Unfortunately, the landing site for the mission in THe Martian Race was Gusev. Great book and well done on the engineering and the Mars science. The Mars science given a somewhat "wetter" view of Gusev, that is.
Still worth reading, Benford's a good writer.
Speaking of Mars novels, DO NOT buy Stephen Baxter's Voyage. It is an interesting concept -- what if we had continued after Apollo straight to a mid-80s Mars mission, like Agnew's Space Task Group suggested. He uses a hackneyed premise to lead into the alternative timeline (Kennedy wasn't shot), but has some thoughtful exploration of the "what if".
Unfortunately, it's marred by the fact that Baxter out and out plagiarized -- whole paragraphs! -- from Chaiken's "A Man Upon the Moon", another book I forget at the moment, from Apollo and Shuttle flight transcripts (not quite plagiarism since public domain, but hardly creative). Probably others that I hadn't read myself. It was terribly obvious; I'm astonished Baxter wasn't sued.
Space/Science » in reply to The Martian Race by Greg Benford
Benfords steam caves and bugs were in Gusev...
The whole thread (51 posts)
- Will Life Be Found On Mars? Your opinions and guesses:
- Dear friends, thanks for the vigorous discussion. I love it when I start a thread and there are many differing responses. David. (n/t)
- hmmm
- The Martian Race by Greg Benford
- For former life, I'd bet on Venus first
- 50-50
- Yes
- Well
- I follow Lovelock: Equilibrium = Death
- Possibly extremophiles under the surface
- re: Will Life Be Found On Mars? Your opinions and guesses: