Mars Life

By: Ben Bova

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

Jamie Waterman has made an important discovery on Mars. A cliff dwelling reveals the fact that an intelligent race lived on the red planet 65 million years ago, only to be driven into extinction by the crash of a giant meteor. But now the exploration of Mars is itself under threat of extinction, as the ultraconservative New Morality movement gains control of the U.S. government and cuts off all funding for the Mars program.

Meanwhile, Carter Carleton, an anthropologist who was driven from his university post by unproven rape charges, has started to dig up the remains of a Martian village. Science and politics clash on two worlds as Jamie desperately tries to save the Mars program and uncover who the vanished Martians were.

Listen to Ben Bova's complete Mars trilogy, including the first book, Mars, and the second book, Return to Mars.

©2008 Ben Bova (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"[A] gripping and convincing conclusion....Bova deftly captures the excitement of scientific discovery and planetary exploration. This compelling story, balancing action and plausible political intrigue, will easily be enjoyed by both fans and newcomers." ( Publishers Weekly)
"Another attention-grabbing entry in a series that continues to grow in stature, scope, and complexity. Once again, Bova in top form." ( Kirkus Reviews)

Description of Mars and its life

Really enjoyed the excitement of finding the evidence of the Martians. I didn’t find the gratuitous sexual encounters and the physical descriptions of the characters necessary or interesting.

Great book

Ben Bova did a great job on this book, some of his best very work.

weak

The performance was weak in my opinion. The performers voice was too deep and a little monotone. when he read the part of the female, it was so forced, it distracted me.

Excellent if you read all 3.

I absolutely loved the first two books in this Mars series. To me, It reads like I’m there with them. I see and hear all they do. There don’t seem to be any cliffhangers, but my attention was riveted to the story. I’m a Faith works with Science person ….. I did feel a bit uncomfortable with the way believers were portrayed. Really seemed like only one person believed both science and faith in this book. The rest seemed quite foolish. Still I say worth reading If you read the whole series

Great realistically written and narrated.

Great realistically written and narrated. I look forward with anticipation to the next in the series.

Love the Series...!

Ben Bova's vision of the future is 'Good to Go'..!!
I especially enjoyed the Mars series that he wrote.. I have always dreamt about living on Mars and this is about the closet to reality of my imagination...

Author's racial and religions rants wear thin

I have purchased all of Ben Bova's Mars series books and enjoy almost every novel dealing with Mars exploration.

This final chapter of his trilogy has an interesting take on Mars exploration and justly updates many technological issues with the prior two books.

However, the weak link (even more so than the prior two books) is the author's unbelievable use of racial stereotypes of Native Americans and Christians. The ham handed use of phrases such as "that damn redskin", "that damn Navaho", etc by characters referring to the main character (Jamie Waterman) is totally unbelievable and distracting. His treatment of Christians as even worse (if possible).

The primary redeeming quality is the performance of Stefan Rudnicki who's uncanny knack for dialect enables the listener to identify with a diverse cast of multi national characters. One of the best audio books renderings to date.

Probably my favorite grand tour novel

I think Mars Life was my favorite in the series. Bova w always makes his characters have over the top personal conflicts and strives for an unexpected twist in the end. Mars Life was toned-down enough to be a fun read without being too top-heavy

Climate change and communism

As usual climate amid religion are to blame for everything but it is an interesting story except for some rude and profane language. The religion that is being blamed produced the reasons the people of the United States wanted to include ten amendments in the constitution and later added a few more. The reason religion is being blamed centers on the fact that those ten amendments did not work, and the feeble acceptance that there is God has been firmly chucked out the window. We presently are enjoying that results of that rejection with doom and gloom in the form of its all the fault of religion and the climite is failing stories. Even more interesting is that this has been going on for 60 of my years steadily.

Another great audiobook!!

Another excellent story. I really enjoyed Jamie’s continuing. Can’t wait to listen to the next book!