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Adventures of Viktor & Julia #1
Obiettivo Marte
Quando il razzo che doveva portare in orbita il Mars Transit Vehicle esplode sulla piattaforma di lancio, uccidendo quattro membri dell'equipaggio, il presidente annuncia che gli Stati Uniti reindirizzeranno le loro energie su progetti più vicini alla Terra. La missione su Marte con equipaggio è ufficialmente terminata. Sembra la fine della corsa al Pianeta Rosso, fino a quando il multimiliardario John Axelrod non decide di finanziare un nuovo progetto. Ma non è il solo a cercare reclute per una missione estremamente pericolosa. Infatti, l'Airbus Group, una cordata eurocinese, sta preparando una spedizione simile. La corsa per arrivare per primi su Marte è iniziata… E alla fine il problema non sarà chi tornerà prima sulla Terra, ma se qualcuno riuscirà a tornare.
Copertina di Franco Brambilla
Copertina di Franco Brambilla
416 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
59 people are currently reading
985 people want to read
About the author
Gregory Benford
565 books615 followersGregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine.
As a science fiction author, Benford is best known for the Galactic Center Saga novels, beginning with In the Ocean of Night (1977). This series postulates a galaxy in which sentient organic life is in constant warfare with sentient mechanical life.
As a science fiction author, Benford is best known for the Galactic Center Saga novels, beginning with In the Ocean of Night (1977). This series postulates a galaxy in which sentient organic life is in constant warfare with sentient mechanical life.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
May 15, 2025
Perhaps not fiction for too much longer ... we can but hope!
Congress just couldn't stomach NASA's estimated $450 billion price tag to send a manned mission to Mars. So the USA and a group of other interested countries agreed on a different approach - a $30 billion prize to the first people that went to Mars and returned with a completed set of specified scientific explorations including geologic mapping, seismic testing, studies of atmospheric phenomena, core samples and, of course, searches for water, fossils and life. This was obviously much more than a flash and grab mission in the style of the first moon landings where the objective was to basically plant the flag and return. The stakes were enormous but, of course, so were the risks and there didn't seem to be any takers until a private consortium headed by flashy billionaire entrepreneur, John Axelrod, took up the challenge. Julia and her husband, Victor, along with Marc and Raoul, a team of ex-NASAnauts, hired on as crew for the mission found themselves facing a similar operation from China that had also tossed their entry into the ring. THE MARTIAN RACE was on in earnest.
Set only in the very early 21st century, the familiarity and apparent reality of Benford's novel is breathtaking - the politics and governmental interference; the buffoonery of political protests launched by any number of right and left wing fringe groups with a variety of axes to grind; the media coverage and the outpouring of world adulation for the team's "right stuff"; the real hard core valuable first time scientific research; the money-grubbing and the commercial offshoots of the entire venture; the legal squabbling over contracts and the prize money; the hard core mechanics of how the landing is achieved; the daily crises, dangers and emergencies; the psychology of extended living in confined quarters; the inevitable boondoggles associated with such a mammoth undertaking and much, much more. As Julia was conducting some analysis protocols on samples obtained in an out-gassing vent on Mars to determine whether they were organic in nature or, perhaps even more exciting, whether they constituted Martian life, dead or alive, the tension was palpable and I found myself turning pages at a frantic pace. Who would have thought it possible for an author to inject that much excitement into a laboratory experiment?
Benford's dialogue was consistently witty, credible and germane to every situation and sounded appropriate in the mouth of each speaker - business-like yet casually slick for the entrepreneur, Axelrod; earthy, warm and romantic for Julia and Viktor as lovers, yet curt and workmanlike in the context of their roles as scientists and astronauts. Descriptive moments (not something I'd look for in a sci-fi entry that was so obviously geared to the hard side of the genre!) were beautiful and approached poetic in their eloquence:
"A ruby radiance suffused the horizon and above it rose a lustrous blue-white dot. Earthrise. A resplendent smudge, brimming brighter than Venus. She peered closely and could make out the small white point to one side. The only primary-and-moon visible to the naked eye in the solar system. Until now, that tiny little interval had been the full extent of the human reach. On the bigger creamy-blue dot, a million years of hominid drama had been acted out, blood and dreams playing on a stage a few miles thick, under a blanket of forgiving air."
