发信人: calc (calc), 信区: SciFiction 
标　题: Science Fiction - The Martian Race 
发信站: The unknown SPACE (Wed Dec  8 19:13:55 1999), 转信 
 
The Martian Race  
(By Gregory Benford) 
Getting to Mars is only half the battle  
 
 
In 2015 a NASA rocket bearing six astronauts 
   bound for Mars explodes on the launchpad. In the 
wake of the disaster, the U.S. government turns its 
back on space exploration. Mars seems forever out of 
reach, until an alliance of industrialized nations 
offers $30 billion to the first manned expedition to 
reach Mars and return to Earth. 
 
For eccentric industrialist John 
Axelrod, the Mars Prize is the ultimate 
gamble. For astronaut and scientist Julia 
Barth, it's her only chance of fulfilling a 
lifelong dream. 
 
The reasoning behind the Mars Prize is that the 
efficiencies of private enterprise and a $30 billion 
bounty will accomplish what $400 billion and a 
bloated government bureaucracy could not. 
Axelrod's Mars Consortium succeeds in sending 
Julia and three others to Mars, but his cost-cutting 
measures may leave the crew stuck there for several 
years. And the race isn't over: a European-Chinese 
alliance has sent its own Mars expedition. If the 
alliance gets back to Earth first, the $30 billion prize 
will be theirs. 
 
More than money is at stake. The crew fears that 
their secretive competitors may take extreme 
measures to ensure victory. Meanwhile, two of them 
threaten mutiny. 
 
To Julia, however, all of that pales in comparison to 
her discovery beneath the Martian surface: 
descendants of the ancient Martian microfossils 
discovered in the 1990s have not merely survived 
but flourished. The caves of Mars teem with life 
unlike anything on Earth. But science has to take a 
back seat to the struggle for survival.... 
 
Palpable realism  
 
Mars is familiar ground to science fiction fans, and it 
probably sounds about as exotic as Wal-Mart to 
most readers. However, interest in The Red Planet 
has been growing over the last few years, perhaps 
because it's been three decades since humans set 
foot on the surface of a new world. Today Mars is 
beckoning strongly once again, and this time the 
technology to get humanity there already exists. 
 
The Martian Race is an exciting novel because it 
plays on this palpable realism. As they would in real 
life, Benford's astronauts grapple daily with 
malfunctioning equipment, dwindling supplies, 
psychological stress, and the ever-present red dirt of 
Mars, which works its way into everything. 
 
It's not all hard-nosed realism, however. Benford 
lets his imagination take flight--though in a sober, 
low-altitude trajectory--in his account of how life 
might adapt and even thrive in the arid caves of 
Mars. There are no little green men, but Benford 
manages to make bacterial mats mysterious and 
fascinating. 
 
The chapters alternate between scenes on Mars and 
the events leading up to the mission. It's a smart 
narrative ploy: readers don't have to wait several 
hundred pages to find out what happens on Mars, 
and Benford doesn't have to stint on the crucial 
story of the political, financial and technical 
challenges involved in getting there. 
 
Yet the early chapters seem rushed, and most of the 
major characters don't seem to have surnames. 
Maybe Benford was determined not to front-load 
the book with exposition. The approach works well, 
though, even if it does take a while for readers to get 
their bearings. No one said getting to Mars would be 
easy. 
 
     When I was a kid I wanted to be an 
     astronaut and go to Mars. Now I think I'd 
     rather let others do the work. -- Curt  
 
-- 
巨隐隐于网 
 
※ 来源:．The unknown SPACE bbs.mit.edu．[FROM: 130.207.3.11]