How to Mars
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
The Hollywood Reporter: What to Watch, Play, and Read in 2021
How to Mars is Andy Weir’s The Martian infused with poetry.” —Booklist
What happens when your dream mission to Mars is a reality television nightmare? This debut science-fiction romp with heart that follows the tradition of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, with a hints of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Real World, and Mythbusters.
For the six lucky scientists selected by the Destination Mars! corporation, a one-way ticket to Mars—in exchange for a lifetime of research—was an absolute no-brainer. The incredible opportunity was clearly worth even the most absurdly tedious screening process. Perhaps worth following the strange protocols in a nonsensical handbook written by an eccentric billionaire. Possibly even worth their constant surveillance, the video of which is carefully edited into a ratings-bonanza back on Earth.
But it turns out that after a while even scientists can get bored of science. Tempers begin to fray; unsanctioned affairs blossom. When perfectly good equipment begins to fail, the Marsonauts are faced with a possibility that their training just cannot explain.
Irreverent, poignant, and perfectly weird, David Ebenbach’s exciting debut science-fiction outing, like a mission to Mars, is an incredible trip you will never forget.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ebenbach (Miss Portland) imagines the first pregnancy on Mars in this gentle, domestic sci-fi novel of a reality show gone interplanetary. Two years into the filming of reality show Destination Mars! the cast have settled into a quotidian routine on the Red Planet, leading to declining ratings and a production shutdown. Jenny, an astrophysicist, maintains the team's telescope, and Josh, a psychologist, works to keep things running smoothly in the Destination Mars! base camp. Ignoring the constantly repeated prohibitions against intercourse ("Even Elton John thinks it's a bad idea," warns the Destination Mars! handbook ), the pair have sex—repeatedly—and despite their prophylactic precautions, soon Jenny is expecting the first child born off Earth. The challenge of a developing life adds both stress and excitement to a base grown weary of Mars and discouraged with searching for alien life. It also brings the attention of some Mars inhabitants who, like Stefan, the team engineer, fear the additional chaos that a bawling baby will bring to the quiet planet. Ebenbach keeps an intimate focus on Jenny's pregnancy while portraying the technical details of base living through a satiric lens that sees the relentless deliveries of useless towels and the revival of freeze-dried goldfish. The result is funny, fresh, and winsome.
