As It Is On Mars

The story starts with two missions on Mars, 1700 miles apart. A small Japanese mission has landed in Ares Valley, and a large NASA mission has landed in Kasei Valley.

The Japanese mission, which includes a Zen master, suffers a crippling failure early on. Later, the NASA landing site is almost totally destroyed by a terrible catastrophe, caused by a funding shortfall that forces the mission to run risks.

There is shock when the enormous cost of a rescue is revealed, and a misguided U.S. President believes he is justified in using the money to save lives on Earth instead. He secretly directs the CIA to finish off the few NASA survivors (by sabotaging a critical food supply vessel). The survivors are now out of food, and must decide on how to die. One lies down in his grave, to die in his sleep when his air runs out, and so avoid a death of slow starvation.

But then, the entirely unexpected happens, causing a great saga to unfold, set in the ancient outflow valleys of Mars. It tells the tale of a heroic struggle to survive on the Red Planet -- and of a young woman's determination to undo a great wrong.

She comes up with a highly original master plan for survival, brilliant but for the fact that to carry it out in the time available will involve a monumental struggle, with only a slim chance of success. However, there is no other option. The survivors must carry out the master plan, and do the impossible, on their own, or perish -- which they nearly do.

Back on Earth, the survivors are thought to have died of starvation. No one is aware that amazingly resourceful people, the kind who build, are loose on Mars, engaged in a life and death struggle to complete a great project. Eventually, Earth gets another shock, when it finds out what has been going on, and what has been accomplished by people who should have been dead at least twice. The ending, in which justice is done, is both climactic and anticlimactic.

The Japanese Zen master plays a pivotal role in the struggle, with his Zen awareness of Mars, just "as it is". The rover vehicles also play a pivotal role. The advanced, flexible, nuclear-powered rovers in this story are the machines you really need on Mars. They easily meet and far surpass the requirements recently posted by the Mars Society for a Mars rover -- but this story takes place in 2038.

The book is super-realistic, and the latest knowledge about the planet, as revealed by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Pathfinder missions, is woven into the tale.

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