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DNF @ 26%
I'm not enjoying the story, and I struggled to connect with both the characters and the plot. I won't push myself to continue reading. It's disappointing, especially since I have heard great things about Natasha Pulley.
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January had a bizarre out-of-body moment where a detached part of his brain said: You’re very cold, it’s Monday, and a senator is arguing about you with a mammoth. On Mars. [loc. 4929]
When London floods, America is on fire and at war, and most countries aren't accepting immigrants or refugees. January Stirling, principal dancer at the Royal Ballet, is offered a place on a ship to Tharsis -- which, he is surprised to discover, is a Chinese colony on Mars. Several generations into the colonisation process, the air in Tharsis (four miles below 'sea level') is more or less breathable; refugees from Earth, known as 'Earthstrongers', must wear restrictive cages to stop them injuring Mars-born people (despite which Earthstrongers are the leading cause of death in Tharsis), or undergo the risky and potentially fatal naturalisation process; and gender has been pretty much abolished, through a combination of genetic and social engineering.
January, who's been working as a manual labourer, makes the mistake of arguing very publicly with Senator Gale, a nationalist and pro-naturalisation politician who was badly injured by Earthstrongers in a riot: his joke about not murdering anybody falls flat. In short order he's out of a job, destitute and desperate. He's about to submit himself for naturalisation when he receives an unexpected visit, and an offer of marriage, from Gale themself.
The Mars House feels very much a pandemic novel, though here the catastrophe that confines everyone to their homes (and provokes online exercise classes, daily briefings and requests to check in on neighbours) is an apocalyptic dust storm that blocks almost all sunlight -- essential for energy and water on a cold, dry planet. It's also a novel about immigration and colonisation, and about vengeance: and it's a romance, a political thriller and a murder mystery. Gale hopes to be elected as the next Consul; the current Consul is pro-China and wants Tharsis to remain a colony, and also happens to be related to Gale's former partner, Max, who disappeared without trace. January is increasingly drawn to Gale despite finding their political views abhorrent: he wants to believe that Gale is a good person, but he'd like to know whether Max really ran off with Gale's 'twin', River, or whether Gale had them killed.
It is possible to love a book while appreciating that it is flawed, and not the author's best. This is certainly true of The Mars House, which has brought me a great deal of joy with a soupçon of annoyance. There are some inconsistencies in the world-building (why don't they use water from the Poles? why only mention the third, artificial moon very late in the story? why does nobody ever question Kasha the dog's reactions?); the story of River and Gale and Max, which casts a very different light on earlier scenes and events, is unravelled too late in the novel; the finale lacks resolution; and I found Gale's comparison of Earthstronger-Martian deaths with historical femicide jarring and rather distasteful. ('There is another situation in which one set of adults mixes with another set who are generally far stronger. It's on Earth. It's men and women...The worst genocide there has ever been... is femicide: the murder of women. It happens everywhere, in every culture, in every time, ever. Except ours.' [loc. 943]) For one thing, Gale has already stressed that most deaths at the hands of Earthstrongers are accidental: most femicide is decidedly not.
But I loved the romance; I loved the mammoths, and Ariel (the AI in charge of the Met Office, who lives twenty vertical miles above Tharsis, on the peak formerly known as Olympus, with a genetically-engineered cat), and the hints of the original, American colony's fate; I love Pulley's prose and the sometimes-whimsical little details and the fascination with language and interpretation. The footnotes (which feature Mori and Daughter, a shop on Filigree Street; bathroom terminology in Mandarin; The Clangers; mammoth jokes and mythology; and Shuppiluliuma, Ariel's cat) are sheer delight. And I adore the exchange between January and Gale, near the end of the novel, when Gale says 'I can tell you, if it would help', and January says, 'it doesn't matter'.
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This book was an unexpected one from Natasha Pulley. I’ve enjoyed all her previous books but I found this one totally stunning. The world created in the first few pages with a drowned London and refugees fleeing to another planet really drew me in. The lead, January, is beautifully created. January is the principle dancer in the London Royal Ballet but where can you dance when the waters are closing over the city? The reality of his life really hits home with poignancy about him even before he becomes embroiled in the strange politics of Mars. Well, initially you think it’s strange until you stare into the mirror of how we currently live in a world where refugees are shunned and treated badly because we lack empathy or the ability to imagine how easily it could happen to us.
This book haunted me for several days and I’m sure I will be picking it up again. It manages to be an eco thriller, political thriller and a dystopian all rolled into an unlikely romance. I love it!
