The Martian Race
Getting to Mars is only half the battle
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The Martian Race
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By Gregory Benford
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Warner Aspect
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$23.95/$28.95 Canada
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Hardcover, Dec. 1999
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ISBN 0-446-52633-9
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Review by Curt Wohleber
 n 2015 a NASA rocket bearing six astronauts bound for Mars explodes on
the launchpad. In the wake of the disaster, the U.S. government turns its back on space exploration. Mars seems forever out of reach, until an
alliance of industrialized nations offers $30 billion to the first manned
expedition to reach Mars and return to Earth.
For eccentric industrialist John Axelrod, the Mars Prize is the ultimate
gamble. For astronaut and scientist Julia Barth, it's her only chance of
fulfilling a lifelong dream.
The reasoning behind the Mars Prize is that the efficiencies of private
enterprise and a $30 billion bounty will accomplish what $400 billion and a
bloated government bureaucracy could not. Axelrod's Mars Consortium succeeds
in sending Julia and three others to Mars, but his cost-cutting measures may
leave the crew stuck there for several years. And the race isn't over: a
European-Chinese alliance has sent its own Mars expedition. If the
alliance gets back to Earth first, the $30 billion prize will be
theirs.
More than money is at stake. The crew fears that their secretive
competitors may take extreme measures to ensure victory. Meanwhile, two of them threaten mutiny.
To Julia, however, all of that pales in comparison to her discovery
beneath the Martian surface: descendants of the ancient Martian microfossils
discovered in the 1990s have not merely survived but flourished. The caves
of Mars teem with life unlike anything on Earth. But science has to take a
back seat to the struggle for survival....
Palpable realism
Mars is familiar ground to science fiction fans, and it probably sounds
about as exotic as Wal-Mart to most readers. However, interest in The Red
Planet has been growing over the last few years, perhaps because it's been
three decades since humans set foot on the surface of a new world.
Today Mars is beckoning strongly once again, and this time the technology to
get humanity there already exists.
The Martian Race is an exciting novel because it plays on this palpable realism. As they would in real life,
Benford's astronauts grapple daily with malfunctioning
equipment, dwindling supplies, psychological stress, and the ever-present
red dirt of Mars, which works its way into everything.
It's not all hard-nosed realism, however. Benford lets his imagination
take flight--though in a sober, low-altitude trajectory--in his account of
how life might adapt and even thrive in the arid caves of Mars. There are no
little green men, but Benford manages to make bacterial mats mysterious
and fascinating.
The chapters alternate between scenes on Mars and the events leading up
to the mission. It's a smart narrative ploy: readers don't have to wait
several hundred pages to find out what happens on Mars, and Benford doesn't
have to stint on the crucial story of the political, financial and technical
challenges involved in getting there.
Yet the early chapters seem rushed, and most of the major characters don't seem
to have surnames. Maybe Benford was determined not to front-load the book
with exposition. The approach works well, though, even if it does take a while
for readers to get their bearings. No one said getting to Mars would be
easy.
When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut and go to Mars. Now I think I'd rather let others do the work.
-- Curt
Back to the top.
Precursor
Intrigue and assassination on a damaged space station
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Precursor
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By C.J. Cherryh
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DAW Books
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$23.95/$33.99 Canada
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Hardcover, Nov. 1999
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ISBN 0-88677-836-0
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Review by A.M. Dellamonica
 ren Cameron is the bridge between two cultures: a human colony on the
island of Mospheira, and the alien atevi who rule the Mospheirans' world. He
answers to the most powerful atevi alive, the aiji Tabini, and the two of
them maintain the delicate balance between two races who have
learned, with great difficulty, to live in harmony.
A third human faction upsets the delicate balance in
Precursor,
C.J. Cherryh's newest entry in the Foreigner series. The
Mospheirans
had colonized the planet when their orbiting space station suffered critical malfunctions. Now the Pilot's Guild--the humans
who established the original mission on the station--have returned. After
antagonizing an unknown alien power, these spaceborn humans have retreated
to the station hoping for tactical assistance and labor for repairs.
Dismayed to find the station abandoned, they are forced to negotiate with
the Mospheirans and atevi for their needs.
When Tabini sends Bren up to the station to deal
with the Pilot's Guild, the translator must set aside urgent family problems and his own
massive workload. Traveling with servants, distrustful Mospheiran diplomats
and an incredibly resourceful security team, he takes a barely-tested
shuttle up to the failing station. Soon he is embroiled in
preserving peace among all parties.
With communication to the aiji cut off, violence looming on
the horizon,
and hostile aliens possibly on the way, can Bren hold the
situation together?
Genteel mayhem
Readers who enjoyed the earlier trio of Foreigner
novels will be
glad to see this new installment. Cherryh continues her thoughtful
exploration of atevi culture, placing it in the dangerous, isolated and
confined context of a foreign power's unreliable space station. The slow
pace of atevi customs and their attention to detail, beauty and
hospitality
provide a counterpoint to the harsh environment of the station and the
tension aboard. With his every personal need attended to by
servants, Bren's
physical comfort is well communicated, providing an experience that
is strangely appealing and soothing.
The story itself moves slowly, and it's extremely bound up in what has
gone before. Anyone who has not read the preceding trilogy may find the
wall of unknowns to be impenetrable. What's
more, Precursor is in no way a plot-driven novel. The
exploration of character and culture are paramount, and the pace of the book is
very slow, building a crisis bit by infinitesimal bit. Because Bren, the sole
point-of-view character, is kept isolated from problems within the Pilot's
Guild, readers are similarly held at a remove. There is a sense of having witnessed the
action through a pane of grimy glass.
Atevi culture, the focus of the novel, may also trouble some readers,
derived as it is from feudal class structures. The interdependence of
atevi is touted as the reason for the success of what, on
Earth, was a
brutally exploitative system. The pleasantness with which this culture is
conveyed may seem like approval of a lifestyle where some workers exist
purely to cater to the whims of the wealthy and powerful.
The novel's crisis does explode satisfactorily at the end, though, providing
ample excitement. Its resolution satisfies, while leaving plenty
of room for
further developments. With two more books yet to come in the
series, Cherryh's fans will be pleased to have the Foreigner journey underway once more.
Too many significant events happened off-stage, but Bren's story and
lifestyle are intriguing.
-- A.M.
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