mars2k's Reviews (226)

A very strong start; compelling prose and good character studies. The shifting POV and clear differences in perspective between characters kept things fresh, and complemented a developing theme of observation and perception being at odds with experience and interaction. It’s a thought-provoking book. There are the scientific and technological aspects typical of hard sci-fi, but also a lot of philosophising as characters try to make sense of their new world and put forward their own beliefs about what a Martian society should or could possibly look like. Take this quote about the concept of nature:

But ultimately it seemed like the themes and ideas being toyed with were discarded in favour of a basic nationalist narrative; “transnat” corporations vs a burgeoning Martian identity, their incompatibility largely taken as a given and not explored with the depth that might be expected. Maybe that’s deliberate? Maybe philosophical debates about nature and beauty and spirituality are frivolous, and unimportant in the face of material reality and hegemonic power. Yet so much of that philosophising is wrapped up in the material conditions of establishing a colony on Mars and political implications of doing so.

I will read the rest of the trilogy (eventually) but for now I have only Red Mars to evaluate and I really don’t know what to make of it. I liked it. I loved parts of it. John’s section dragged on far too long (again, deliberate? His directionless rambling really was a waste of time.) The momentum was lost and was never really recovered, even with one cataclysm after another taking place. The latter half of the book is pretty bleak. Some of the more interesting characters were sidelined or removed from the narrative. In the end it felt like setup for the next book, irritatingly, rather than a story which stands up on its own.

Anyway...

Tar pit approach to political critique, and not much offered in the way of alternatives. Feed pigeons I guess idk. Resembles a caricature of anarchism (contrary, shallow) with little substance, only namedropping and misrepresenting philosophical concepts/theories (Camus’s absurdism being the most prominent example of this).

Live – youthful, theatrical, charged.

You can tell it was originally intended to be performed rather than read. Would have been nice to experience that.

I think my favourite piece – the one that stuck out to me – was a poem called “Sly Boots” by Anna Camilleri. I’d like to read more of her work. 

Mid disaster

Read for book club June 2025

I liked this book a lot more than I thought I would. I don’t usually go for historical novels, and the American Civil War isn’t an interest of mine. I was drawn in by the writing style; the evocative imagery, the efficient character studies, and the authentic voice (though I know some will be tripped up by the grammar).

Days Without End raised all sorts of questions about queerness in a racist and sexist world. Masculinity is presented as a vehicle of violence and conquest, contrasted with feminine mystery.

Escapist interludes slowly give way to simply living as a woman. There’s something on performativity and becoming what you play. Of course, in this case that would mean not only rejecting manhood but also whiteness in a way.

This makes me think of queerness in indigenous cultures and how it’s interpreted by white people (as a point of otherness or of kinship).
The homosociality of the army and the frontier offer a tantalising glimpse of queer possibility. Queer/marginalised narratives seem to be uniquely regarded as to be told. There’s an appetite in modern audiences to hear untold stories, and an idea that historical queer lives were somehow... incomplete? unfulfilled? because they lacked the concepts and terminology we have now. This being a historical novel, we in the present are drawing narratives out of the past which reflect our own assumptions and leanings. I appreciate this story not projecting current gender/sexuality taxonomy onto its characters. I also appreciate it not shying away from the bigotry and brutality of the age, not whitewashing the past to make it more palatable. These horrors and shameful acts are difficult to confront but it’s vital that we do.

I think this is the only time the “found family” trope has worked for me. I reject the valorisation of The Family and particularly the nuclear family structure, but the author of this book chooses to challenge that conservative/reactionary rhetoric from a different angle; he deliberately wrote about a queer family unit to push back against the idea that queerness and family are somehow at odds or incompatible. While I would approach the topic differently, I have to recognise it as a heartfelt gesture of solidarity, which is especially touching when you consider this was dedicated by the author to his gay son. I can see he’s really gone on a journey here, to explore queer realities and appreciate them for what they are – complicated and true.

The story itself is so-so (quite dreary outside the lesbian moments), but it’s still worth reading from a historical standpoint for its influence on later vampire literature. 

I’d hoped there’d be more vampirism but there’s monsterfuckery at least. Intriguing assembly of fetishism, sadism, and consumption – that is, reality TV.

Of course, this being written in the 1960s, it is coloured by assumptions and biases typical of the age. The sexism becomes apparent when we compare and contrast the experiments conducted on Minner (an adult kidnapped and mutilated, his body altered and optimised, disrupting his self/image and causing him to become monstrous) with those conducted on Lona (a teen coerced into participation, her body left intact (the doctors emphasise her virginity – or maybe they emphasise it to deny violation), disrupting her (presumed natural) status as a mother and causing her to become hysterical). It’s worth noting egg donation and IVF may have been regarded as obscene in the 60s (when they existed solely in the realm of science fiction) but they’re now commonplace and from my perspective reading this book in the 2020s, it doesn’t seem like that big a deal besides the dubious consent. The centuplets are not Lona's children in any meaningful way and they are not siblings to one another in any meaningful way either. It still works for her to be depressed and disturbed and fixated on finding and raising one of those babies (maybe as a way to reclaim some control? or simply to play out a maternal role she feels she ought to?), but to me it just doesn’t read as a logical consequence of the experiment she was a part of.

There’s so much resentment and spite in this novel. Even the ending which has

Chalk defeated by the power of love

comes about bitterly.

Minner and Lona’s relationship is fucked up but that’s kind of the point. It’s meant to be scandalous and doomed to fail. So turning that around through sheer force of will, and in doing so beating the villain at his own game...

idk it kind of works, but I still think it’s a little weak. Too neat, maybe.

Not sure what to make of this novel. It’s an interesting one. 

Took me a while to attune but it was worth the effort. Esoteric and erotic, bloody and baroque.

Wide variation in style. My favourites were “And the Mountains Melt Like Wax” by Tyler Battaglia and “Enfleshed” by Cass Trudeau. I would have liked to see more artwork; the collection was skewed too much towards short stories which made the two illustrations included seem out of place. I also felt that not all the stories/poems made the most of the angelic concept? But maybe that’s just my preferences colouring my judgement 

Just not grabbing me.