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Phwoar! How do I talk about ‘The Mars House’?! Its plot is much too complex to try to summarise in a review (the bare premise being that our climate crisis forces populations of the future to colonise Mars), and re-hashing a book’s blurb and existing synopses is not my thing, anyway. Is there a quote that’ll sum it up?
'It was the first time that January really understood that normal life was over.'
‘Still Life’ by Sarah Winman was my best book of 2021, 2022 was ‘The Change’ by Kirsten Miller, and last year, it was ‘Starling House’ by Alix E. Harrow. And I’m confident in saying that ‘The Mars House’ is my best book of 2024. I don’t anticipate anything will top it!
I have been a Natasha Pulley fanatic since she began publishing, and getting the chance to read a pre-release of her latest is a delight for me, but I’ve really been feeling the pressure on this one to do the novel justice in a review that speaks to all the ways that distinguish me as a reviewer. I feel like I’ve got to speak with the voice of all 40-something lesbians in relation to what Pulley depicts here, and so I’ve been picking at this review for weeks. Part of me just wants to write a single sentence and be done with it, something like: PULLEY IS GOD! or NOBODY NEED EVER WRITE ANOTHER NOVEL BECAUSE NATASHA PULLEY HAS WRITTEN THIS BOOK!
I’ve been tying myself in knots over how to respond to the divisive issue of gender abolition in this novel; what it means for Pulley’s ongoing representation of women, which has become problematic as she continues to excise female characters from her novels. Certainly, characters are not always mouthpieces of their authors, but we do have to be mindful that it’s been the author’s choice to write exactly THIS story and not any other story; they’ve crafted all its elements with purpose, so we can rightly lay down at their door our responses to their decisions.
There are no surprises here with regard to romance, and I hate to think that Pulley is only ever going to use her exceptional talents to write unvarying relationships between gay men: Valery and Shenkov, Joe and Kite, Merrick and Raphael, Thaniel and Mori. I can’t speak for heterosexual women, but my main niggle is with this restrictive principle as to who-falls-in-love-with-whom in Natasha Pulley’s novels, and this unreservedly exclusive use of GBT male couples as central characters (there’s no ‘L’ – correct me if I’m wrong, but all romance in Natasha Pulley is at the expense of lesbian characters). Okay, let’s play devil’s advocate – a few of my favourite writers, and some other writers that I greatly respect, write exclusively heterosexual romances, so why should I (or anyone) be irked at Pulley for writing exclusively man-on-man romances, or now – after ‘The Mars House – perhaps that should be re-worded as romance-excluding-women? Because what Pulley does in creating her gender-less Mars colony as the setting of this novel, is do away with the concept of women altogether. And that’s important to me because I’m a woman who loves women. Still, I sincerely hope that it’s not just men and naïve straight women who award this five stars, but others like me who reflect a readership not represented in the book.
So, Pulley depicts whipped-up controversy over gender, but, if you dig a little, it is possible to argue ‘The Mars House’ as a feminist piece about equality. There are some really interesting thought gymnastics going on if you cast Pulley writing the whole thing as a satire of patriarchal society here. Gale (the genderless political candidate) speechifies: “There is another situation – very well established and well documented – in which one set of adults mixes with another set who are generally far stronger. It’s on Earth. It’s men and women.” Perhaps feminism is recast in another light at the resolution at the close of the novel, but in the early pages, Pulley writes “The worst genocide there has ever been in the history of the worlds is not from a war, or a slave trade. It is femicide; the murder of women. It happens everywhere, in every culture, in every time, ever.” If I were to stop there, this’d be a good quote to support a feminist reading. But the fact is, Pulley continues Gale’s speech with two little words: “Except ours.” So, in the world of this novel, nobody ever need worry about the wee women.
‘The Mars House’ is undoubtedly a love story, although a tortuous one. BUT! It’s testament to Pulley’s storytelling that the above concerns, which in the hands of perhaps another straight author or a male author, would’ve had me in a pique, did not affect my wholehearted enthusiastic consumption of the novel, and never eclipsed its five-star prestige.
‘The Mars House’ demonstrates remarkably swift worldbuilding and character establishment: it takes Pulley literally four pages. By page ten, I was fully gobbled up by the story. I feel unqualifiedly safe in Pulley's hands. She can take me anywhere: historical London, Peru, or Japan; alternative reality United Kingdom; a surreal ‘60s Soviet city, and I’ll swallow any premise she feeds me. I’m very credulous when it comes to her books. And it’s not only the stupendous worldbuilding, but her ability to make all that’s crafted seem not only believable, but frankly solemn. Pachyderm dictionary, anyone?
'January had a bizarre out-of-body moment where a detached part of his brain said: You're very cold, its Monday, and a senator is arguing about you with a mammoth. On Mars.'
