Reception
''Locus'' reviewer Jonathan Strahan praised the book as "a strong first novel," saying that its "real strength (...) has less to do with realistic portrayals of science at work, though there is plenty of that, and more to do with (the) characters and the drama they face." Kirkus Reviews, conversely, praised Landis's depiction of "the planet, the engineering, and the epic trek", but felt that "the melodramatic baggage—dark pasts, evil deeds, sinister plots—just drags along behind, raising the dust." In his extended essay "The Renewal of Hard Science Fiction", David M. Hassler compared the book with Allen Steele, Allen Steele's novel ''Labryrinth of Night,'' saying, "in these novels, both the terrain and the means of coping with it represent plausible, strange, and hence slightly funny measures all at the same time," and concludes that Landis "succeeds even more [than Steele] at conveying the sense of the lonely, isolate character (the lonely inventor, perhaps) left to stand heroically against a cold universe."David M. Hassler, "Mars: Renewed Image and Heroic War," in "The Renewal of Hard Science Fiction," ''A Companion to Science Fiction'' (David Seed, ed.), pp. 252-255See also
*Mars in fictionReferences
External links