The climax ... an eloquent statement of Benford's clear hope that THE MARTIAN RACE, should it come to pass, would result in a new Martian race, as it were - one based in teamwork and cooperation and a new paradigm of exploration and cooperative problem-solving that has thus far eluded the best intentions of an earthbound mankind. Bravo, Gregory Benford! A magnificent tale!
Paul Weiss
Congress just couldn't stomach NASA's estimated $450 billion price tag to send a manned mission to Mars. So the USA and a group of other interested countries agreed on a different approach - a $30 billion prize to the first people that went to Mars and returned with a completed set of specified scientific explorations including geologic mapping, seismic testing, studies of atmospheric phenomena, core samples and, of course, searches for water, fossils and life. This was obviously much more than a flash and grab mission in the style of the first moon landings where the objective was to basically plant the flag and return. The stakes were enormous but, of course, so were the risks and there didn't seem to be any takers until a private consortium headed by flashy billionaire entrepreneur, John Axelrod, took up the challenge. Julia and her husband, Victor, along with Marc and Raoul, a team of ex-NASAnauts, hired on as crew for the mission found themselves facing a similar operation from China that had also tossed their entry into the ring. THE MARTIAN RACE was on in earnest.
Set only in the very early 21st century, the familiarity and apparent reality of Benford's novel is breathtaking - the politics and governmental interference; the buffoonery of political protests launched by any number of right and left wing fringe groups with a variety of axes to grind; the media coverage and the outpouring of world adulation for the team's "right stuff"; the real hard core valuable first time scientific research; the money-grubbing and the commercial offshoots of the entire venture; the legal squabbling over contracts and the prize money; the hard core mechanics of how the landing is achieved; the daily crises, dangers and emergencies; the psychology of extended living in confined quarters; the inevitable boondoggles associated with such a mammoth undertaking and much, much more. As Julia was conducting some analysis protocols on samples obtained in an out-gassing vent on Mars to determine whether they were organic in nature or, perhaps even more exciting, whether they constituted Martian life, dead or alive, the tension was palpable and I found myself turning pages at a frantic pace. Who would have thought it possible for an author to inject that much excitement into a laboratory experiment?
Benford's dialogue was consistently witty, credible and germane to every situation and sounded appropriate in the mouth of each speaker - business-like yet casually slick for the entrepreneur, Axelrod; earthy, warm and romantic for Julia and Viktor as lovers, yet curt and workmanlike in the context of their roles as scientists and astronauts. Descriptive moments (not something I'd look for in a sci-fi entry that was so obviously geared to the hard side of the genre!) were beautiful and approached poetic in their eloquence:
"A ruby radiance suffused the horizon and above it rose a lustrous blue-white dot. Earthrise. A resplendent smudge, brimming brighter than Venus. She peered closely and could make out the small white point to one side. The only primary-and-moon visible to the naked eye in the solar system. Until now, that tiny little interval had been the full extent of the human reach. On the bigger creamy-blue dot, a million years of hominid drama had been acted out, blood and dreams playing on a stage a few miles thick, under a blanket of forgiving air."
The climax ... an eloquent statement of Benford's clear hope that THE MARTIAN RACE, should it come to pass, would result in a new Martian race, as it were - one based in teamwork and cooperation and a new paradigm of exploration and cooperative problem-solving that has thus far eluded the best intentions of an earthbound mankind. Bravo, Gregory Benford! A magnificent tale!
Paul Weiss
September 3, 2021
3.5 Stars
This was an interesting exploration of a near future scenario of the colonization of Mars. The story and characters were relatively simple, yet the envisioned future was interesting to imagine.
This was an interesting exploration of a near future scenario of the colonization of Mars. The story and characters were relatively simple, yet the envisioned future was interesting to imagine.
May 26, 2020
I just read whatever this guy writes and am never disappointed, this book no exception.
Reread 2020, This was like a completely new read, I did not remember anything in the book. And the rating suffers. Taking it down 2 notches to a 3 Star decent but not outstanding book. The first 300 pages were pretty blah, the "race" (double meaning) only gets interesting later and never really gets the attention it deserved. I wanted to read it because I have the sequel unread and now I'm not sure Viktor and Julia are going to be all that interesting, based on the Martian sojourn.
