Return to Mars

May 31, 1999
The sequel to Bova's popular Mars (1992) returns Navajo Jamie Waterman to the Red Planet as the mission director in tenuous command of a crew of scientists and astronauts jockeying for political power, romantic liaisons and scientific renown. And as anonymous journal entries also indicate, one of the explorers is seriously deranged. Waterman's chief rival on the mission is C. Dexter Trumball, the heir of the man who substantially funded the flight. Trumball has promised his wealthy father that the mission will make money, and he is determined to win his father's love and respect, even if it means turning Mars into a tourist attraction. For ideological reasons, Waterman is equally bent on keeping Mars free of tourists, especially his beloved "cliff dwellings"--a nearly inaccessible structural anomaly that he believes will prove there was once intelligent life on the planet. Waterman must struggle to find the Navajo way of negotiating the crew's various desires and manias. He must also contend with the powers-that-be back on Earth to ensure that scientific concerns continue to supersede crass commercial interests. Bova makes the speculative hard science aspects of this novel vivid and appealing. His characters, however, are less enchanting, and the inclusion of a saboteur seems like overkill, since the environment he describes is more than capable of destroying anyone for simple carelessness. The novel ends with plenty of room for a sequel to pick up and continue the saga.

Jamie Waterman, the Navajo astronaut, returns to the red planet to find out if it really is a cliff dwelling he saw tucked into the sheer wall of a Martian canyon. Naturally, he has a mixed crew: one scared, one seductive, one megalomaniac and some fix-it folks. Bova has a great story line and good science, but the characterization is poor. The dialogue is obvious and repetitive. A speed reader can gloss over these faults, but an audio production must record every (painful) word. So, it's long. It's boring. It will make the listener squirm. Dick Hill's reading does nothing to minimize Bova's problems, and, at times, he almost causes offense with his weird accents and masculine ogling. Pass this one right up. L.R.S. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine