♂: The Novel

Mars in the 25th century, looking back: long ago, Earth colonized Mars; later Earth terraformed Mars. But longer ago... Mars didn’t need Earth’s help, thank you.



In ♂: The Novel (Mars: the Novel), a nearly terrestrial band around the equator is home to New Mars Colony, ready to expand and populate the Red Planet, going full tilt with corporate and governmental backing from the Mother Planet. But strange things start appearing as terraforming proceeds and Mars becomes more Earth-like.

Mineral formations, thought to be an industrial staple and used as such, metamorphose into ferropods. What are they and why are they killing us? Ambulating plants--is that what they are? Why does the chemical within them act as a novel neurotransmitter in the human brain? And the songs riding on the winds through the canyons--the Sonotomes, brilliant recordings laid down by the ancient Martians into the ferric oxide of the geology--are in contrast to an unexplainable total absence of fossilized remains. Are they telling us something? Something long hidden, something terrifying--or something beautiful?