Review by Chris Bartholomew © 2007
The Mars Imperative by Mark Terence Chapman
The story begins with Jamie McKie saying good-bye to his family after a big breakfast, good-byes to his friends, and a run to the airport. This passage shows some of the subtle humor that permeates the story:
“Good morning, sir. Welcome to BrazAir!” In McKie's current mood, the chipper tone of the AI on the holoscreen grated like fingernails on an old-fashioned blackboard. His irritation was offset somewhat by the name of the airline, which—as always—made him
think of women's undergarments.
On the way to his first destination, Macapá, Brazil, he meets Daniel Lim and they soon become fast friends. Lim knows his way around and Jamie isn't even sure of what's going on yet. But after traveling up the huge Nautilus space elevator into orbit, he finds his way to the 'boot camp,' where he'll learn techniques for surviving in space and on Mars, and where the duo meet Kimberly Cappelletti. It's these three that we will follow through adventure after adventure in this delightful science fiction novel.
Jamie—James—McKie. Daniel Lim and Kim Cappelletti, are three characters that the reader will grow to care about, which is imperative (pun intended) in a novel that will continue into more books. Mark's easy writing style makes these characters come alive.
For the science part of this Sci-Fi novel, Mark Chapman uses excerpts from the fictional Encyclopedia Solaris, which he inserts at the finer points of the book to explain how the science works. This fictional Encyclopedia works well for this book as it doesn't seem like it's interrupting the story, it fits well within the plot.
History of Space Exploration: 21 st and 22 nd Century— The twenty-first century dawned with hope for the future. Those hopes were quickly dampened by a worldwide recession and acts of terrorism. However, these were not the worst danger facing mankind. The more insidious threat was that of overpopulation. The problem was not one of insufficient food—... No, the more serious peril was the depletion of nonrenewable natural resources. More people meant a need for more skyscrapers, more automobiles, more of everything.
— Excerpt from Encyclopedia Solaris, 2176
I found this novel to be an excellent blend of science and reality, and the fixes that the characters find themselves in to be sometimes humorous, and suspenseful, but always believable because this writer has a great imagination and is able in every way to deliver.
I highly recommend this science fiction novel to readers who just want to escape into another world where you can easily root for the heroes.
The Mars Imperative, and the second book in the series, The Tesserene Imperative, are available from Amazon.com (trade paperback), Fictionwise.com (ebook), and other venues. To learn more about Mark Terence Chapman and his books, visit his web site at http://tesserene.com or read his blog at http://tesserene.blogspot.com.
