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Jump to navigationJump to searchLakes of Mars by Merritt Graves (view source)
Revision as of 18:20, 1 September 2019
, 18:20, 1 September 2019no edit summary
The characters in the book are interesting. Our protagonist and narrator is Aaron Sheridan, a cadet recently deployed to Corinth Station. His only friend for now is Sebastian, a shy young man who happens to be a tactical genius. They are sucked into the cutthroat world of Corinth Station's politics, where various factions of students wage covert warfare against each other. On the one hand, there is a faction of students led by Brandon and Pierre, who initially befriend Aaron after warning him about an attempt on his life. They are fighting against their resident Student Officer Caelus Erik, a master manipulator and schemer, and his attack dog Lieutenant Taryn Miller. Aaron is torn between the two sides, since neither of them seem particularly trustworthy. The characters are, overall, very well-developed and show how people adapt to brutal conditions like those on Corinth Station.
The setting is well thought out. Humanity has spread out across the galaxy, forming the Confederation, a military and economic alliance that is currently fighting against a parasitic alien race known as the Verex. As you can probably infer from the title, Mars has been successfully terraformed, while Earth is implied to be undergoing severe desertification. The Martian government uses what is known as Mylan Chips, small devices which have the ability to read the thoughts of the person they are implanted in and transmit them back to the government if they show any signs of innovation. However, interference from the nebula that Corinth station Station is located in prevents the chips from working. There is definitely something sinister going on in Corinth, given the sheer negligence displayed by the command staff (students do get severely injured and die fairly frequently, and the higher-ups barely raise an eyebrow at it), as well as the large number of top scientists stationed there.
Overall, this is an intense, brutal science fiction story featuring an interesting cast of characters and an intriguing plot.
