Heirs of Mars Amazon.com Barnes & Noble Category:  Science Fiction Publisher: Joseph Robert Lewis Type: Fiction Pages: 300 Copyright: October 28, 2010 The dream that was Mars has become a nightmare for the children born there. To save New Troy from falling birth rates, Asher Radescu secretly clones people in the back of his old truck. To save New Troy from despair, Claudia Cruz hosts the most popular racing show on two worlds. And to save the city from destruction, they'll rally persecuted cloners, resurrected colonists, and racing celebrities to fight homicidal AIs. HEIRS OF MARS follows the lives of six men and women through the final days of the first war on Mars, a war between humans, machines, and the resurrected souls who aren't truly one or the other. But even if they survive the war, there is no escape from the red planet. Six men and women who will end the first war on Mars: Asher Radescu was the last human to come to Mars. Instead of romance and adventure, he's found a job living in a truck delivering supplies to frontier habs, and secretly building neural clones to keep civilization from collapsing. But being the strongest man on the planet may come in handy when he's dealing with the army of robots that want all cloners dead. Portia Nguyen is slowly dying from injuries she received in a terrorist attack three years ago that also claimed the life of her daughter. She now spends her last painful hours looking for some way, any way, to avenge her family against the living machines that invaded her home. She'll beg for help from anyone who will listen, except for her ex-husband, Asher. But if no one will listen, well, she has nothing to left lose... Claudia Cruz doesn't always love Mars, but she definitely loves the children living there. Her morning show entertains and educates every child on the red planet. But her real claim to fame is her evening racing show, which staves off boredom for tens of thousands of workers. When her co-host is murdered, Claudia doesn't wait around for the police to find justice for her. Selene Smith was cloned over two years ago, but she has no memory of her donor's life. Now she works as a search-and-rescue ranger, hunting down renegade robots while looking for clues about her past. Cloners are notoriously hard to find, but a chance encounter throws one into her life: a truck driver named Radescu. Lien Pham Smith was cloned yesterday and rejoiced in the sudden freedom from the illness that plagued her donor. But today she is learning how limited and lonely a clone's life can be. And tomorrow she will try something radical to change who and what she is forever. Holm didn't ask to be built, or sent to Mars, or to kill cloners. For eighteen years, he's managed not to kill anyone at all, but his morals have gotten his friends killed and landed him in a prison cell. That isn't so bad, actually, until he's kidnapped and finds himself on Portia's operating table.

REVIEW: "Heirs of Mars" by Joseph Robert Lewis
It's the middle of the 22nd century, and humans have been occupying space on Mars for well over a century. For as long as anyone can remember, the war between man and machine has been a integral thread to life on Mars and there is no end in sight. Human birth rates have fallen on Mars, and cloning becomes the most logical option to allow the collective intellect of humans live on. Meanwhile, the Cartesians, or "mechs," are programmed to follow "Mother's" orders to wipe out the human race, and cloners are at the top of the list. Asher is one of those cloners who is part of an underground rebellion. Haunted by his past, he's trying to strive for a future that will allow him some peace and give all humans hope. With the help of Claudia, a local Martian celebrity, Asher comes up with the idea to create the perfect weapon against the machines. No one will be the same when the Martian dust settles on this battle of clones, humans and machines. One way or another, this war will end, but who will be around to see the results?

Joseph Robert Lewis has written a compelling book that follows the lives of 6 sentient beings during the days leading up to the end of the war. Each chapter tells a piece of the adventure from one of those beings' reference points. The chapters are clearly marked, and I found this to be a very effective way to give us a more complete picture of what was going on in the minds of the humans, clones and machines involved in this war. The premise of the story was really intriguing, and brought up some interesting concepts; cloning people minutes before they die to save their knowledge, machines that seem almost human and yet they're not, Mars being a viable habitat for people when Earth is not enough. With the changing viewpoints and the engaging concept, this was an easy book to get into.

In addition to the main theme of hope and redemption, there were several underlying themes. For example, what qualifies one to be a person? Seeing the individual thoughts and feelings of three different types of beings, the question is raised- what makes someone (or something) a person? With their synthetic bodies and brains saturated with the memories and experiences of another, are clones closer to humans or machines? Are machines who make choices independent of their programming more like humans than machines? Is it possible for all three types of beings to coexist, and are their goals really all that different?

I found this to be an interesting read. Although the story moves along at a fairly good pace, I found the ending to be somewhat abrupt. When I saw the epilogue, I wondered if I'd missed something in the story. When I turned the last page of the epilogue, I was expecting more. I had taken the journey through the last part of the war, and I wanted a little something else at the end to give me more closure. I'm honestly not exactly sure what form that would have taken, but I felt a bit letdown by the ending. Some of the transitions and relationships between characters were a little difficult for me to follow at times as well. I'm not sure if that's because we were following so many characters (each of the six characters had at least one or more partners associated with them), or because of a lack of development in the writing of the characters. It wasn't a major flaw of the story, and just a minor complaint on my part.

Overall, a good read for anyone who likes speculative science fiction, and for anyone who thinks about the future of machines and clones, and what it will mean for the human race.

4 /5 stars

http://gracekrispy.blogspot.com/2010/11/review-heirs-of-mars-by-joseph-robert.html

He Had Me At Mars
Okay, settle down, I’m talking about a book title: HEIRS OF MARS, by Joseph Robert Lewis.

First, I’m a Red-Head–red planet, that is. Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars in his books and short stories are among my home-away-from-home locations. A pied-à-mars, as it were. I read and loved D. B. Grady’s RED PLANET NOIR, a wonderful hard-boiled private eye yarn set on and about Mars. Some people dream of being transported to Middle Earth. I want to go to Mars.

Second, he (I’m talking about Joseph Robert Lewis again) had a map. Oh, am I ever a sucker for maps! As soon as I saw the map, I was like, “Okay, I’m in.”

Third, he started the book immediately AFTER an action scene. I know, right? Everybody tells you to start WITH action, but he started just after. Know what that accomplished? Right away, you know who the point of view character is, you know he’s a survivor, and you aren’t wasting your time wondering how and if he’ll survive the attack, you’re wondering why it happened and how it relates to the story you’re now completely part of.

I don’t have a Kindle or any kind of electronic reading device, so I had to read this ebook on my Kindle for PC. Eyestrain? I’ll tell the world. But I read until my eyes looked like Dracula’s after a big feed. The story just tore me along in its wake.

You know what? I’m not even going to tell you what the story is about. You can find that out when you go buy it.

If you see my review, you’ll see that I only give it four out of five stars. That’s because it wasn’t perfect. Damn near, but not. There were a few editorial oopsies, but I don’t hold those against it. There were a few scenes that bumped me out of the dream and some continuity glitches, but it lost that fifth star at the end. Lewis seemed to decide that the story was over so he should cut bait and go home, but I thought the end was too sudden and distant. I didn’t feel it, as I did the rest of the book.

Still, it’s a brilliant book, a compelling story, well-told. Lewis has two short stories set in the same world, prior to the action in the novel. Guess who downloaded them both? Guess who’s getting eyestrain again?

Here is a link to Joseph Robert Lewis’ blog. Go there and download the PDF of the book FOR FREE or buy it in ebook formats for $0.99 during the month of December. You’ll be SO glad you did.

http://www.marianallen.com/2010/12/he-had-me-at-mars/