The New Martians
A Scientific Novel

I feel like I shouldn't like this book, but I do, and I think it comes down to reading format. It's not a bad book, but it's not a good book, unless circumstances give it a boost. The plot is essentially that astronauts on their way home from a semi-disappointing trip to Mars (Yay, Mars! Boo, they d......more

It certainly seems that the mechanical logistics of going to Mars receive all the attention. Vehicles, equipment, food, even mission profiles. But what about those intangibles? That all-important mental stuff that goes beyond "Plays Well With Others?" Sure, we know from things like the diaries of th......more

It might be very interesting to read a novel about the mental illnesses that afflict astronauts on their long journeys, written by a psychologist who specializes in these illnesses. The novel is a hard science fiction, in which he was interested in explaining the scientific aspects of the tools and e......more

The book overall I thought was good. It was interesting to see psychological problems play out in space. The characters were a little cliche, but it worked well. Being a "scientific novel", the ideas and problems that the crew faced were believable. The scene when one of the characters first starts a......more

Something wants to harm the crew members of a six-person team who are on a long return journey to Earth from Mars. Is it a disturbed crew member, an alien life form they might have picked up, or the CARs computer system that runs most areas of their ship? Or something else entirely? The author, Dr.......more