(April 18, 2024 update Ebook versions are temporarily unavailable -- some complication with distribution over which I have no control. I'm assured this is being worked out.)
I'm (beyond) delighted to announce the release today of Life and Death on Mars. In terms of scope, it's one of my most ambitious novels ever.
As though landing people safely on Mars weren't daunting enough ...
The Space Race of the Sixties, at the height of the Cold War, had been nail-biting—until the Soviet Union forfeited.
In the thirties—amid a second Cold War—China is not about to lose the race to Mars. Nor is the United States. Nor, quite the wildcard, is a secretive cabal drawn from among the world's multi-billionaires. All of them scrambling to launch deep-space missions on a schedule to make the Sixties contest appear lackadaisical.
Competition that could only continue on the Red Planet.
More treacherous still? The rivalries, resentments, and distrust that simmer just beneath the surface within each expedition.
More difficult yet? Survival on that arid, radiation-drenched, all-but-airless planet.
These challenges have somehow fallen into the lap of NASA engineer—and reluctant astronaut—Xander Hopkins.
But the thorniest problem of all? The existential quandary for which neither training nor experience has in any way prepared Xander? Making sense of the seemingly unstoppable plague that has already killed. The plague that seems poised to devastate all life on Mars and another world.
Earth.
This being a commercial announcement, I'll offer links to the print edition and Kindle edition (April 18, 2024 -- sorry, the Kindle edition is temporarily unavailable) at Amazon. The book will also be available soon—if it isn't already by the time you read this—in other print and ebook venues. If your favorite brick-and-mortar store doesn't have it on the shelf, they'll be happy to place an order (to make it painless for the bookseller, here's the ISBN: 978-1647100889).
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