mars who has spent the past five years on Earth, and Ignacio, a filmmaker in his late twenties from Earth on a job to document the delegates from Mars. Both Luo and Ignacio are trapped between worlds, with critics all around, and always under suspicion, searching for where they truly belong.

THE PUBLISHER APPROVED A DRC OF THE BOOK FOR ME VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: It will come as no surprise to any regular reader, or in fact anyone I've interacted with in the past decade-plus, that end-stage capitalism such as has gifted us with the badly botched, lethally disorganized COVID-19 plague response is not high on my list of Good Things in the old-fashioned Martha Stewart sense. Quite a lot of people (over fifteen) in the assisted-living facility where I live are dead thanks to this money-grubbing ethos. So yes, I began this read fully expecting to approve of the Utopian Martian colony and its collectivist politics.

Well, it's comforting (I suppose) that I consistently never learn....

Hugo-winner Hao (Best Novelette, 2016) builds two competing Utopias. Neither sees the beam in its own eye but focuses on the mote in its symbiotic sibling's; so much easier to sell the distortion and misperception necessary to see any human-made system as anything other than dystopian. Earth's hypercapitalism has continued to devour the planet; its existence is always precarious, always threatening to collapse. Mars's collectivism is dependent on inputs from the fragile, worn-out Earth; its people are not natural innovators, never striving to Do More because, well, why? You don't get more, and there is limited support for striving.

A side note to shout out my dead father, whose aperçu about economics I quote frequently: No system will thrive that either ignores or exalts greed.

This book assumes that Earth remains viable in 2196, and is willing as well as able to continue to support its former Martian colony. I question this decision...but then I remind myself of Ursula K. Le Guin's magisterial The Dispossessed which treats similar themes in a similar setting. The use of a less sophisticated narrator in this book makes it possible for Author Hao to run the lessons past us without the dreaded "As you know, Bob..." locutions. Of course there's information to be dumped, these are STUDENTS! It worked well for me. Quite a lot of the cultural interchange between the rival systems seems, well, far-fetched is as close as I dare come. Eko, an Earth character, has come to Mars to make a documentary; he wants, in his heart of hearts, to grow closer to his dead mentor the Marsophile. Luyuang, our principal Martian character, has returned from her exchange period on Earth where she studied...wait for it...dance in the three-times-greater gravity of Earth! Mm hmm.

I don't want to get into the story's twists and turns for two reasons: Spoilers are impossible to avoid, and your experience of the storytelling voice is the best barometer of your eventual pleasure in the read that you can find. I enjoyed reading Translator Liu's gilded words and finely wrought arabesques. You might not. But download a sample, and if that unique voice isn't your jam, don't go any further. This book clocks in at over 600 pages. Writing that isn't simply thrilling to you will rapidly devolve into a waterboarding session at that length.

While I'm discussing length...the last 100pp of the book are delightfully swift and deeply exciting. The middle 200pp should be severely chopped into, ballpark figure, 75pp. Book-bloat is as common in China as it is in the USA, more's the pity. But, for the reader who vibrates like a freshly-struck bell to this writing and this political tale, the experience is a top quality one.

I can't be clearer than: Try it; you'll know right away if it is for you, as it was for me.

LEVIATHAN'S WAKE, first book in a busy series whose Syfy adaptation is better

LEVIATHAN WAKES
JAMES S.A. COREY (The Expanse, #1)
Orbit Books
$17.00 trade paper, available now

Rating: 2.5* of five

**UPDATE 22 December 2016** This is a mea-culpa of epic proportions. Syfy did a stellar job of making this series. I couldn't have been more wrong about the series, though I still don't like the books. This YouTube video of a Google Talk from 2014 is a terrific proof of why the series works so well. Excellent television! Binge on the series at Prime for the holidays.

**UPDATE 6 September 2013** More Suckass News Dept, from SFSignal: "Variety is reporting that scribes Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (Iron Man and Children of Men) will script the pilot of the how called The Expanse, which is based on the series of novels written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck under the pseudonym James S.A. Corey.