As always with Pulley, it's indescribably gratifying to read the work of an author who so intrinsically understands and moves with the formal crafting of fiction, acquiescing with structural pacing etc. I reached the 30% marker and, whoop! protagonist has crossed another threshold, entering the fundamental plot situation. And Pulley’s assured methodology continues throughout, with this stability of form allowing her to play with her substantial gift with language to add the grace notes.
There is so much heart in Pulley's writing. It's not only that that everything is pulsingly alive with feeling and a rawness that's not quite earnestness. It’s also that character descriptions and actions, each piece of dialogue or internal commentary, is clean-stripped to the essentials of human interaction. And I felt no need to understand the science-y bits. I’m here for the fiction, and with this author, I’m fully prepared to, and able to, suspend my disbelief. So long as it’s authentic to the fictional world, I’m not too worried about whether the correlation between humidity levels and dust cloud production is sound. But when these two things combine? Emotional richness and science? THAT’S Pulley’s mesmerism.
Take this episode: ‘[January] did the coffee runs and explained how things were going to the drones, interrupted once by the little bull with Gale's [silk] jacket, who used it to fluff up his hair and turn him into a dandelion. The bull was sneaking up on anyone too distracted to notice a sneaking mammoth.' In this scene, our mc plays with a baby woolly mammoth who has just discovered static, after people have translated to the herd of mammoths what electricity is and why they need it to live. How else is a writer going to make a bizarre humans-on-the-brink-of-extinction-on-Mars situation more full-of-heart than having a cute baby mammoth running about playing a prank on people who are giving television interviews about the current could-be-the-end-of-the-world situation? Superb!
I didn’t find myself empathising with the protagonist January, but I did sympathise with him, and fully engaged with his viewpoints, his challenges, obstacles, and character arc. Pulley pitches perfectly the balance of the narrative focus between January’s relationship with Gale, and the mystery of House Gale’s vanishing heir and spouse. Sweetly, the plot had just enough of Aubrey Gale and just enough of River Gale to offset the devotion to January’s story.
This was a quick read. It’s writing the review that has confounded me! I found every element in ‘The Mars House’ necessary or functional, vital; nothing surplus, nothing indulgent or unjustifiable. Pulley builds her world without information dumping, even employing footnotes (which are an absolute treat!). The politics and society on Mars are kind of ‘out there’ somewhere, things that happen or are happening outside of January’s narrative, external to the enclosure within which January lives (literally his ‘cage’ in one case, moreso once he is holed up in Songshu, and ultimately, within the enclosure of his marriage/relationship).
In my view, the portrayal of political candidacies, manifestoes, and political intrigue are purely functional mechanisms necessary in order to furnish the plot with the rationale for manoeuvring January into House Gale, and into his relationship with Gale themselves. Reviewers are right to comment on and engage with the societal structures that Pulley erects but – whether with authorial intent or not – I experienced these things as secondary or tertiary components orbiting the nucleus of the novel, which (for me) is the relationships between January and the members of House Gale (or, the Mars House).
Doubtless, ‘The Mars House’ offers us dynamic commentary on gender, on nationalism and colonialism, on class privilege, politics and electioneering, economic collapse, immigration, refugeeism, working rights and furloughing, racism, climate crisis and environmental disasters, Big Tech/tech omnipresence, even on the sentience of animals and – with that – a lot of the critical theory of linguistics. Only by reading another novel at the same that sparked a sigh or an eye-roll of indignance from me every few minutes with its discussion of similar issues such as class, education and wealth, did I come to realise that Pulley's writing is analytical not only from an informed perspective, but with an openness that comes from true curiosity, and fairness. We can, for sure, discuss whether Pulley presents each matter she constructs (such as gender abolition) fairly, but I believe some of these contentions just don’t have any easy answers, certainly not at present (but then, here we are on the brink of commercial moon landings, and suddenly they seem a lot more immediate!).
Heartfelt thanks to Orion Publishing Group for providing me with an eARC.
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To begin with, I found this book frustrating, as it seemed to jump about a lot, and I felt it started slowly. However I persevered, as I loved January, the central character, and it was ultimately a very rewarding read.
After a devastating flood on Earth, January has become a refugee on Mars. He is a former principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, but because he is very strong, he becomes a manual worker. Life on Mars is far from easy – as Martian gravity is lower than Earth’s, people born on Mars are weaker, and easily injured. January gets himself into trouble because of this, and comes to the attention of Aubrey Gale, who is standing for re-election as Senator. They (gender has been abolished on Mars) offer to marry January, partly to save him from prison, and partly to help their election campaign. At this point the plot becomes more complicated.
