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Title: Mars Underground by William K. Hartmann ISBN: 0-8125-8039-7 Publisher: Tor Science Fiction Pub. Date: 15 February, 1999 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99

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Average Customer Rating: 3.1 (20 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: Much ado about nothing
Comment: I had heard (and read) good things about MARS UNDERGROUND so at the first chance I purchased the book. After a couple of chapters the problemse were already glaring. The first one is the matter of character - or lack of it. The people never seem to "grab" the reader and are like cardboard cutouts. There are no individual personalities and no one really "grows", totally forgetful. Then there is the matter of the S-L--O----W moving plot. After a lot of boring set-up, give and take on the planet, discussions of various ideas and operational minutiae someone goes missing.

The events are totally predictable: Media folk yap about the public's "right to know", the Cold War continues (2034), professional jealousy, secrecy, revolt, etc Toward the end the group is drilling for rock samples and discovers an alien object dated 3.2 billion years BC. It originated outside the Solar System and after some brainstorming, they declare it to be a terraforming machine.

Let's get this over with. Surprise, shock, arguments and at last we get to see the grand machine (horizontal and vertical pipes). One fool unscrews a bolt on the machine - nothing happens of course. Then battles over disclosure and suddenly an earthquake/tremors caused by ancient machine - nothing happens again. That's the sum of this book - nothing happens.

Rating: 5
Summary: An exceptional first hard-SF novel
Comment: It's 2030 in Mars City. Crusty old scientist Alwyn Stafford is out on a solo
Mars-buggy trip in Hellespontus. Now he's overdue, and his young
protege "Carter Jahns" (nudge, ) is leading the search. Annie Pohaku, a
reporter newly-arrived from Earth, tags along.

Stafford isn't found before his air runs out, and is presumed dead.
Carter finds the abandoned buggy. Oddly, it had been deliberately hidden.
The director of Hellas Station is uncooperative. Carter heads to the
University of Phobos to study satellite imagery for clues to the fate of his
friend. He finds interesting IR imagery; overnite, the imagery is lost due
to "computer error". Annie has followed. They become lovers, and plot
the next move in an increasingly-murky mystery...

Hmmph. I've never much cared for plot-outline book reviews, but how
else do you start one?

Astronomer and planetary scientist Hartmann makes an impressive
fiction debut in "Mars Underground". The areology and extrapolation
are impeccable, as one might expect. Less-expected, but equally welcome,
are fully-formed characters - people you come to care about - set in a
well-paced story with intriguing plot twists and a satisfying resolution.
Bravo!

I've read and enjoyed a number of Dr. Hartmann's nonfiction books and
papers over the years. An endnote says his novel took 8 years to write. I
hope we don't have to wait that long for his next.

For bookstore blurb-browsers: Tor has assembled an impressive
collection, ranging from Clarke, Benford & Bear to Tony Hillerman.
They're all fair and accurate, IMO. Nice cover art, too.

Happy reading!
Pete Tillman

Rating: 2
Summary: Slow-paced Mars yarn
Comment: Hartmann's novel reads rather like a less dynamic Bova-esque tale. In similar manner to Bova's potboilers, Mars Underground is populated by gross stereotypes, the feisty (yawn!) reporter Annie and the grizzled old prospector type Stafford, being particularly irritating. At least Bova would have thrown in some action to keep matters ticking along though. Hartmann merely gives us a few interesting pages describing the chase across the Martian landscape in pursuit of the errant Stafford, and a handful of less-than-convincing sex scenes. The pay-off in the final chapters is pretty muted and merely serves to throw up further clichés surrounding rebellion against starchy authority. The marvellous backdrop of every SF fan's favourite planet ensures that a modicum of interest remains throughout, but seldom have I read a book where so little of interest happens in 400 odd pages. The paucity of atmosphere echoes the thin wispy air of Mars itself and only rarely does Hartmann generate any sense of excitement or wonder.

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