The book series cosnsists of Leviathan Wakes, Caliban’s War, Abaddon’s Gate and the soon-to-be-released Cibola Burn.

The Expanse will be an hour long SciFi drama “with elements of a detective procedural, centring on a cover-up of the discovery of alien life”.

Not much else is known at this point. Stay tuned!"

Yuck. Couldn't pick a GOOD series. No no no.

The Publisher Says: Humanity has colonized the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond - but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, The Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for - and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to The Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations - and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

My Review: Exactly half-way to a five-star world-beating yodel-worthy space opera. An extremely interesting choice of time to explore, sort of late Red Mars-to-early-Green Mars time. A choice group of characters, the standard Hero's Journey plot, and away we go!

Only we don't so much. We stall out on characterization...flat-ish, unsurprising...we hop around in PoV terms until I feel like a flea on a chihuahua that ate some coffee beans and is more manic than usual. We keep events hurtling along, far too many of them in fact, and we mangle our hands in the machinery of alienness.

We did too much, ate too much, played too rough. Our tummy hurts now, and we need a nap.

Plus? I hate the ending so much I want to send the editor a nastygram. THIS COULD HAVE AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIXED. It's not for the author to do, this is a collaboration and that means sometimes a referee is needed. This was one of them. No way would I read the next book! And that's sad, because I really really like The Expanse and its cool politics and people.

One thing the show does brilliantly is make the stark divide between haves and have-nots graphic and inescapable. The Economic Royalists of The Expanse are made plain, their motives are plain, and their corruption is inescapable. This series, filmed for me but certainly the books are a great option for others, is must-see, must-read, must-absorb for the world of 2017.

THE DAEDALUS INCIDENT, a swashbuckling pirate-filled alchemy-run space opera

THE DAEDALUS INCIDENT
MICHAEL J. MARTINEZ The Daedalus Series #1
Night Shade Books
$7.99 mass market, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Bizarre earthquakes are rumbling over the long-dormant tectonic plates of the planet, disrupting its trillion-dollar mining operations and driving scientists past the edges of theory and reason. However, when rocks shake off their ancient dust and begin to roll—seemingly of their own volition—carving canals as they converge to form a towering structure amid the ruddy terrain, Lt. Jain and her JSC team realize that their routine geological survey of a Martian cave system is anything but. The only clues they have stem from the emissions of a mysterious blue radiation, and a 300-year-old journal that is writing itself.

Lt. Thomas Weatherby of His Majesty’s Royal Navy is an honest 18th-century man of modest beginnings, doing his part for King and Country aboard the HMS Daedalus, a frigate sailing the high seas between continents . . . and the immense Void between the Known Worlds. Across the Solar System and among its colonies—rife with plunder and alien slave trade—through dire battles fraught with strange alchemy, nothing much can shake his resolve. But events are transpiring to change all that.

With the aid of his fierce captain, a drug-addled alchemist, and a servant girl with a remarkable past, Weatherby must track a great and powerful mystic, who has embarked upon a sinister quest to upset the balance of the planets—the consequences of which may reach far beyond the Solar System, threatening the very fabric of space itself.

Set sail among the stars with this uncanny tale, where adventure awaits, and dimensions collide!

Review links: THE GRAVITY OF THE AFFAIR — THE ENCELADUS CRISIS — THE VENUSIAN GAMBIT

My Review: Swashbuckling naval battles against heinous French pirates! In space!! Benjamin Franklin on an inhabitable Ganymede, and an alchemist to boot!

Manned permanent habitations on Mars! Greedy corporate slimebuckets causing havoc and costing people their lives! Space bureaucracies throttling (or doing their best to, anyway) any initiative in their subordinates!

Either one of those makes a darn good yarn, a familiar-enough plot to keep the pages turning and still, in Martinez's capable hands, the yawns at bay. Both together gave me the geekgasm of a lifetime. Lt. Shaila Jain, RN, is the kind of kickass leader and quick thinker that gives young women today a chance to develop a sense of agency, owning their own power and future. It doesn't hurt that she falls for a handsome man with a French accent, and then spends the books trying to keep him safe from his own inexperience and lack of fighting ability.

