Acquire Losing Mars Created By Mal Warwick Issued As Textbook

scifi

If you are a fan of the Expanse novels, you should give this book a reas.
The orbital mechanics and realistic consequences of life in orbit were a joy to read, The surprise time travel nonspoiler was something I didnt see coming Reminds me a little bit of Arrival with its time travels but in Mars setting.
Best SF I've read in a long time

Hard SciFi that's not another boringly predictable military space opera.
The saga proceeds with unexpectedly fascinating plot turns and great realism, I couldn't stop reading, highly recommend starting when you don't have school or work the next day.
Loved the idea, but didn't like the direction the story took in the latter part of the book.
Good story spoiled by unnecessary preaching from the author

I've read and enjoyed a few

of Cawdron's novels in the past so I picked this up immediately when it was released.
And it turned out to be a good story and good read with a fatal flaw.
It seems Cawdron, like too many author's, just can't resist the opportunity to beat you over the head with their politics, which, not coincidentally, all flow the same way:Left.
So, if you lean right, be prepared to be told how bigoted and homophobic you are.
With no evidence mind you, just the same old liberal strawman you've heard before, This virtue signaling is just a ham fisted way to moralize the story from one view point only.
I think I'll decline that beating in the future from Mr, Cawdron. This was a sort of mixed bag: quite a lot of good things in it together with some bad stuff
Most of the goodies were concentrated in the first two third of the book, and in fact I found myself quite engaged in reading those pages: the story was well written, a no frills prose, quite a long set up but necessary to make the reader acquainted with theprotagonists and their personas.

The description of how each astronaut thinks, acts, reacts in such extreme conditions is so granular, so down to earth to look like as if it came from real experience also interesting is the detailed exploration of group dynamics and the psychological impact on people and relationships in a captive environment isolated from the rest of mankind.

I don't think the book is rooted in hard science as several reviews suggest, I think the author provides quite a lot of scientific sound bites in the form of "fun facts about life in space", but that was fine to me.

One significant weakness of the book was to me the lack of originality: too many obvious similarities with The Martian the botanist astronaut, Red Mars the group of pioneers colonising Mars, Saturn Run the discovery of an alien civilisation on a remote place of the solar system and especially Interstellar the tessaract and the notion of time as a physical dimension a shade too much "external inspiration" for my taste.

Then, I found the last third of the story a total downer, with the long final tirade being a complete counterclimax this part also brought me to dislike the protagonist as a selfrighteous dude who promote himself to be the absolute judge of what is best for the human kind.

Not a bad book in the end, just one which has wasted a lot of its potential.
Enjoyed this a lot

I've read a few from this author and enjoyed them all, this is no exception.
Nicely thought out and a new twist on an interesting subject, Highly recommended. Another great book by Peter Cawdron, one of the most underrated authors, The story about a Mars expedition cut short because of a mysterious event near Phobos masterfully blends elements of realistic hard scifi and mindbending concepts.
It reminded me of both The Martian and the movie Arrival which might sound cliché but I mean it in the best way possible.


Full disclosure: I was one of the beta readers for this book, Cawdron has done it again, With wonderful characters and a fast moving plot, he kept me on the edge of my seat and I finished this book in two days.
Losing Mars is a scifi masterpiece, Like most scifi, the story really revolves around what it means to be human, and our place in the universe.
Cawdron has such an inspiring way of looking at things that I am left thinking about this story still, hours after finishing it, and I probably will be for quite some time.
I can't recommend this story, or this author highly enough, I want to give this story all the in the Milky Way, Five is not enough. Another win!

Im in awe of the author, for being able to come up with wildly different stories in one genre.
But perhaps great authors have that skill, I read this right after finishingzekiel so this does feel a little less exciting and had some slow moving scenes.
But ultimately, it turned out great,

The effort taken to research the science behind everything is astounding and I cant imagine how the author managed to do it while crafting such an incredible story! Its a lot of work and one that I truly appreciate.
The best part is, its all single POV! I always find that inherently harder to pull off.


Theres a lot of tell and sometimes info dump but even knowing its happening, Im surprisingly ok with it.
I think its the way its executed by the author, Execution is key, after all no

Id like to think that as an engineer I can grasp technical concepts easily.
But the truth is, sometimes science is very abstract, especially theoretical science which works in theory but isnt observable in real life.
And being a more logical thinker than a creative at heart, abstract theories are hard for me to picture.
Heck, I dont always appreciate descriptions of things because I just cant visualise it in my mind sometimes so I skip descriptions of locations or even the characters.


