My rating: 3
Pages 266
Years 1984
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I didn't enjoy the novel. I will rate 3/10 for it's incoherent plot or lack of it. Character wise is okay at best. I will have to go to spoiler, although I a bit worried since I have at least 8/9 of his books including Red Mars Trilogy & the one dealing with freaky weather..
So this book is told in three chapters, each chapter a different persons. You can almost read one chapter and not read the other ones - although it's advisable.
The synopsis say
"It stands at the north pole of the planet Pluto-- a giant's dance of ice frozen harder than stone, harder than steel. Each slab towers two hundred feet above the crater-pocked surface; the one in the center bears an inscription in Sanskrit.
The first mission to Pluto found it there already, waiting for them.
Is it a starlit message from an alien race? Or does it mark a human mystery? For there was one ship that might have passed this way, forgotten decades ago-- if the crew survived. If the ship existed at all..."
This description has nothing to do with book or Mars and half the novel is set on Mars and the thingy on the cover and back cover is only mentioned at page 111 out of 266 and the first time we really go there is on page 244. So as you can see, if you expect something akin archaeology SF stuff, you will surely disappointed
In the first tale we follow Emma Weil as she is travelling through the stars and a rebellion happened on that ship. The ship is rebelling because they want to go outside of Solar System but are against the Committee that rules Mars and all spaceships. The Committee is basically ruled by USA & URSS. She must either accept their invitation or go back. Basically that's it. Overall my favourite of the three, but nothing really groundbreaking
I would say that Kim really took me, well I don't know it would have pictures of mathematic schematics or I would study beforehand (I'm kidding. It's nothing really far fetch)
Interesting stuff, a Russian & English speaker is talking and say;
"You have a vision-"
"Not just me!"
"I meant all of you."
"Ah sorry. English should make that distinction."
Well, going around with "they" and other makeup pronouns also does not help hah. In the anglosphere there are people who identify as they as they don't want to be know of male and female. To a latin, spanish, portuguese, italian or french (among other) don't understand this. Or at least can't really translate They. They to portuguese per example is the plural of he/her in portugues ele/ela. The plural of these are eles/elas. There is no neutral form in Latin. The words are either masculine or feminine .. okok I diverge but I can understand the Russian getting confusing with "you"
The second tale is set 200 year (or 300) into the future and a man is excavating on Mars where something happened hundreds of years before. He thinks that the committee is hiding something while the official version was that the rebellion destroy the city and as you know the story is written by the victors. This second tale deals with several stuff, first the impact of living a thousand years. How it would influence a person's mind - due to not ageing as fast and memory-wise. Even if can reverse the effects of dying, how our mind would be influenced? Strange here we've got a guy who was on that city 300 years before and his opinion is not important due to memory loss (that it seems happens after 100 years and so they have to remember by writing memoirs or reading the official propaganda of events). This story is also a bit political as well, not democracts vs republicans, don't you worry. Finally we get to know a bit of that thing on pluto but rather on small scale.
The third tale we follow the great-son of the second character as he himself is investigating those megalithic structure, although he believes that those are not aliens, nor even made by the group of the first story but another person, he thinks it's a hoax.
So what's wrong with all of these. IT's the premise. I wanted a investigation megalithic alien bulding, probably connected with stonehedge with weird connections and I was not happy with direction.
These are three independent stories and it shows, they can all be read independently and that times it felt convulated. I had hope for more sci-fi and more archaeological stuff and I Got more a mystery, hoax , political stuff. Not that good. I hope Red mars trilogy fares better. I've read that this one it reads as try to write red mars.