Reread 2020, This was like a completely new read, I did not remember anything in the book. And the rating suffers. Taking it down 2 notches to a 3 Star decent but not outstanding book. The first 300 pages were pretty blah, the "race" (double meaning) only gets interesting later and never really gets the attention it deserved. I wanted to read it because I have the sequel unread and now I'm not sure Viktor and Julia are going to be all that interesting, based on the Martian sojourn.
August 31, 2016
I am a candidate for Mars One's mission to colonize Mars in the next decade. (https://mars-one.com) Reading The Martian Race (especially the first third) was like reading the Mars One playbook. Benford drew heavily on the work of Dr. Robert Zubrin and the Mars Society (especially Zubrin's book The Case For Mars), so the science and engineering are very solid. That said, this book can be a little hard to get into, because it bounces back and forth between the main character's past and present. While I agree with Benford's artistic decision to structure the narrative this way, the potential reader should be warned, and encouraged to keep going. The payoffs are worth it.
February 25, 2013
You've got to hand it to Benford. If you want hard sf, go to a pro. Unfortunately, even with what should be a lot of human tension and drama, and the appearance of an alien the like of which we haven't seen since James White's Sector General series, it's still about as dry as the Martian air.
The Martian Race plays the trick of moving forward from two points in the story at once, alternating between chapters about the prelaunch to Mars and the preparation for return. The drama is all about whether their return vehicle will work, and whether the second team to reach Mars will steal the thunder of the first, a private enterprise jumped up after NASA threw in the towel following a launch disaster.
The space science all plays out reasonably, but then we get into the Martian life discovery bits, which just don't play that well anymore.
The only thing that pulls the story along is waiting for the next test of the return vehicle engines to see if anyone is going home. How Clark managed to engineer a human connection to his characters, I don't know...but he did, and Benford doesn't quite get it.
The Martian Race plays the trick of moving forward from two points in the story at once, alternating between chapters about the prelaunch to Mars and the preparation for return. The drama is all about whether their return vehicle will work, and whether the second team to reach Mars will steal the thunder of the first, a private enterprise jumped up after NASA threw in the towel following a launch disaster.
The space science all plays out reasonably, but then we get into the Martian life discovery bits, which just don't play that well anymore.
The only thing that pulls the story along is waiting for the next test of the return vehicle engines to see if anyone is going home. How Clark managed to engineer a human connection to his characters, I don't know...but he did, and Benford doesn't quite get it.
June 12, 2012
A sci-fi novel published in 1999, which “offers a portrayal of how humanity might explore Mars in the near future, at low cost and with foreseeable technology.” The writing is decent, if not elegant, and the story held my interest.
An international consortium has offered a $30 billion prize to the first team to complete a successful manned mission to Mars. When a disaster forces NASA out of the contest, an American entrepreneur steps in and essentially turns the mission into a hugely successful reality show. Every ounce of drama is squeezed out of the interactions between the astronauts, the dangers and privations of spaceflight, and the scientific discoveries on Mars.
Julia and Viktor are married astronauts on the American team, and the story is told entirely from Julia’s point of view. She’s likeable enough, but there is minimal characterization; Benford is more interested in a straightforward account of the mission.
An international consortium has offered a $30 billion prize to the first team to complete a successful manned mission to Mars. When a disaster forces NASA out of the contest, an American entrepreneur steps in and essentially turns the mission into a hugely successful reality show. Every ounce of drama is squeezed out of the interactions between the astronauts, the dangers and privations of spaceflight, and the scientific discoveries on Mars.
Julia and Viktor are married astronauts on the American team, and the story is told entirely from Julia’s point of view. She’s likeable enough, but there is minimal characterization; Benford is more interested in a straightforward account of the mission.
April 1, 2025
i really enjoyed the realism and how this book was rooted in history. it was an interesting read that paints a possibility of future exploration but a lot of exposition throughout. oftentimes it was long and drawn out without much action happening until near the end. the way it cut back and forth between the past and the present was very interesting and engaging, but honestly not a lot happened in the book until near the end.
October 28, 2017
Given that initial human exploration (and eventual colonization) of Mars is seemingly close to becoming a reality in two decades, possibly less, there's considerable interest in vicariously experiencing what this might be like. After all, the prospects of civilization's survival on Earth itself seem bleaker with every passing year. So unsurprisingly, readers of science fiction have been able to get realistic previews of what Martian exploration and colonization could look like, from prominent writers like Greg Bear, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Gregory Benford. Their books on Mars appeared in the 1990s, which (not coincidentally) was also the decade immediately following the announcement by a U. S. president of serious plans to actually go forward with a human mission to Mars, with a (for the time) breathtakingly large price tag of $500 billion. (That was in fact quite a large underestimate.) The impracticality of such a plan at the time was already apparent about 5 years later, when the plan was abandoned.
