From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] My review of Robert J Sawyer's _Red Planet Blues_
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2021 12:39:29 -0400 (EDT)

This is my review of Robert J Sawyer's _Red Planet Blues_ that I gave
at the September 10th hybrid PRSFS meeting.

I was inspired to re-read this 2013 novel when I recently learned that
fossils of multicellular life from the paleoproterozoic, 2.1 billion
years ago, had been discovered.  That's three times longer ago than
multicellular life had previously been found.  It apparently died out
and nothing remotely like is re-evolved for more than a billion years.

(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francevillian_biota)

That reminded me of this novel, whose backstory -- whose *way* back story
-- was that on Mars, multicellular ocean life had evolved four billion
years ago when Mars was warm and wet, and had gone extinct when Mars
became cold and dry.

About forty years before the events of this novel, these fossils
had been discovered in Isidis Planitia, a large plain on Mars.
Unfortunately, the original two discoverers both soon died, and the
location of the rich fossil bed they discovered had been lost.  Since
then, a domed city -- or rather, a domed frontier town -- called New
Klondike had been built to house fossil hunters.  (That name seems to
be the only Canadian content of this novel.)

On both Earth and Mars, people with enough money can have their minds
uploaded into extremely durable robot bodies, making them immune to
aging and disease.  Such uploaded people can walk around unprotected
on the surface of Mars.

The viewpoint character, who is not an upload, is a down-and-out
private eye.  This is a classic noir novel, with all of the usual
tropes.  Lots of seedy bars, lazy or corrupt cops, damsels in distress
who aren't always what they seem, prostitutes, people in debt, bribes,
violent criminals, etc.  Lots of action, including lots of guns, a few
land mines, a switchblade, and an electromagnetic weapon that kills
robots.  The word "gunsel" is used, and it's mentioned that it has two
very different meanings.  The use of these tropes is explained by the
protagonist being very familiar with old novels and old movies.  For
instance he knows why the crew member who stays awake on a cryosleep
ship is called a bowman.

The author photo shows him in classic noir clothes.

I like catching references.  I'm sure I didn't catch them all.  But I
did get why Wilhelm beer is a popular brew.  The first Mars globe was
made by a 19th century German astronomer named Wilhelm Beer.

It's a real page turner, hard to put down.  But the science is
somewhat lacking.  I'm skeptical that below a few inches of dust, Mars
soil consists of 60% water ice.  The locale is near the equator, where
it approaches room temperature at noon in the summer, and the vapor
pressure of ice even at Mars's coldest is enough that no ice would
last long over a geological timescale.  And if it did, water ice in
liquor wouldn't cost enormously more than CO2 ice, as it does in the
novel.

I also doubt that having one's helmet smashed while out on the surface
of Mars would be such a minor inconvenience.  Just stick the oxygen
hose directly in your mouth, put a fossil-collecting bag over your
head and hold it tight around your neck and you'll be fine?  I don't
think so.

I'm also skeptical of the claim that it's hard to find a large object
in Isidis Planitia because of that plain's immense size (about half
the size of the coterminous US).  It's mentioned that nobody ever
found the failed Beagle 2 lander, which landed there in 2003.
Amusingly, in our timeline it was found in 2015, just two years after
the novel was written, even though that lander is smaller than a car.

The first quarter of the novel was originally a standalone novella,
and was nominated for the Hugo.  I won't give its title, since the
title is a spoiler.  The seam is very obvious.  But that's not a bad
thing, since it gives you a chance to bail out if you didn't like the
first part.

If you like adventure, suspense, and surprise twists, and are tolerant
of borderline science, you'll enjoy this novel.