Before Mars

(Planetfall #3)

Paperback, 340 pages

English language

Published July 5, 2018 by Ace.

ISBN:
9780399587320
OCLC Number:
995129319

View on OpenLibrary

5 stars (2 reviews)

"Acclaimed author Emma Newman returns to the captivating Planetfall universe with a standalone dark tale of a woman stationed on Mars who slowly starts to doubt her own memories and sanity. After months of travel, Anna Kubrin finally arrives on Mars for her new job as a geologist and de facto artist-in-residence. Already she feels like she is losing the connection with her husband and baby at home on Earth--and she'll be on Mars for over a year. Throwing herself into her work, she tries her best to fit in with the team. But in her new room on the base, Anna finds a mysterious note written in her own handwriting, warning her not to trust the colony psychologist. A note she can't remember writing. She unpacks her wedding ring, only to find it has been replaced by a fake. Finding a footprint in a place the colony AI claims …

1 edition

Before Mars

5 stars

This is my third Emma Newman novel, and I am now down to read anything she writes.

Before Mars follows geologist and hobby painter/streamer Anna Kubrin, who has been sent to join a small group of scientists at Mars's only research station, at the behest of her employer.

As usual with Newman's novels, it's very difficult to discuss what I loved about it without stomping all over her masterful unfolding of the plot, but she has followed her previous pattern of weaving an engrossing scifi story through a handful of Serious Themes - postpartum depression, psychosis, coercion, betrayal, and surveillance capitalism. With this one, I was a bit less in the dark throughout because of my experience with the previous two, and because the universe is getting more filled in.

Go read Planetfall! Read them all!

Another brilliant sci-fi book with emotional and psychological depth

5 stars

Another brilliant sci-fi book with emotional and psychological depth. Set on a base on Mars, it's a mysterious thriller with untrustworthy AI's, conspiracies, personal trauma and complex characters. We get a lot of the main character's thought process, it's very intimate. The main character is a geologist and a painter, and she struggles with her decision to leave behind her husband and her daughter on Earth to pursue a one-in-a-lifetime job opportunity. Weird things happen at the base and from the first chapter I was totally into the mystery, wanting to know what happened. It features excellent mental health representation, it's raw and real. I had tears in my eyes when I finished it.

Subjects

  • Space colonies
  • Fiction
  • Conspiracies
  • Life on other planets

Places

  • Mars (Planet)