n the 23rd century, on a blasted 22.2-kilometer hulk of carbon-rich rock orbiting the planet Mars, the Phobos beast is slaughtering civilians and soldiers by the dozen in a sea of ionized space silt. Nine thousand kilometers below, on the Martian surface, tactical analyst Lt. Mike Brogue rescues a Terran official from an extremist plot and is unwillingly thrust into the limelight. Fleeing the unwanted attention, he accepts reassignment to the Martian moon Phobos to investigate the possibility that new and unquestionably hostile life has been unearthed by the scientists stationed at Agraria—a top-secret research facility on Phobos whose greatest minds are delving into the mysteries of Einsteinian relativity.
Combating the ethnic stigma of his Martian heritage—humans born on Mars are considered racially unique by residents of Earth—Brogue begins a systematic shakedown of the base's personnel and an inquiry into the enigmatic gravitational configuration of the base itself. At the same time, he must assume command of a military assault squad whose leader was recently killed by the Phobos beast and whose loyalties to their former lieutenant threaten both Brogue's effectiveness and his personal safety.
Within minutes of his arrival, Brogue witnesses an attack by the Phobos beast itself—a terrifying tentacled mass of seething flesh that can inexplicably morph its body at will. Surviving the attack, Brogue is subjected to hostile treatment by members of the squad, drugged and dumped in a garbage chute, and forced to battle dangerous paranoia and racism in his subordinates.
Pitting his deductive talents against the reluctance of bureaucrats and the stubborn idealism of the base's wealthy and zealous philanthropist, Brogue unearths a complex network of half-truths and surreptitious revenge conspiracies that draw him into a tangle of interpersonal vendettas, half-hatched schemes, clandestine technologies and a frightening secret whose ramifications will influence the integrity of human life on Mars itself.
Military SF meets formula whodunit
Ty Drago knows how to craft a page-turner, no doubt about it. The writing is hard-boiled and the characters clear and unambiguous. Drago deftly sends dozens of plot twists twirling about the protagonist with the flair of a flamboyant juggler, balancing narrative idiosyncrasies with comfortable ease. The dialogue is crisp and razor-sharp, advancing arguments and plot points with a bricklayer's pacing and precision. Anyone who can pull together a hefty mystery with dozens of contingencies that pay off—especially in a debut effort—deserves commendation.
The problem is that Phobos turns out to be an unflatteringly predictable read, filled with some of the more egregious cliches in genre fiction. The book starts out with punch and vigor, but as soon as Brogue arrives on Phobos (barely 70 pages in), the tale quickly devolves into an interminable recapitulation of The Hound of the Baskervilles with a techno-military twist. Enemies become allies, allies enemies, and there's a protracted buildup that's the usual matter of grilling and cross-examining flunkies until all the chess pieces are positioned to deliver the coup de grace.
When it comes, Brogue is transformed into a nearly superhuman sleuth, whose deductive powers allow him to construct motives seemingly from vacuum. This is where the tale is most difficult to buy—the sudden shift from cautious exploration to full-fledged diagrammatic monologues in which Brogue becomes the author's deus ex machina, filling in details with the efficacy of a computer program crunching a report.
Drago is a smart writer who knows enough about gravity wells, terraforming and nanotechnology to keep the reader interested, but when the answers come they're the ones we were expecting. In a culture weaned on everything from Doyle and Christie to Scooby-Doo, straightforward whodunits are notoriously difficult to craft. The most successful efforts stray from the beaten path in ways that expand our vision. Unfortunately, Phobos merely plays it safe and dishes out the interlocking answers like someone checking off items on a grocery list.
