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ClareR (5879 KP) rated The Mars House in Books

Oct 1, 2024

The Mars House

Natasha Pulley | 2024 | Science Fiction/Fantasy

9.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

Can I just say that I loved a book and leave it at that? Because this is one of those books.
Ok, a short summary:
January Sterling is a climate refugee, escaping the floods and intense heat for the Mars colony of Tharsis. Life as an Earthstronger on Mars isn’t ideal. He and the other Earthstrongers are seen as a danger to the native Martians: they are much stronger because of the weaker gravity, even though they’re much smaller. January and his fellow Earthstrongers are discriminated against and given the worst manual labour jobs.

January meets a Martian politician who is staunchly anti-Earth stronger, an somehow ends up in a sham-marriage. Of course, it’s a slow-burn romance with lots of peril, lies and climate change politics.

My only complaint, is that in trying to make the characters asexual, they all read as being very male. Perhaps it was just the way I read it.

The Mars House has a lot to say about climate change and its refugees - and the predictable refugee-haters. Instead of boats, they arrive in space ships, and the inhabitants of Mars are as scared of, and enraged by, these people, as some elements in our own society today.

I really enjoyed this book, and I loved how different it was to Natasha Pulley’s previous books. Whatever will she write next? I’ll be waiting!

Kudos

David McK (3562 KP) rated Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (Red Dwarf #1) in Books

Jan 28, 2019 (Updated Sep 1, 2019)

Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers (Red Dwarf #1)

Grant Naylor | 1992 | Humor & Comedy, Science Fiction/Fantasy

7.0

(4 Ratings)

Book Rating

Back in the late 80s/early 90s, there was a TV show on British terrestial channles, that gained a bit of a cult following: 'Red Dwarf'.

Set on a 6-mile long mining ship in deep space, the early years of Red Dwarf were centred around the odd-couple pairing of Dave Lister (the last known Human alive, who was in a stasis booth - released thousands of years later - when a radiation leak wiped out the crew of the eponymous ship) and Arnold J Rimmer: a hologram of his dead bunk-mate, and perhaps the most annoying man in existence. Added to this are the ships now-senile computer Holly and the Cat: a creature evolved from a cat that Lister had smuggle aboard (and why he was in the stasis booth in the first place).

To this, and round about season 3 (although he first made an appearance in season 2), was added Kryten: a mechanoid with an overactive guilt chip.

Some novels based on a TV show seem to pretty much just repeat the episode scene for scene; others seem to share nothing in common with hteir source material except the name. This, I felt, falls somewhere in the middle: while certain segments of the novel do indeed follow (very) closely to their source, others only use that as their starting-off point. It aslo does a better job of tying the episodes together than the TV show ever could!