But I digress, . I wanted to say, this author is awesome at describing scenarios to explain abstract theories, I wont spoil which theory that is but then again, maybe you wont need the help I did to wrap my head around this abstract theory

Anyways, looks like Im going to be working through this authors back catalogue Not only did I thoroughly enjoy this book but I have found a new, favorite author!

This hard science, science fiction book checks ALL of the bases for me: great writing, interesting plot, good characters, social and political content, hard science, a believable storyline, and a new twist on some "old" topics.


The writeup Goodreads has about this book represents a small fraction of what the book is about.
I understand its brevity because saying much more would give away too much of the twisting and complex plot.
What I can say is that this book goes into great detail about what a first encampment on Mars, featuring three couples, would be like.
Peter Cawdron has done a great amount of research more about that in a minute so this book is no fanciful Buck Rodgers story.
Cawdron goes into great detail about establishing a colony on Mars the incredible risks, the personality issues, the environmental extremes, and even the boredom of everyday tasks.


One of the things that I particularly enjoyed in this book is Cawdron's homage to Alan Shepard.
Shepard was the first American to travel into space aboard the Mercury space capsule, daring to ride a Redstone rocket that had blown up more times than it had actually launched.
Shepard was the first into space but his legacy was swept aside by John Glenn who orbited the earth Shepard's was a suborbital flight.
Clearly Cawdron feels, as I do, that Shepard got the short end of the stick,

If this book just stayed with the Mars colony it would have been an interesting book but Cawdron adds much, much more.
There is a lot going on including a Mars based crisis, a personnel crisis, an international crisis, an ethical crisis and that still doesn't include what becomes a major theme of this book and I'm not going to spoil if for you by telling you.


Be sure to read the afterword that Cawdron has included, He goes into great detail about the science contained in his book and the research he put in to make this science fiction based on real science.


If you like hard science, science fiction you need to put this book at the top of your list! Losing Mars
First Contact series

This is the tenth book I've read of the First Contact series so I think I have a pretty good overall perspective.
The fact that I've read ten books should tell you something the books are entertaining and very well written.


The problem for me is the author's continual proselytizing about his liberal causes and beliefs: white privilege, race, equality, climate change, gender, sexual orientation in this book there is actually a chapter named 'Lesbians in Space', if you can believe that.
Men are bad especially white ones, Hispanics and blacks are always the good people, Women rule the good presidents are always female, the evil ones are white men, etc, The only group he hasn't brought in yet are transgender, but I'm sure they're coming, While I sympathize and agree with some of this, I don't enjoy being hit over my head with it over and over.


All the books so far at least follow the exact same formula, The first half introduces the characters and the author's liberal cause for that book and mostly have absolutely nothing to do with First Contact with aliens.
Some of these lengthy introductions are quite good, a few extremely boring this one falling into that category.
When we finally get to the aliens they come in all shapes and sizes and there are some really interesting concepts which thankfully usually make the trip worthwhile.


As I said the books are well written, seem to be well researched, and very detailed.
While realistic, I did questions some of the plots, For example in this book, that takes place on Mars, the author goes on and on about the light gravity and how you 'almost float' when walking around.
As he describes the low gravity it would seem very unlikely you would be injured in a fall.
Wouldn't you just 'float' to the ground with low impact Yet then the plot involves an astronaut falling and sustaining serious injuries.
Huh I just couldn't get into that after pages and pages stating the opposite,

Anyway, if you can get past this stuff you'll enjoy the series, What did I just read
It is out of this world! Literally,
The writing style of this author is so brilliant, I really felt like I am on Mars/Phobos!
Where have you been hiding Mr Cawdron
All fans of science/sciencefiction need more of you at this instance!
I loved the scientific fact which accompany you throughout the book.
It gives you the real feel,

After the thrilling accommodation on the Mars' moon I appreciate the wind in my hair and the heaviness of my legs on the ground due to gravity of our planet!

The only con for me is the child delivery which appeared not once but twice in this book.
Too much data for me,
But I guess that's just humans' ultimate goal in life as per our genetic encoding.


I will hapilly recommend this book to all awesome people who enjoy scifi and interplanetary exploration.