In reality, both initial human arrival on Mars and passing of the tipping point into the collapse of civilization on Earth may well happen somewhat later than often supposed. (In the case of the latter event, most hope it will be considerably later.)
More recently, due to a need to provide a popular rationale for the continued existence of NASA, as well as plans offered by ambitious entrepreneurs for privately funded human missions to Mars, the idea is again being taken quite seriously. (But it's still projected, conservatively at least, to still be two decades or so in the future.) As a result, the idea has received a fairly realistic treatment in a recent motion picture (The Martian), which presented some of the details of what's involved to a much wider audience.
Benford's book, which first appeared in 1999, was a little later than the others. It was also more realistic (for the time) in that it did not presuppose a dystopian or chaotic state of terrestrial civilization, and instead focused on a plausible picture of how the very first expedition to Mars might unfold. I won't say much about the plot, since plot summaries can be found in many other places (such as here). The plot isn't especially complex (although the narrative isn't quite linear), but there is a little suspense, yet the general outcome is fairly predictable. (It doesn't end in disaster.)
So why read the book at all? Unlike other post-1990 Mars books, there aren't any especially profound ideas (either political, scientific, or science fictional). The characters are realistic and relatable, but not all that deep or interesting. Reading this has to be mostly for the vicarious experience. And it does fairly well in that respect. A reader will receive a decent sensory account of what it might be like to be one of the first humans on Mars. Readers may also take advantage of such suspense as exists to enjoy puzzling out how the characters might navigate the dilemmas that are thrown their way.
Here are a few random additional observations.
Most of the science in the story is fairly accurate, as is usual with Benford, a physics professor (emeritus) at U. C. Irvine. Although much of the story's plot turns on the discover of a life form on Mars, the various robotic explorers sent to Mars have found very little evidence for the possibility of (current) biology there.
At least three people mentioned in the book are important real-life scientists or engineers: Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer, who has been a strong advocate of Mars exploration and wrote The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must (my review); Craig Venter, a biologist and entrepreneur who became famous for leading the first (and non-government sponsored) sequencing of the human genome, and Carl Woese, a microbiologist, who extensively studied possible mechanisms for the origin of life on Earth, including the "RNA world" hypothesis, and identified the biological "kingdom" of Archaea.
The title of the book is a double (or even multiple) entendre. A casual browser of book titles might assume it is about a "race" of human-like Martians. The life forms that are discovered could be considered a "race", though very unhuman-like. However, more prosaically the plot deals with a literal "race" to reach Mars (as in "space race"). Lastly, two of the main characters of the story do not leave Mars immediately as scheduled, and could possibly be the first of a nascent race of humans on Mars.
In reality, both initial human arrival on Mars and passing of the tipping point into the collapse of civilization on Earth may well happen somewhat later than often supposed. (In the case of the latter event, most hope it will be considerably later.)
More recently, due to a need to provide a popular rationale for the continued existence of NASA, as well as plans offered by ambitious entrepreneurs for privately funded human missions to Mars, the idea is again being taken quite seriously. (But it's still projected, conservatively at least, to still be two decades or so in the future.) As a result, the idea has received a fairly realistic treatment in a recent motion picture (The Martian), which presented some of the details of what's involved to a much wider audience.
Benford's book, which first appeared in 1999, was a little later than the others. It was also more realistic (for the time) in that it did not presuppose a dystopian or chaotic state of terrestrial civilization, and instead focused on a plausible picture of how the very first expedition to Mars might unfold. I won't say much about the plot, since plot summaries can be found in many other places (such as here). The plot isn't especially complex (although the narrative isn't quite linear), but there is a little suspense, yet the general outcome is fairly predictable. (It doesn't end in disaster.)
So why read the book at all? Unlike other post-1990 Mars books, there aren't any especially profound ideas (either political, scientific, or science fictional). The characters are realistic and relatable, but not all that deep or interesting. Reading this has to be mostly for the vicarious experience. And it does fairly well in that respect. A reader will receive a decent sensory account of what it might be like to be one of the first humans on Mars. Readers may also take advantage of such suspense as exists to enjoy puzzling out how the characters might navigate the dilemmas that are thrown their way.
