Review of The Red Woman of Mars

[chris_gerrib]

The Red Woman on Mars: A Novel by Claire Barner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I am not obsessed with Mars - I can stop thinking about it at any time. This is not the time. I read Claire Barner's previous novel and enjoyed it, so when I saw this one I ordered it, as well as downloaded an ARC via Netgalley. Overall, this was an enjoyable book. They say that science fiction is the literature of ideas. Well, I have Thoughts about this book.

First, it's billed as "Jane Austen in space." There is some of that (the Martians consciously are following Regency customs) but there's rather a lot more violence in this book than in Austen's. Second, the reason that Vivian Bowen, the titular Red Woman, is on Mars is that, due to weak bones, Martian-borne women can't carry pregnancies to term. I'm not sure I buy the science on that.

I am reminded of a book I read in junior high in which the humans on Mars could only have boys, and they solved their women problem by kidnapping Earth girls. Even in back then, I found the idea the all the kidnapped women were okay with this to be problematic. Fortunately, Barner's characters have more normal reactions to being lured to Mars. Also, gays have been invented in Barner's work, which they weren't in the 1950s (that's sarcasm, of course).

My third problem is guns. On Barner's Mars, guns are banned because they would poke holes in pressure domes. Besides the idea of frangible ammunition (Google it), on Earth we get concerned about guns on airplanes because they are small and the walls are made of the thinnest material possible. On a station that is the size of a city, a few bullet holes would be negligible, and there's no particular reason to make your walls paper-thin. In fact, for thermal and radiation protection, thicker is better.

Don't get me wrong - I liked the book - it's just that it produced some thoughts.



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