Geoffrey A. Landis

By the middle of the 21st century, humanity has finally landed men on Mars-only to watch helplessly as the first two missions end in catastrophe and death. With resources running out, a third-and perhaps final-mission to Mars is hastily mounted, with a crew of four men and two women. But from the moment of their arrival on Mars, everything begins to go wrong. The fuel tanks that were to have supplied their return trip are found corroded and empty. Their supplies are running out and their life support systems are beginning to fail. And any rescue mission won't reach them for months, or even years-if at all. The crew's only hope for survival lies in a desperate plan: an agonizing trek halfway across the surface of Mars to a ship designed to carry only half their number. Torn by conflict and dissent, and troubled by secrets that endanger them all, they must embark on an ordeal that will test them to the limits of endurance.

Mars Crossing

Bryan Alexander

A pleasurable diversion.

I picked up Mars Crossing in a search for exciting space exploration stories. Landis offers some of that, with the main plot (team desperately fleeing across the Martian surface) and the backstories (three failed missions). Actually, I'd like to read more about those backstories.

The novel is structured in temporal syncopation, with one chapter taking us further in the present, and another scoping out personal backstories. This works well, gradually filling in the characters as we follow their adventures. The characters feel a bit too much, with too many unusual events in their pasts, and too much deception.

There's a good deal of hard science, mostly about surviving the Martian surface, and that's well done.

The book does best at the end, and here I must throw up a spoiler shield: (view spoiler)[the increasing death toll and physical exhaustion effectively ramped up tension, as did the seemingly intractable problems of getting off the planet. I guess that there were murders, and who the murderer was, alas. But I did like her eventual fate (hide spoiler)].

Unfortunately, Mars Crossing brought to my mind three other books, and doesn't fare well in comparison.

The Far Call, Gordon Dickson (1978). A mission to Mars goes awry do to political sabotage, and only a remnant of the crew makes it in extreme circumstances. Dickson ends on a very moving, heroic note about the necessity of continuing to explore space, which Landis doesn't sound. 

Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson (1992). The high level of background lying that Landis' characters do to get to Mars reminds me of that hilarious scene early in Red Mars, where all the marsnauts confess to cheating on their psych evaluations. Unlike Landis, Robinson has human settlement beyond more visitation. 

The Martian, Andy Weir (2011). This one is the obvious comparison, being about survival while desperately moving across the Martian surface. The protagonist is a lot of fun to spend time with, and characterization is better overall.

Mars Crossing

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