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Summary
Summary
Jamie Waterman discovered the cliff dwelling on Mars, and the fact that an intelligent race lived on the red planet sixty-five million years ago, only to be driven into extinction by the crash of a giant meteor. Now the exploration of Mars is itself under threat of extinction, as the ultraconservative New Morality movement gains control of the U.S. government and cuts off all funding for the Mars program.
Meanwhile, Carter Carleton, an anthropologist who was driven from his university post by unproven charges of rape, has started to dig up the remains of a Martian village. Science and politics clash on two worlds as Jamie desperately tries to save the Mars program and uncover who the vanished Martians were.
Author Notes
Ben Bova, Ben Bova was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He began writing fiction in the late 1940's and continued to pursue his careers in journalism, aerospace, education and publishing. Bova received a bachelor's degree in journalism from Temple University, 1954, a master of arts degree in communications from the State University of New York, 1987, and a doctorate in education from California Coast University, 1996.
Dr. Bova worked as a newspaper reporter for several years and then joined Project Vanguard, the first American satellite program, as a technical editor. He was manager of marketing for Avco Everett Research Laboratory and worked with scientists in the fields of high-power lasers, artificial hearts and advanced electrical power generators. Dr. Bova has taught science fiction at Harvard University and at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, where he also directed film courses. He has written scripts for teaching films with the Physical Sciences Study Committee in association with Nobel Laureates from many universities.
Dr. Bova has served on the advisory board of Post College and the Editorial Boards of the World Future Society. He is President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society. He is also a charter member of the Planetary Society and a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Nature Conservancy, the New York Academy of Sciences and the National Space Club. He is a former President and a charter member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He was honored by Temple University as a Distinguished Alumnus in 1981 and in 1982 was made an Alumni Fellow.
In 1994, his short story "Inspiration" was nominated for the Nebula Award. "The Beauty of Light" was voted one of the best science books of the year in 1988 by the American Librarians' Association and they hailed "Moonrise" as best science fiction novel in 1996. Other titles include "Moonwar," "Mars," and "Brothers," which all combine romance and adventure with the scientific aspect of exploring the future of technology and its effect on individuals and society. "Immortality" and "Assured Survival" deal with technology being used to solve economic, social and political problems. "Immortality" goes further in examining biomedical breakthroughs that could extend a person's life by hundreds of years while being able to always remain physically young.
His works include The Aftermath, Mars Life, and Leviathans of Jupiter.
Ben Bova was a prolific science fiction author. He wrote over a hundred books and short stories. He also was an editor who worked on some of science fiction's best-known publications. He died on November 29, 2020 at the age of 88.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Multiple Hugo-winner Bova pens a gripping and convincing conclusion to the story begun in Mars (1992) and Return to Mars (1999). Jamie Waterman, who discovered cliff dwellings during his first trip to Mars, is struggling to acquire funding for continued research on the long-dead Martians, but his efforts are severely compromised by the increasing influence of religious fundamentalists. Their rise coincides with a global environmental crisis, giving the U.S. government another rationale for shifting resources away from Waterman's work. Even the discovery of a Martian fossil can't ensure the project's viability, and Waterman and his wife return to the red planet in a last-ditch effort to keep the exploration going. Bova deftly captures the excitement of scientific discovery and planetary exploration. This compelling story, balancing action and plausible political intrigue, will easily be enjoyed by both fans and newcomers. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Bova's Grand Tour future histories continue to constitute one of the more absorbing and intelligent contemporary sf sagas. Here two scientists add up fossil evidence to conclude that Mars once supported intelligent life and that Martians colonized Earth conclusions that run them into the religious buzz saw of New Morality conservatives. The tension and suspense of that confrontation make a well-done if somewhat didactic thriller out of much of the book. Readers at peace with the hard-sf community's views on religious influences will be unperturbed, and surely not just they will enjoy this exceptionally intelligent and absorbing story.--Green, Roland Copyright 2008 Booklist
