One is, it transitions from YA to adult as the protagonist grows into womanhood. This is evidenced by the shift in narrative voice. The novel is first-person and the change is both subtle and convincing, which is an enviable achievement.
The second it, this is also a novel about the end of humanity's "adolescence" as the "Martians" turn out to be creatures planted on Mars by a vastly older more advanced race in order to keep an eye on the rapidly evolving humans. Within the span of a few years, Earth must come to grips with the fact that its own internal problems must take a backseat to the fact that we are not alone and that it may be a cold, cruel collection of neighbors surrounding us.
I've always enjoyed and admired Haldeman's deceptively simple approach to complex and compelling scenarios. I'm looking forward to the next volume in the trilogy. The main character is likable and believable. The dialogue is realistic and typically Haldemanesque. The story just didn't engage me, though, and it isn't helped by a group of aliens that I just wasn't buying into. Haldeman knows to how create cool and weird aliens see Camouflage , a really underrrated book and unfortunately the Martians in the story only have the weird part of the equation nailed.
The other thing that was hard for me to swallow in the plot was the everpresent antagonistic relationship between the main character and her primary "opposition", a bitter and vindictive administrator That said, the underlying idea in the book is a sound one, and I want to know where it goes with the sequel, Starbound.
OK book, but in the context of knowing who wrote it, a little disappointing. Sep 18, Chris Aylott rated it liked it. Haldeman proves the old Heinlein juvenile is alive and well, though I'm not sure his take on it will hold up as well as Heinlein's did. Carmen Dula's family is on its way to the first human Mars colony, where they will spend the next five years and possibly settle for life.
On the way, she sort of falls in love with the ship's pilot -- he's in his thirties and she's nineteen, which makes their relationship just a bit creepy. Once on Mars, of course, she makes a Discovery that Changes Everything. I liked it, but I'm a little surprised to see there are sequels, and am not sure I want to keep following the story.
All the right beats are there, but the story and style just aren't as precise as I like a good YA novel to be.
Oct 18, Jack Burnett rated it really liked it. Carmen Dula is a likable, relatable, realistic main character, and a sometimes dispassionately honest narrator. At some point, particularly since she starts the book 18 years old on the uncertain, anxious, stressed-out side of a pretty big family relocation and ends it with a graduate degree and unlikely place of prominence in human history, you would like to see her grow and change, leave the smartassery behind in favor of introspection and insight.
She doesn't, and that's to the book's detrime Carmen Dula is a likable, relatable, realistic main character, and a sometimes dispassionately honest narrator.
She doesn't, and that's to the book's detriment. But the Big Idea is kind of cool, sort of A Space Odyssey meets Contact by way of Ray Bradbury, and you are engrossed enough not to find yourself bobbing up out of the story.
Will read, and plan to enjoy, the sequel. Jul 30, Michael rated it liked it Shelves: aliens , fiction , science-fiction , colonization. Two of the most classic themes of science fiction--colonization and first contact-- put into a charming package. Satisfying read, but it missed the mark a bit in conveying a sense of wonder about her experiences, and the characters could have been more compelling. Mar 31, Jamie Collins rated it liked it Shelves: science-fiction.
Haldeman's books are always readable, and I liked the narrator and the setting. But the book felt way too short, had too much exposition, and I found the ending abrupt and unsatisfying. Jul 06, Scott Shjefte rated it liked it.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. A difficult read for me, not entirely sure why - perhaps because the main character's Carmen Dula emotions did not ring true and I could not identify with her or her family.
Then the Martians showed up and again nothing seemed relatable with them either. Finally, the true aliens were identified in the story and those almost were figurable but the crazy lady Dargo who could figure her total lackings as a human?
A personal issue as I am a material engineer The technology of the Earth space e A difficult read for me, not entirely sure why - perhaps because the main character's Carmen Dula emotions did not ring true and I could not identify with her or her family.
Apr 20, Rachel rated it did not like it Shelves: sf , x-dnf. Dnf'ing at 82 pages. Middle-aged men writing about teenage girls tends to gack me out. Even with writers who are otherwise favorites of mine. The girl, age 18, is the viewpoint character. By page 25, she's talked about how periods work in space and taken a naked shower with other girls.
