Mars Underground

Life on Mars is a hot topic right now, and Hartmann, a participating scientist in NASA's Mars Global Surveyor mission, probably knows as much about the red planet as anyone alive. His first novel, set in 2031, concerns the mysterious disappearance in the Martian desert of Alwyn Stafford, the biologist who first discovered the remains of primitive life forms on the planet. Stafford's friend, Cart Jahns, recruits two people to help him investigate--artist Philippe Brach and journalist Annie Pohaku. Their search for Stafford initially turns up only a long-lost Russian Mars probe and the biologist's abandoned, or perhaps hidden, Mars buggy. Meanwhile, Carter, Phillippe and Annie settle into a frustrating love triangle. Eventually, the trio track down Stafford and discover his amazing secret. Hartmann's descriptions of Mars are probably more accurate than those of Kim Stanley Robinson (Green Mars) and Greg Bear (Moving Mars) in their recent, award-winning novels, but they are also distinctly less entertaining. Although his main characters are nicely developed, their motivations are sometimes forced and unlikely. Their plan to uncover Stafford's secret, moreover, reads like something out of a boy's adventure story. This is an adequate first novel, worthwhile for the scientific insight one would expect from its scientist-author, but as fiction is doesn't stand up against Robinson's or Bear's work. (July)