Library Journal Review
During his first visit to Mars, Navaho archaeologist Jamie Waterman discovered evidence of cliff dwellings, indicating that intelligent life had once inhabited the Red Planet. Later, anthropologist Carter Carleton uncovers a fossil of what might be a Martian, focusing world attention on the planet. As scientists scramble to retain the funding necessary to maintain their presence on Mars, the New Morality Movement, religiously fundamentalist and rabidly anti-science, increases its hold on the reins of power--in the United States and, perhaps, throughout the world. Bova's latest addition to his Grand Tour books (e.g., Venus) brings back familiar characters and expands on his projected future, encompassing both his hopes for continued exploration of space and his fears for the obstacles that stand in its way. A good addition to most libraries and a welcome find for Bova's many readers. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
DATA BANK Mars is the most earthlike planet in the solar system. But that doesn't mean that it's very much like Earth. Barely half of Earth's size, Mars orbits roughly one and a half times farther from the Sun than Earth does. It is a small, cold, seemingly barren world, a frozen desert of ironrust sands from pole to pole. Yet Mars is a spectacular world. The tallest mountain in the solar system is the aptly named Olympus Mons, a massive shield volcano three times higher than Everest, with a base as wide as the state of Idaho. The main caldera at Olympus Mons's summit could swallow Mt. Everest entirely. Other huge volcanoes dot the Tharsis highlands, all of them long extinct. Almost halfway across the planet is Hellas Planitia, an enormous impact crater nearly the size of Australia and some five kilometers deep, gouged out when a huge meteor slammed into Mars eons ago. Then there is Valles Marineris, the Grand Canyon of Mars, a gigantic rift in the ground that stretches farther than the distance between Boston and San Francisco, a fracture that is seven kilometers deep in some places and so wide that explorers standing on one rim of it cannot see the other side because it is beyond the horizon. The atmosphere of Mars is a mere wisp, thinner than Earth's high stratosphere. It is composed mostly of carbon dioxide, with traces of nitrogen, oxygen, and inert gases such as argon and neon. The air pressure at the surface of Mars is about the same as the pressure thirty- some kilometers up in the high stratosphere of Earth's atmosphere, so thin that an uncovered glass of water will immediately boil away even when the temperature is far below zero. Which it is most of the time. Mars is a cold world. At midsummer noon on the Martian equator, the ground temperature might get as high as seventy degrees Fahrenheit. But at the height of a person's nose the temperature would be zero, and that night it would plunge to a hundred below or even colder. The thin Martian atmosphere retains almost none of the Sun's heat: it reradiates back into space, even at noon on the equator. There is water on Mars, however. The polar caps that can be seen from Earth even with an amateur telescope contain frozen water, usually overlain with frozen carbon dioxide: dry ice. Explorers found layers of permafrost--frozen water--beneath the surface, enough underground water to make an ocean or at least a sizable sea. There is abundant evidence that water once flowed across the surface of Mars. The entire northern hemi sphere of the planet may once have been an ocean basin. Mars was once considerably warmer and wetter than it is now. But today the surface of Mars is a barren desert of highly oxidized iron sands that give Mars its rusty red coloration. Those sands are loaded with superoxides; the planetwide desert of Mars is more like powdered bleach than soil in which plants could grow. Yet there is life on Mars. The First Expedition discovered lichenlike organisms living inside cracks in the rocks littering the floor of the Grand Canyon of Mars. The Second Expedition found bacteria living deep underground, extremophiles that metabolize solid rock and water leached from the permafrost. And the human explorers discovered an ancient cliff dwelling built into a niche high up the north wall of the Valles Marineris. There were once intelligent Martians, but they were wiped out in a cataclysm that scrubbed the entire planet clean of almost all life. Curious explorers from Earth sought to understand those longvanished Martians. But others of Earth preferred to ignore them, to pretend that they had never existed. In an irony that stretched across two worlds, the greatest discovery made on Mars led directly to the determined effort to put an end to the exploration of the red planet. Copyright (c) 2008 by Ben Bova. All rights reserved. Excerpted from Mars Life by Ben Bova All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