Here are a few random additional observations.
Most of the science in the story is fairly accurate, as is usual with Benford, a physics professor (emeritus) at U. C. Irvine. Although much of the story's plot turns on the discover of a life form on Mars, the various robotic explorers sent to Mars have found very little evidence for the possibility of (current) biology there.
At least three people mentioned in the book are important real-life scientists or engineers: Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer, who has been a strong advocate of Mars exploration and wrote The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must (my review); Craig Venter, a biologist and entrepreneur who became famous for leading the first (and non-government sponsored) sequencing of the human genome, and Carl Woese, a microbiologist, who extensively studied possible mechanisms for the origin of life on Earth, including the "RNA world" hypothesis, and identified the biological "kingdom" of Archaea.
The title of the book is a double (or even multiple) entendre. A casual browser of book titles might assume it is about a "race" of human-like Martians. The life forms that are discovered could be considered a "race", though very unhuman-like. However, more prosaically the plot deals with a literal "race" to reach Mars (as in "space race"). Lastly, two of the main characters of the story do not leave Mars immediately as scheduled, and could possibly be the first of a nascent race of humans on Mars.
September 16, 2025
This book primarily follows Julia- an astronaut who is just chosen for the Mars mission- in the setting of a worldwide race to get to Mars and back first. The interpersonal politics on the ground include Julia’s coming to terms with the fact that she doesn’t wanna leave her Russian astronaut boyfriend Victor behind.
The story really picks up after arriving at Mars with limited time to scientifically explore as the Chinese team is right on their tail and the race isn’t won until we know which team arrives back on earth first! technical problems and dirty tactics Keep you guessing who will make it first…..
This was a fun mix of drama and interpersonal problems with scientific exploration and technical jargon. I thought this was a very enjoyable Martian read that would be comparable to Mars by Ben Bova.
August 9, 2015
Ce roman raconte, dans un futur trop proche, une possible mission d'exploration de la planète rouge. S'il n'a pas l'ambition du cycle de K. R. Robinson, il est en revanche aussi précisément documenté qu'on peut l'attendre d'une novelization de plan de vol.
Évidemment, comme l'auteur est plus physicien que romancier, la précision des détails vient parfois gâcher l'ambition littéraire. Mais je crois bien que, d'une façon presque perverse, l'une des ambitions de l'auteur est précisément en faire une oeuvre non littéraire. Malheureusement, comme toujours dans ce genre de situation, je crois que l'auteur a fait pencher la balance du mauvais côté, ce qui altère nettement pour moi les qualités de cette oeuvre.
Cela dit, il y a quelques moments d'authentique grâce (qui n'ont rien à voir avec l'hypothèse de la vie martienne développée dans ce livre).
A lire pour tous les adeptes de la planète rouge.
Évidemment, comme l'auteur est plus physicien que romancier, la précision des détails vient parfois gâcher l'ambition littéraire. Mais je crois bien que, d'une façon presque perverse, l'une des ambitions de l'auteur est précisément en faire une oeuvre non littéraire. Malheureusement, comme toujours dans ce genre de situation, je crois que l'auteur a fait pencher la balance du mauvais côté, ce qui altère nettement pour moi les qualités de cette oeuvre.
Cela dit, il y a quelques moments d'authentique grâce (qui n'ont rien à voir avec l'hypothèse de la vie martienne développée dans ce livre).
A lire pour tous les adeptes de la planète rouge.
July 11, 2019
Interesting science- anaerobic life on Mars! And the billionaire who invested in a rocket to Mars for a $30 billion prize was amusing (although he didn't mean to be). Otherwise, a bit stilted and naïve, not unexpected considering when it was written.