There are so many ideas in this book, aside from questions of gender. I used the pronoun him for January, as he thinks of himself as male. Questions of language are important -Mandarin is the main language used on Mars, and Aubrey is a linguistics specialist, working on how to communicate with mammoths, which have been bred from stored DNA. It amused me that the mammoths are clearly the most intelligent species on Mars! Ecological issues are raised when the population is threatened by a devastating dust-storm.
There’s lots to think about here, but ultimately I would say that “The Mars House” is a very touching love story, with some surprising elements: can a character be sympathetic and antagonistic at the same time?
I definitely recommend this.
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Thanks to NetGalley for the e-arc.
I gave this book 3 stars.
I enjoyed the setting and the mix of sci-fi and romance. I found the pa e dropped a bit in the middle which is why I dropped some stars
I know other reviewers have mention sinophobia so I was on the lookout for it but I generally got more of an anti-immigration sentiment which is also portrayed as controversial. I don't think we should shy away from discussing these issues.
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I really enjoyed this but I did find it slow going, I’m not sure why so am going to assume it’s because I have been under the weather.
It was a great mix of romance and science fiction, with some very interesting political stuff thrown in. There was also some weird goings on, that I was relieved to see resolved well as I’d oversimplified it in my mind but it did make sense in the end.
I enjoyed the relationships, and the fact that even though some people had some bad ideas it was mainly down to a lack of information and not because they were inherently bad people. It felt hopeful about a future where good prevails alongside a willingness to learn.
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This is the third book I’ve read from this author and it’s the best one yet! It’s so wonderfully thought-provoking.
This book follows January, a ballet dancer in London who, due to extreme floods, has to leave to go to Mars. The Mars colony of Tharses has been around for generations and people who live there are physically quite different due to the lower gravity. They’re taller, but three times weaker than what’s known as ‘Earthstrong’. This leads to accidental deaths of ‘naturals’ and Earthstrong have to wear cages to limit their strength. However a senator named Aubrey Gale is pushing for all Earthstrong to undergo a process called naturalisation which will reduce bone and muscle to weaken them. However people who’ve gone through this process suffer serious consequences including nerve damage and being unable to walk. January doesn’t want to go through this as he’s never hurt anyone and wants to maintain his strength to be able to continue to dance.
This was a thoughtful exploration of refugee experience and views on refugees, what the future could look like in light of climate change, what does strength really mean and understanding the views and experiences of others. I found this book so thought-provoking and utterly fascinating. This genuinely was a book I couldn’t put down. It was so cleverly written and is very careful to position different perspectives on quite serious issues.
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It surprised me to read in the author's note at the end that Pulley's usual publishers rejected this novel. Whilst it's her first futuristic book, it has a very similar feel to her others and is clearly recognisable as hers. I think it's a good thing when authors branch out and do things differently. Pulley's greatest gift as a writer is creating utterly loveable characters that you completely invest in emotionally - and if an author can do that, they can write in any genre. In my experience, if you really care about what happens to the characters in a novel, it doesn't matter if they're in the Victorian era, Soviet Russia, or even - in this case - on Mars. You will want to know what happens next.
This is what I would describe as 'political sci-fi' in a similar vein to the excellent novels of Ann Leckie (well worth reading, particularly if you enjoy this one). The story is set in the future, on another planet, and is full of new technology, but the focus is on the societal implications of that. The central character is January, a ballet dancer who is forced to leave Earth when London and most of Britain are completely flooded due to climate change. Arriving on Mars, he finds he is a second-class citizen due to being 'Earthstrong'. This means he is three times stronger than - and therefore dangerous to - citizens who have adapted to life on Mars where the gravity is much weaker. He becomes an unwilling political football in a battle between two presidential candidates - one of whom wants to force all refugees from Earth to 'naturalise', a dangerous process that leaves most disabled, and the other who encourages immigration from Earth and thinks people should have a choice.
January is forced by circumstances into a publicity-stunt marriage to 'anti-Earth' candidate, whom he finds to be a nice person despite their politics. Initially the danger is political only, but soon the stakes get higher. A massive dust storm threatens to leave the Mars dwellers without power and therefore water, potentially wiping out the colony. As the settlers try to find a solution, January is also plagued by doubts about what happened to his predecessor as consort.
It's a good concept for a novel and there are clearly real-world parallels with immigration and how we treat refugees. There's no glib, easy answers and both political sides have a reasonable sounding argument (the stakes are different to those in real-life immigration due to the imbalance in physical strength between the refugees from Earth and the naturalised Mars dwellers). Pulley further muddies things by making the person with the nationalistic, 'right-wing' type views a kind, likeable character, and the more liberal politician a less nice human being.
