Mars, Inc. Book Review

Mars Inc.

Ben Bova

Baen Books

Pub Date: Dec 3 2013

2/5 Stars

 

           First and foremost I would like to admit that I don’t think I was the intended audience for this book.  That being said however, most of what there is not to like about Mars, Inc.  Has nothing to do with Hard Scifi at all.  In fact, this book could have easily been a mystery novel with the Mars Mission as it’s backdrop.  In fact, it is…  There is very little to nothing about actually going to Mars in this book.  Except perhaps what you would find in a 20 minute blurb on the Discovery Channel.  The majority of the book is about the trials and tribulations of Art Thrasher and his need to get humans to Mars.  But by the end of the book you are fully and completely sure you have been duped by a Scifi author into reading their first mystery novel.  Because there is no little science here that it could have been cut out completely and it wouldn’t have made any difference to the main plot of the story.

         For the majority of Mars Inc.  I was bored and for the rest I was waiting to see if some revelation around the corner would foster a cool Scifi story but it never did.  If this is Ben Bova’s bridge book to the mystery genre; good for him.  If not, it’s a terrible book.