December 8, 2022
After NASA abandons plans for Mars, billionaire John Axelrod takes on the challenge of a $30b prize from the Mars Accords to be first to land and return with a list of achievements. Using the Zubrin Mars Direct method, they send an Earth Return Vehicle (ERV) ahead of the manned mission, to carry supplies and the return launcher. Cutting costs means a crew of only four can go with the Axelrod Consortium, and time is lost finalising the astronauts after one discloses a pregnancy. Finally the crew of two men and a married couple reach Mars. Once there they discover that the ERV has been damaged on landing and may not be able to be repaired, and that a second contestant from the Euro-Chinese partnership has entered the prize race. This Airbus mission has two women and a male pilot and once landed it appears to the Consortium astronauts to be too small to contain years of supplies and they suspect a nasty trick for their opponents’ return. Meanwhile Axelrod’s biologist Julia has discovered actual life in subterranean caves, a type of reactive communal matting. Part of the prize hinges on this life and the Airbus crew are not above a little blackmail or even skullduggery to achieve it. When two astronauts from the Airbus mission vanish underground the chances of either mission returning become slim. A wonderful piece of hard SF from the master Greg Benford and it will keep you turning pages until the end!
August 12, 2013
While Gregory Benford writes in the 'Acknowledgements' that he hopes to "sound a note of realism in the sub-genre of exploration novels", The Martian Race contains a fair amount of conjecture and sheer whimsy, particularly towards the end, when 'life' is discovered on the Red Planet.
Unfortunately, this causes the plot to slow to a crawl, as Benford runs through what feels like a xeno-biological primer. Up to this point, though, The Martian Race is a taut and quite believable account of how private enterprise might collaborate to revive space exploration. The characters are distinct and the writing is suitably edgy, with a frisson of humor and satire to leaven the mix.
Not the best Mars novel out there, and certainly not one of Benford's best, but a credible and entertaining entry in this sub-genre.
Unfortunately, this causes the plot to slow to a crawl, as Benford runs through what feels like a xeno-biological primer. Up to this point, though, The Martian Race is a taut and quite believable account of how private enterprise might collaborate to revive space exploration. The characters are distinct and the writing is suitably edgy, with a frisson of humor and satire to leaven the mix.
Not the best Mars novel out there, and certainly not one of Benford's best, but a credible and entertaining entry in this sub-genre.
May 7, 2013
This was an enjoyable book though Mr. Benford's style takes a little getting used to. It's not bad but I found his stilting use of short sentences and fragments a little staccato and jarring. The story is good, but not necessarily excellent, though it did remind me somewhat of 2010 (the movie, never read the novel) -- excitment without anything really happening (until the end). As a science buff I quite enjoyed the novel and I definitely agree with the motto, Mars in Our Time.
October 17, 2015
I told myself I had to read the fiction about Mars that was already in my shelf before I bought The Martian. This book was fine, but when you can't appreciate the hard scifi aspects as much as they deserve, you're left with the characters or the prose, both of which, in this case, seemed to serve mostly as a delivery vehicle for speculation about the red planet.
September 26, 2008
The opening chapters setting up the history are a bit predictable but once they get to Mars things get going and the story really takes off. Loved the description of Mars. Benford also raises the question of whether the quest for Mars will be a race for money or co-operation in Space.
January 24, 2011
Easy read, and the writer obviously did some research to make it seem more realistic. I'd love to see a Mars X-Prize in reality! I think the only reason I felt it was 3, rather than 4 was because it was so straightforward (but exactly what I was in the mood for).
September 11, 2012
It's interesting how scifi dates but this is still a good read and ironically it may turn out to be prophetic as to how we reach Mars in the end with the announcement this year of a gameshow designed to fund a man mission to Mars!
June 19, 2016
Oh dear, this is poor. The writing style is juvenile and the content lame. Sorry but with Iain M Banks for competition, sci-fi writers have to do better than this.
February 21, 2014
For my personal tastes, too much science and not enough story. Save a couple scenes, there was never much tension. Still, an interesting read.
February 4, 2015
This is classic Benford. You've got your one-dimensional bad guy who's motives are contrived to fit the plot. Then there's some hard science fiction with rockets and stuff. Plus, chauvinism in space!
October 18, 2015
Boring. Can't believe I made it through 100 pages. Just kept on NOT GETTING BETTER.
December 1, 2015
It was OK. For the amount of time I had to wait to get it from the library, one would think it was an amazing book. I think it was Ok but not amazing...
September 8, 2017
I like hard SF but this was just dry. Might be OK for a die-hard Benford fan or if you just can't get enough on mars colonization.
December 26, 2021
I really enjoyed this. Benford is one of my favorite hard science fiction writers and he does a great job envisioning the first human mission to Mars. This book was published in 1999 and is set in 2018 and if feels like it could've been written last week, which is saying something as we have learned so much about Mars over the last twenty years from the orbiters and rovers successfully operating above and on the planet's surface.