And bemoaned the lack of makeup in space. Around page 70 after we've heard how she's kind of technically a virgin, or not, and the cringeworthy details , she has sex with the captain, who's at least 10 years old Dnf'ing at 82 pages. Around page 70 after we've heard how she's kind of technically a virgin, or not, and the cringeworthy details , she has sex with the captain, who's at least 10 years older.
And her mother approves. May 16, J. Dobias rated it liked it Shelves: shelf Marsbound by Joe Haldeman I bought this as a light read and since I've only read a few older books by Joe Haldeman ,Mindscape, and all my sins remembered, I would have to say I didn't come into it with great expectations.
The pace of the novel is rather sedate, which is good for a light read; it's not a novel that starts the reader by hitting the ground running and ramping up the pace every few pages. My impression of the character was that she was written from the point of a 17 year old and poss Marsbound by Joe Haldeman I bought this as a light read and since I've only read a few older books by Joe Haldeman ,Mindscape, and all my sins remembered, I would have to say I didn't come into it with great expectations.
My impression of the character was that she was written from the point of a 17 year old and possibly because of the sex scenes the age was changed to But that feeling might be wherein lies the beginning of problems with this novel.
Still overall I enjoyed the novel and I think that if someone is looking for a light read in science fiction that this one should fit the bill. Carmen Dula is our heroin of this story and as mentioned she's 19 years old.
Her family is headed to Mars, because they are one of several families who were lucky with the lottery for this trip. Carmen is resistant to the idea of going but seems to feel she's being dragged along and I would think at age 19 she'd do something more than grouse about it.
Instead she acts like a 17 year old who grudgingly has to go along; so she'll try to make the best of it. But then later after she's met Paul the man who will pilot the craft from Earth Space to Mars there will be an intimate scene and perhaps the story then calls for an advanced age to make this one fly past some of our inner censors.
But then if this were true Young adult fiction then the young girl who acts 17 would be 17 and the sex scene would be deemed less necessary or maybe toned down.
But the choice here was to leave that in and that ends up making Carmen Dula look like an immature young woman and confuses just what audience this might be written for. For this reader having Carmen show up as immature still causes the sex scene to be jarring and doesn't help efforts to give the character more depth. The relationship seems to be a device to put the character at odds with other characters and set the scene for the portion where the real story starts.
And that's where another problem crops up. The first hundred or so pages are at a rather slow tedious pace and would have worked quite well for me if the character development had been accomplished more efficiently. Some character development is there and there is a whole bunch of world building and setting the stage and giving the reader a feel that this whole trip into space is real. It's almost too real; though we don't really get much of the science behind the space elevator, we get a protracted picture of what it's like to travel on one.
There is a lot of time spent on developing the passengers, the Dula family and the other families that are going along.
This is all good except that there will be a point when few of these characters play much of a part in the rest of the story; while at the same time we don't get enough understanding of the character of Carmen Dula; unless the whole first part of the book was supposed to demonstrate how immature she is.
This imbalance hurt the story for this reader. The next part of the novel is the interesting part but then the reader has to wade through the issues caused by that early relationship before anyone else begins to believe Carmen witnessed the things she does witness. Still Carmen looks immature because it took a tantrum to put her in danger where she would make a great discovery. The other characters treating her like a spoiled immature girl forces her to continue to break the rules when her own life and the lives of all the children are placed in danger.
This is really a story of first contact and then one that leads to a more sinister contact that might be a danger for all of Earth. And by the third part Carmen finally has matured at least to her age level possibly because she has to face the consequences of her actions though I was never clear about that.
It's not the easiest thing to see, but mostly it's not the easiest of things to be certain that Carmen even fully appreciates how much difficulty her actions have caused. And that gets thrown a way a bit with the realization that this was all an eventuality with or without Carmen. Over all Marsbound becomes a complete novel within itself with a somewhat complex moral message and sets the stage for the possibility of more stories.
It also becomes another addition to the Mars books that started proliferating when there were rumors of eventual missions to Mars in our future. Good Simon Pure Science Fiction that plays more on characters working within accepted technologies and delves only on the surface as regards how things are made and work, which makes for a perfect matching with character driven stories; though these characters could have used more development or at least maybe a bit more exposure before the plot thickened and drown them out.
