#before mars

This series is Amazing, and capitalism is terrible (which the books explore, quite a lot).

Planetfall is a science fiction series comprised of three novels: Planetfall, After Atlas, and Before Mars, with a fourth, Atlas Alone, to be published in April of next year.

While all the books are linked and have a theme of isolation, they each have a different protagonist and follow different events.

The first book, Planetfall, is about the first human colony on a new planet, built by a group who set out into space to find God, led by a person called the Pathfinder. Twenty years on, it follows Renata, a woman part of the original mission who now works as an engineer for the 3-D printers. The novel explores how the colony deals with a newcomer arriving suddenly, and the secrets that lie in the heart of the colony’s foundation.

Ren is an interesting character, as she’s clearly hiding things and I was never sure how much I could trust her, and yet I found her social anxiety deeply relatable.

While Planetfall is set on an alien world, After Atlas is set on Earth forty years after the Pathfinder left Earth. It follows Carlos Moreno, a detective for the Noropean Ministry of Justice, who begins investigation into the death of a cult leader – a leader who Moreno has a personal history with.

I love books that blur between genres, and I loved seeing how a crime scene could operate in a high-tech future. And the world-building here is fantastic; After Atlas is much more dystopian than Planetfall – for instance, Moreno is one of the many people working as forced indentured servitude in endless contracts.

However, the ending is rather weak in my opinion. Much like Planetfall, the last few chapters are a radical departure from the rest of the book, and felt rushed. There was also a lot of ‘he or she’ and ‘his or her’ throughout that made sentences clunky – ‘they’ would have flowed much better.

[tw: while there’s no rape in After Atlas, some parts, particularly towards the end, could be triggering to those sensitive to that topic. there is also a depiction of an abusive relationship.]

Before Mars is set on Mars, and follows geologist and artist Anna Kubrin as she arrives at the small science station. Her job is to paint landscapes for a corporation back on Earth. But right away there’s strange things happening; she finds a note in her handwriting warning her not to trust the station’s phycologist, she finds footprints on a part of Mars where nobody else has been, and things from her luggage, including her wedding ring, are missing.

On top of that, Anna is feeling a disconnect from her family and especially her baby daughter, who she was already struggling to connect with. This book is as much about her emotional journey as it is about the unfolding mysteries around her, and is my favourite so far in the series.

[tw for post-natal depression, an abusive relationship, and gaslighting.]

Newman is very good at building mystery and suspense; she strikes the fine balance between giving enough information to keep you interested and on your toes, but not so little that it’s frustrating, and there are lots of details that make a second read-through enjoyable. This is especially evident in Before Mars, which, for me, has the best mystery.

Each novel also has amazing world-building that explores both the political changes and how they affect people on a personal day-to-day basis, and the new technologies that is woven in very believably.

I also love the casual representation; Ren is openly attracted to women, and there’s a non-binary character in Before Mars. (There’s also one in After Atlas, but they’re a minor character and not the best in my view.)

However, I think it’s important to talk about Stephen Gabor, who I feel falls into the territory of the predatory as he is extremely controlling and abusive towards his husband. I really hope Atlas Alone is better in regards to this, because an abuser and his victim shouldn’t be the only representation for gay men.

Book summaries below:

2022 Reading Challenge - 6 of 20

Rating: 4/5

Conspiracy, or Madness? Before Mars by Emma Newman

Liz Bourke

Thu Apr 19, 2018 2:30pm

Before Mars is the third novel in Emma Newman’s Planetfall universe, loosely connected to its predecessors, 2015’s Planetfall and 2016’s After Atlas. Readers of After Atlas will come to Before Mars with some foreboding: we already know that the creeping sense of horror Before Mars’ protagonist experiences will have to pay off, one way or another—especially as it becomes clearer how the timeline in Before Mars lines up with that of After Atlas.

Anna Kubrin is a geologist and an artist, dispatched to take a new job on the tiny Mars operation owned and operated by GaborCorp. Leaving behind a husband and small child—alienated from them both, and guilty over her inability to overcome her sense of alienation towards her own motherhood, because mothers are supposed to feel instant love and connection with their child, aren’t they?—for months of travel, she arrives on Mars to a disorienting sense of familiarity. There, she finds a note in her own handwriting on very familiar materials—her own art materials—warning her not to trust the Mars psychologist, Dr. Arnolfi. Anna feels that she must either be going mad or that someone is playing a cruel prank on her, but apart from Arnolfi and Anna herself, there are only three other members of the Mars outpost, not counting the AI of Mars Principia: Banks, who presents an “immersive” show, Petranek, and Dr. Elvan. But as Anna acclimates to Mars and tries to begin her work, she finds more and more evidence of a conspiracy.