Atlas Alone by Emma Newman

Published by Ace on April 16, 2019

Atlas Alone is the fourth book in a series. Each is written as a stand-alone, self-contained novel, although they all occupy the same universe. The books occasionally refer to events that occurred in earlier novels, particularly a project by the Pathfinders to colonize another planet.

At the beginning of Atlas Alone, everyone on Earth is dead. Dee assumes that one of the more than ten thousand people traveling through space on Atlas 2 gave the order for nukes to be fired from America to Europe. She wants to find and possibly kill the person who did it, but she doesn’t even know who is in charge of Atlas 2. She lives in her apartment and wastes her time and hates her life as the ship powers toward its destination, still 20 years away. The destination is the Pathfinder’s colony.

Dee manages to score a job that gives her access to data about media consumption on Atlas 2. She also gets access to an immersive role-playing game that is reserved for elite players. Walking through the game triggers memories of her desperate childhood, allowing the reader to understand the events that shaped Dee’s life. But playing the game may have something to do with an apparent murder on the ship. Has game fantasy crossed the boundary with reality? Is Dee an inadvertent killer?

Her job allows Dee to discover that the elite passengers and crew members all belong to the Christian States of America. Emma Newman imagines an America that became passionately religious — meaning Christian — during the 2020s. I can understand why a European might envision that, given America’s current revival of intolerance, but the loudness of the intolerant is a panic reaction to trends that are moving in the opposite direction as America becomes more open to non-Christians. Science fiction writers are entitled to imagine the unlikely, however, and the value of science fiction is its reminder that what seems unlikely today may be reality tomorrow. The book sends a cautionary and timely message about religious extremism and its tendency to eradicate nonbelievers. At the same time, the novel suggests that extremism works both ways.

The plot challenges the reader to guess the identity of the person who keeps confronting Dee in the immersive atmosphere. Dee, on the other hand, is challenged to understand the secrets behind the population chosen to take the journey, including what seems to be a deliberate attempt to maintain stratification between the haves and have-nots. That doesn’t bode well for the society that the ship leaders intend to create on the new world, although it sounds exactly like the plan wealthy people would make when developing a colony.

Character development, particularly of Dee, is perfectly integrated with the plot. The story explores interesting philosophical questions, including whether and when it is justifiable to kill some people for the greater good of others. As that theme begins to drive the plot, the novel swerves in an unexpected direction to arrive at a surprising ending that is a study in irony — albeit an ending that is consistent with the philosophical underpinnings of the plot.

Newman has tackled challenging moral questions in each book in the series while telling interesting stories. She does that again in Atlas Alone, making this series one that every thinking fan of science fiction (as opposed to the Sad Puppies who just want to read about powerful white males triumphing over aliens) will want to consider reading.

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Before Mars by Emma Newman

Published by Ace on April 17, 2018

Before Mars is the third book in Emma Newman’s Planetfall series, but it can easily be read as a standalone. The series adopts the common science fiction background of governments that have merged with large corporations (gov-corps), a logical extension of our current reality. Citizen-employees are assigned jobs and living quarters by a gov-corp. On a positive note, the gov-corps have dialed back some of the religious right’s influence on government, because (as the gov-corps see it) narrow-mindedness does nothing to advance profits. On the other hand, such human rights as people have are guaranteed only by their employment contracts.

Anna Kubrin is a geologist but she is also an artist. One of the gov-corps, GaborCorp, has exclusive rights to Mars, where it films a popular television show. Gabor thinks Martian landscapes will be a good investment, so it sends Anna to Mars.

Anna doesn’t much mind going, although it means leaving behind her husband and daughter. Anna’s husband was never right for her, so she isn’t likely to miss him. Anna is ashamed to admit to herself that babies are frightening, small children are boring, and she is too selfish to be a fully involved mother. So she might miss her daughter a bit, but she knows that when she returns to Earth, she’ll give her daughter a hug before moving on to something more intellectually stimulating. I’m glad my mother wasn’t like Anna, but I appreciate her honesty. And I appreciate Newman’s development of a complex character who might not be particularly likable, but whose introspection and self-criticism allow the reader to understand her and perhaps to sympathize with her situation.

Some of the other scientists (slash television stars) on Mars are less sympathetic than Anna. In particular, Arnolfi, the GaborCorp neurophysiologist and psychiatrist who assesses her, believes she is suffering from a form of psychosis that is triggered by the immersions (virtual realities) in which people live as they make the long journey to Mars. When Anna arrives and unpacks, she finds a note that tells her not to trust Arnolfi, but the reader feels that distrust instinctively.

Anna recognizes the painted note as her own style, but she doesn’t recall painting it. Then she notices that some of the art supplies she packed didn’t make it to Mars, and that the wedding ring she packed is missing the engraving it once had. Later she finds a footprint in a part of Mars where nobody has ever walked (or so the AI tells her). Perhaps her brain implant is messing with her. As Anna and science fiction fans know, a brain implant should never be trusted. Another other option is that she’s gone mad, which is part of her family history and therefore Anna’s greatest fear. About a third of the way through the novel, as Anna is playing an immersion, she discovers that she is not alone in thinking that something is very wrong on GaborCorp’s Mars.

Before Mars is a science fiction mystery that asks the reader to join Anna in getting to the bottom of an apparent conspiracy, perhaps orchestrated by the AI, to keep Anna in the dark about certain events that are happening, or previously happened, on Mars. The plot is carefully structured, internally consistent, and intelligent. The ending ties together all the clues in a way that is credible and poignant. Before Mars offers a careful balance of plot and characterization. I don’t know if Anna will return in a future Planetfall installment, but I would like to know what happens to her next — and caring about what will happen to a character is a good sign that the novel in which she appears made an emotional impact.

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