Not only is the science in the novel believable, so is the tone, relating to the contemporary climate of space exploration. In The Martian Race, NASA has given up on outer space exploration after a number of accidents and is focusing only on near-earth orbit projects. An uber-wealthy individual, John Axelrod, starts his own space company and decides to privately fund the flight to Mars. Sound familiar? He hires a few astronauts and spares no expense to land the first humans on the red planet and return them safely and plans to collect the $30B Mars Prize. But the word "race" is in the novel's title so there must be another party interested in the Mars Prize. This would be a European-Chinese collaboration calling themselves "The Airbus Group". While Airbus is behind the Axelrod team, the danger and complexity of the mission make it anyone's contest to win.
The story centers on the four astronauts on the Axelrod team, mostly from the POV of astronaut Julia Barth who serves as the main character. For a considerable part of the book, the plot jumps back and forth between their getting ready for the mission and their two-year stay on Mars - science done, discoveries made, hardships encountered. There is some drama and some action, but nothing too overboard or over the top. Science drove the plot. Novels such as this are my favorite kind of science fiction novels.
Not only is the science in the novel believable, so is the tone, relating to the contemporary climate of space exploration. In The Martian Race, NASA has given up on outer space exploration after a number of accidents and is focusing only on near-earth orbit projects. An uber-wealthy individual, John Axelrod, starts his own space company and decides to privately fund the flight to Mars. Sound familiar? He hires a few astronauts and spares no expense to land the first humans on the red planet and return them safely and plans to collect the $30B Mars Prize. But the word "race" is in the novel's title so there must be another party interested in the Mars Prize. This would be a European-Chinese collaboration calling themselves "The Airbus Group". While Airbus is behind the Axelrod team, the danger and complexity of the mission make it anyone's contest to win.
The story centers on the four astronauts on the Axelrod team, mostly from the POV of astronaut Julia Barth who serves as the main character. For a considerable part of the book, the plot jumps back and forth between their getting ready for the mission and their two-year stay on Mars - science done, discoveries made, hardships encountered. There is some drama and some action, but nothing too overboard or over the top. Science drove the plot. Novels such as this are my favorite kind of science fiction novels.
November 21, 2021
Benford, Gregory. The Martian Race. Adventures of Victor and Julia No. 1. Aspect, 1999.
It is impossible to read Gregory Benford’s The Martian Race these days without setting it up against Andy Weir’s The Martian (2011). I find it hard to believe that Weir did not read Benford’s book in his late teens or early twenties. Certainly, The Martian Race and The Martian cover a lot of the same ground. Both books are Martian survival stories. Benford’s privately funded team gets to Mars before their Chinese competitors, but they damage their return vehicle in the process. While they work to repair it and raise enough crops to keep them alive for a longer-than-planned stay, biologist Julie discovers organic material in a lava tube. Ultimately, both teams will need to work together to get home. Both books pay attention to orbital mechanics and to the planetary science available at the time. To his credit, Benford does not ignore inconvenient Martian facts in service of plot as Weir sometimes does. It is true that Benford’s characters do not pop off the page the way Mark Watney does, but the husband-and-wife team of Russian pilot Viktor and Australian biologist Julie are fun to follow. I am grateful to Edward Lerner’s blog for putting me on the trail of this series. 4 stars.
It is impossible to read Gregory Benford’s The Martian Race these days without setting it up against Andy Weir’s The Martian (2011). I find it hard to believe that Weir did not read Benford’s book in his late teens or early twenties. Certainly, The Martian Race and The Martian cover a lot of the same ground. Both books are Martian survival stories. Benford’s privately funded team gets to Mars before their Chinese competitors, but they damage their return vehicle in the process. While they work to repair it and raise enough crops to keep them alive for a longer-than-planned stay, biologist Julie discovers organic material in a lava tube. Ultimately, both teams will need to work together to get home. Both books pay attention to orbital mechanics and to the planetary science available at the time. To his credit, Benford does not ignore inconvenient Martian facts in service of plot as Weir sometimes does. It is true that Benford’s characters do not pop off the page the way Mark Watney does, but the husband-and-wife team of Russian pilot Viktor and Australian biologist Julie are fun to follow. I am grateful to Edward Lerner’s blog for putting me on the trail of this series. 4 stars.