May 12, Nola Tillman rated it liked it Shelves: fiction-science-fiction. This was a pretty good book, with an interesting premise. For the most part, well told, except for a few minimal issues that I had. I enjoyed the aliens and their society, and how things worked with them. I can't say I liked the large jumps in time, but I agree there really wasn't a better way to handle them. It made it hard to keep track of the narrator's age. My biggest problem had to do with the author's choice of narrators.
Look, teenage girls are a pain to write even if you were one in your This was a pretty good book, with an interesting premise. Look, teenage girls are a pain to write even if you were one in your part. It's totally possible for a man to write one well - I think George RR Martin does a decent job, for instance, with Sansa and Arya - but it's risky. Because teenage girls are NOT like teenage boys.
My biggest issue probably came from the age old sci fi trope of how young girls fall all over themselves for older men. I know every guy thinks he's totally cool, but cmon. It's gross and creepy for a 30 year old guy to have sex with a drunk 18yo, even if later she's all, no, I wanted to do it. I won't deny that the same teenager will them feel like she's in real, true love with the guy she lost her virginity to, but that doesn't make it so.
I suppose I could deal with the trope if the narrator hadn't actually considered how creepy it was that this old guy was hitting on her - dude, go find a prostitute while on earth, jeez - And then 24 hours later she's peering anxiously for him. The dude was in a position of authority and had sex with an 18 yo who was drunk and emotional abt leaving her planet behind. Yeah, I probably wouldn't have gotten over it.
Of course, it turns out that he was her one true love. And of course the sour old crone blamed the kid and not the adult. Also, shockingly, men and women just don't think about sex the same. You get some points for communicating the 'sometimes she just wished he'd finish already'. Sorry, guys, that's almost as believable as aliens on Mars.
Everything else was interesting and we'll written. Feb 05, Rick M. Overall, a good book. He works in first-person via the main character, a girl named Carmen Dula. I was surprised, but the first-person narrative worked alright.
They are launched toward Mars in a sling-shot fashion, requiring a lot less energy than traditionally imagined today with Earth-launched rockets.
For the latter half of the book, though, there were long discussions on politics, scientific what-ifs, and administration struggles. Not too much action. Still, he did alright. Only towards the very end of the book which came up quite fast, pleasantly so , did some real interesting possibilities crop up, such as contact with an alien race. Getting through the dry spell of that three-quarter's point paid off in the end.
Overall, a good book, not his best, but entertaining nonetheless. Dec 07, Angela rated it liked it. Joe Haldeman has done it again. His brilliant Forever War seemed a counterpoint to Heinlein's Starship Troopers, a sort of pointed "here, this is what war is really like" riposte although I have heard he says that is not true at all; that in fact he's a big Heinlein fan.
Be that as it may, it is hard to read those books without thinking one is an answer to the other one. Haldeman must be a Heinlein fan however, because this time he has written his version of Podkayne of Mars. Marsbound has the Joe Haldeman has done it again. Marsbound has the same chatty tone of a teenage girl traveling with her younger brother; it's the story of her travels and what it is like on board the various ships and her various destinations.
I was a little disappointed that Card never pulled an atomic bomb out of his luggage, but he turned out to be cooler than Podkayne's younger brother. There are other changes too, changes I'm certain Heinlein would appreciate. There's more sex in this tale, and our heroine Carmen is allowed to grow up - unlike poor Poddy. Whether she ultimately meets the same fate as Podkayne, however, this review does not say! On its own, this was a light, fast read; a beach read for science fiction fans. Haldeman, as always, does his best to get the science right and make the technology he describes sound as realistic as possible.
His Mars colony, for example, doesn't sound as fun as one built by Nadia Chernyshevski, but this Mars does sound more like what we could expect in the near future if we managed a colony there. This is not Haldeman's best by any means. It is fun, and if you are a Haldeman fan - or even a Heinlein fan - you will probably enjoy it. Disappointing Published in by Ace Earth is just starting to colonize Mars and the Dula family was picked to go as part of a weighted lottery system.