Makes a nice counterpoint to 3Lt. Thomas Weatherby, RN, whose career in the 1779 Navy also takes him into space. Now the fun begins, as the alchemical nature of manned space flight in this era is revealed by the number of ways it can and does go wrong. One of those ways leads poor Weatherby to a space equivalent of the Caribbean pirate port, Port Royal, Jamaica. And there Weatherby finds a drunken alchemist who becomes his best friend and a serving wench (in more than one sense of the word) who becomes his One True Love. Unlike Jain's French paramour, though, Weatherby's is perfectly capable of kicking ass and taking names by herownself. Bit shocking to a stodgy middle-class tradesman's son who has bought himself into the higher status of the officer corps.

Among our delicious surprises is the existence of a bona fide intra-solar system alien species, the Xan of Saturn. Their colonial outpost is Callisto, again an inhabitable world unlike in our own just as amazing solar system. The Xan and their intra-solar system rivals based on Mars had the kind of war that our paltry timeline threw itself in WWI, leaving devastation on Mars, an exploded fifth planet called Phaeton (now called the Rocky Main, to our blah asteroid belt), and one Martian survivor who, for his evils, is imprisoned in interdimensional space.

Throw all this into the pressure cooker, turn the fire up high, and let 'er rip. The resulting explosive action propels every character onto a course not entirely predictable, and as the pieces of hot story fly around, a lot of painful damage gets done. But like the "self-building" pyramid on Mars, the story reassembles itself into a satisfying similar-but-different shape. If the tale isn't to your taste ::side-eye:: the resolution as it is will be good enough to leave the book as finished and whole in your mind.

Me, I want more. Now. Ahoy, Second Chance! One to board, please!

DESOLATION ROAD, beautifully crafted terraforming-Mars story

DESOLATION ROAD
Ian McDonald
JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc. (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$7.49 ebook editions, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: It all began thirty years ago on Mars, with a greenperson. But by the time it all finished, the town of Desolation Road had experienced every conceivable abnormality from Adam Black's Wonderful Travelling Chautauqua and Educational 'Stravaganza (complete with its very own captive angel) to the Astounding Tatterdemalion Air Bazaar. Its inhabitants ranged from Dr. Alimantando, the town's founder and resident genius, to the Babooshka, a barren grandmother who just wants her own child-grown in a fruit jar; from Rajendra Das, mechanical hobo who has a mystical way with machines to the Gallacelli brothers, identical triplets who fell in love with-and married-the same woman.

My Review: Earth can't sustain its current population in the style to which all 7 billion of us wish to become accustomed, and no one is predicting a sudden outbreak of common sense and birth prevention to bring the numbers down. What are we to do?

Move, of course. Where? More than one place. There's the Metropolis, the geosynchronous city in space reached by fixed space elevators; but that's filling up too; wherever shall we go?

Well, Mars, for one. The Remote Orbital Terraforming and Environmental Control Headquarters (ROTECH for short) consortium is created on the Motherworld, sent into a moonbelt orbit around Mars, and given a thousand years of development, has finally produced a planetary ecosystem that can sustain unsuited humans in the open.

ROTECH governs Mars as lightly as any frontier is governed. People, let loose from cities and rules, pretty much do what comes naturally. They have babies, they make farms, they organize themselves into Us and Them, and they do it all at breakneck speed without worrying too hard about consequences. When Consequences rain down from the Heavens, well, adapt or die.

Ian McDonald does in 363 pages what others do in 1000. He makes Mars come alive, he peoples it with fabulous characters (human and cyborg and robotic), he creates a logical thought experiment...how can humanity survive its inevitable wearing out of the Motherworld?...and uses it to tell us about ourselves, about what we are *actually* made of, and about what triumphs and tragedies flow naturally and inevitably from that.

I adore this book.

There.

No, really, that's it. I adore this book. You should read it, especially if you point your booger-holder at the sky when science fiction is mentioned. I don't read THAT people should read this. If you don't, then you should be ashamed of your inflexibility.

I even re-read Jane Austen recently. And liked it. So. What's that “I don't like THAT” stuff again?