December 18, 2019
I really enjoyed this book. There's something of a hook at the beginning, but otherwise the first third or so seems to really just be setting the stage for the rest. Most of the action occurs fairly spaced out until near the end, but despite that, the character-driven writing made it an engaging read an hard to put down.
I was surprised when I finished to learn it was released twenty years ago; Benford did a fine job writing for the future (most of the book takes place last year, in 2018), and it feels like it was written much more recently.
The ending nicely left me in a place where I could imagine what came next for the characters lives, and I was happy to see there was a sequel as well. It was a good balance where I'm excited to pick up the next book, but if there hadn't been one, I'd have been satisfied and pleased with the closing of the first book.
Five stars because it's an engaging read, it does an incredibly believable job of addressing topics no one has experienced first-hand, and explains the science behind most everything while still somehow maintaining a note of mystery and awe.
I was surprised when I finished to learn it was released twenty years ago; Benford did a fine job writing for the future (most of the book takes place last year, in 2018), and it feels like it was written much more recently.
The ending nicely left me in a place where I could imagine what came next for the characters lives, and I was happy to see there was a sequel as well. It was a good balance where I'm excited to pick up the next book, but if there hadn't been one, I'd have been satisfied and pleased with the closing of the first book.
Five stars because it's an engaging read, it does an incredibly believable job of addressing topics no one has experienced first-hand, and explains the science behind most everything while still somehow maintaining a note of mystery and awe.
October 6, 2023
I wanted a hard science fiction story, and for me this delivered a story I liked. I know, having read other Mars exploration stories, that I would not be cut out to make the journey to Mars as an early explorer. But I appreciated that this story did not shy away from the fact that, while the effort would certainly be a deadly challenge, it would also contain a nearly mind numbing routine necessary to survive. The science was plausible to a non-scientist.
The author was ahead of his time when this was published in 1999, with the concept that national space agencies lost their taste for manned space exploration outside of Earth's orbit, leaving that to private entities. But, I am living in a time when billionaires are privately funding their own space race. What probably kept my rating from being higher was that the story was set in 2018, and I'm reading in 2023, so maybe I just found it a little deflating that we haven't quite achieved the goal set out in this story.
The author was ahead of his time when this was published in 1999, with the concept that national space agencies lost their taste for manned space exploration outside of Earth's orbit, leaving that to private entities. But, I am living in a time when billionaires are privately funding their own space race. What probably kept my rating from being higher was that the story was set in 2018, and I'm reading in 2023, so maybe I just found it a little deflating that we haven't quite achieved the goal set out in this story.
October 10, 2022
Books that predict the near future are always a minefield, but this one should probably have gone bigger. This one had some decent insights about the rise of private space entrepreneurs and the way they would build their successes off a foundation the public sector built, but gets bogged down in the details of the titular race without ever quite managing to make it compelling. Despite literally discovering life on Mars within the first pages of the book, the characters are ultimately more concerned with which team gets to go home first and claim the prize money—a choice that could make interesting commentary, except the story seems to assume the reader is on board with all this as well.
A lot of interesting ideas that get lost in a meandering narrative that's never quite sure what story it's trying to tell.
A lot of interesting ideas that get lost in a meandering narrative that's never quite sure what story it's trying to tell.
February 20, 2025
This is a well written and largely sensible account of a commercial manned mission to mars. Although this was written a couple of years before SpaceX was founded, it's impossible to read this without inserting Elon into the role of Axelrod, the Billionaire founder of the Mars consortium.
NASA, a competing commercial entity, several disasters, and some Martian life all make an appearance to move the story along. If you like near-future SciFi exploration this is definitely worth a read. My only gripe? It's not very exciting. I guess I'm into more grandiose SciFi Opera.
If you like this novel, I would push you strongly into the direction of Kim Stanley Robinson's Red, Blue, and Green Mars. This is the ultimate epic series of Mars colonisation and terraforming novels to read, taking things much further down the line than this novel.
NASA, a competing commercial entity, several disasters, and some Martian life all make an appearance to move the story along. If you like near-future SciFi exploration this is definitely worth a read. My only gripe? It's not very exciting. I guess I'm into more grandiose SciFi Opera.
If you like this novel, I would push you strongly into the direction of Kim Stanley Robinson's Red, Blue, and Green Mars. This is the ultimate epic series of Mars colonisation and terraforming novels to read, taking things much further down the line than this novel.
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