The story is told through the eyes of Carmen Dula, a year old college freshman. The first part of the story is a technology-based sci-fi adventure. Lots of explanation of the technology to get to Mars, but at a layman's level and with an eye for the kinds of things that teenagers are concerned about - entertainment, potential romance, how ann Disappointing Published in by Ace Earth is just starting to colonize Mars and the Dula family was picked to go as part of a weighted lottery system.
Lots of explanation of the technology to get to Mars, but at a layman's level and with an eye for the kinds of things that teenagers are concerned about - entertainment, potential romance, how annoying the slightly younger passengers are, and so on. Carmen accidentally stumbles into one of the most remarkable events in human history - literally. A near-fatal fall while on an unapproved excursion away from the colony buildings initiates first contact with an alien species this is not a spoiler, it is in the inside cover of the hardback.
At this point, the I really liked this book! A great first-contact SF story, with a good female narrator. When they arrive, Carmen attracts the ire of one of the post's administrators and spends a lot of time doing menial work. One day she rebels and takes an unauthorized walk on the planet's surface, alone. She is nearly mortally injured but saved by Actually an alien.
And that's where the fun begins! Apr 28, Dan rated it liked it Shelves: sci-fi. This book really didn't pick up until about pages into it, but I found the trip to Mars, as well as life on Mars fairly well-thought out.
One thing I like about Haldeman is he's able to tell a convincing story without getting into the minutiae of everyday life. He does throw science at you regularly, but I find it easily digestible and fun. Once the story started to pick up about pages in, it was a hard one to put down. I will be looking forward to reading the second book in the series, This book really didn't pick up until about pages into it, but I found the trip to Mars, as well as life on Mars fairly well-thought out.
I will be looking forward to reading the second book in the series, Starbound, but will probably wait for a discount. Feb 07, Robert Laird rated it really liked it. This was a simply written story from the perspective of a young woman in her late teens, in the mid 21st century, about her family's journey to Mars. Even before it took an odd turn, I really enjoyed the perspective. The writing throughout was very clear, and Haldeman did a good job fleshing her out, and making her not just believable, but someone you'd want to know.
Overall, a short read but an interesting story, and I look forward to reading the next novel in the series. Dec 14, Fred Hughes rated it really liked it. Joe Haldeman books are what I call easy reads. The storys track fairly fast and there is minimal character development, but enough.
Haldeman has a potty mouth sometimes which I don't find offensive but younger readers may not appreciate his vivid language. All his books are entertaining and easily read. There is not too much complicated plot lines so again easy to read. Recommended Joe Haldeman books are what I call easy reads. Sep 25, John rated it it was amazing. I enjoyed this book. I believe it would be a great intro book, to science fiction, for a person of middle-school age, except for a little too much sex, and gratuitous bad language.
I have probably become over conservative in my old age. I am looking forward to reading the next two books in the series. Aug 11, Pamela rated it really liked it Shelves: recently-read-science-fiction. Excellent, solid science fiction that can be enjoyed by young readers and older ones. My longer review of this book can be found here.
View 1 comment. Nov 30, Gendou rated it really liked it Shelves: fiction , science-fiction. Good hard science fiction. Good hard sex in space. The main character has an interesting tone. The plot was interesting. I liked it. Jun 21, Kim Lewis rated it liked it Shelves: young-adult. This is a young adult fiction novel. The main character travels to Mars with her parents and brother. Along the way she forms a romantic relationship with the pilot which gets both of them in trouble with the manager of the Mars community.
To be alone for a while, the main character goes outside the building alone and injures herself. The aliens find her and fix her injuries while unintentionally giving her a disease. The first edition of the novel was published in August 5th , and was written by Joe Haldeman. The book was published in multiple languages including English, consists of pages and is available in Paperback format.
The main characters of this science fiction, fiction story are ,. Please note that the tricks or techniques listed in this pdf are either fictional or claimed to work by its creator. We do not guarantee that these techniques will work for you. Some of the techniques listed in Marsbound may require a sound knowledge of Hypnosis, users are advised to either leave those sections or must have a basic understanding of the subject before practicing them.
DMCA and Copyright : The book is not hosted on our servers, to remove the file please contact the source url. If you see a Google Drive link instead of source url, means that the file witch you will get after approval is just a summary of original book or the file has been already removed. Loved each and every part of this book. I will definitely recommend this book to science fiction, fiction lovers.
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