Aside from all the politics and action - and there are plenty of both - the core of the novel is Pulley's usual formula; a slow-burn romance between two characters where a significant power imbalance exists. It's a formula that works and she does it incredibly well, but if I was going to be really critical I might wonder how many more novels she can pull off unless she varies it a bit somewhere. There were no surprises in the trajectory of the book from start to finish for a reader who has read her other novels (which are all also excellent).
Ultimately though it's an exciting and compelling story with loveable characters and a great plot, where the reader can feel a real emotional investment in the outcome. It's also full of humour, perhaps more so than her earlier novels, particularly in the footnotes. I really enjoyed it and even if it did follow similar lines to her other books, I still expect it will be in the top ten best books I read this year.
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I love this author’s writing. Natasha Pulley certainly knows how to tell a story and this is one epic story. This is a very multilayered story. At its most basic level it is a very enjoyable and clever sci-fi thriller, but if you start pulling back layers you also realise there is so much more underpinning the story. The story highlights environmental issues, it is also very political and looks at gender but none of these issues are thrust in your face in fact they are just an everyday part of the story and how life is on Mars but what the story does do is subtly get you thinking about the future and what it might look like. Whilst reading the story I just enjoyed the story and the dynamics of the characters but since finishing it I actually find my mind is thinking about some of the bigger issues.
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Having previously enjoyed Natasha Pulley's books I was looking forward to this latest SF installment but was quickly disappointed upon starting the book. Firstly, there is a lot of information dumping very early on that doesn't actually provide much clarity or a true explanation / understanding of the situation, it just felt as if I was sifting through someone's notes and not an edited few chapters. In addition, two things really stood out to me (and not in a good way) which were the distinct lack of women anywhere in the story and the references to Israel / Israeli accents (and the incorrect location of Bethlehem) - given the current political climate this last point is one I would have hoped would have had far more care and attention paid to it.
Note: I DNFed this book and cannot speak for the entirety of the work.
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Another beautifully written story by Natasha Pulley. I don't usually choose to read science fiction but I'd always make an exception for anything written by Pulley. I really loved this story, I wasn't anticipating that I would. I thought I would probably enjoy it but I wasn't expecting to be drawn into the story so totally.
The world of the colony on Mars is well set up and I loved the characters, especially January, who is such an engaging personality. The plot is wonderfully complex and detailed. This is an intelligently written story that includes so many topical issues. It is one of those books, that you get to the end of and just think wow!
Highly recommended to take you out of your comfort zone.
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There's so much going on in this book that I have no idea how to write this review.
So, climate change means that Earth is suffering innumerable environmental catastrophes. January is a ballet dancer living in a mostly submerged London. Some countries (Italy, I think) have already been completely submerged, Europe is an old decrepit backwater, the US is on fire and also at war with Russia in Alaska. Parts of Africa, the Middle East and China are seeing a huge influx of refugees from Europe and other parts of the world as they become uninhabitable. Basically, geopolitics has changed - a lot.
When London suffers even more severe flooding, January is advised that trying to join the refugees to these places is not a great prospect, but that Mars (technically still a territory of China) is happily accepting Earth refugees. This is not entirely true. As will be no surprise to anyone who reads or watches the news, a lot of people really don't like refugees (or migrants). Although it's a little more complicated with Mars.
The Mars population have been there for generations and have physically changed - they are now taller, thinner and a lot weaker than those who grew up on Earth. This leads to a lot of fear about "Earthstrongers" and the dangers they physically pose plus a healthy dose of class snobbery.
January ends up in a debate with Gale, an anti-Earthstronger Mars politician, things go wrong and he ends up being imprisoned. Imagine his surprise when Gale proposes a political marriage to save their reputation and election bid.
As I said, there's a lot going on. There's a mystery surrounding the disappearance of both Gale's former partner and sibling, there's a lot of politics with an election campaign running, fears over either an invasion from Earth or a huge influx of refugees, class privilege, and Gale and January struggling to understand each other.
Also, intelligent, talking mega-mammoths (I liked the mammoths).
If you've read any previous work from Natasha Pulley, you'll know what to expect as far as writing style and characters go - the style is quite gentle and humorous, the characters careful of each other, self-deprecating and conflicted. I did feel that this style worked well in describing flooded London, the environment of Mars and the weirder science-y stuff but felt a little at odds with the heavier political elements.
I did end up enjoying the story - there's a lot of interesting things going on - but I can't say that I was a fan of the marriage aspect (not something that's limited to this book) and it was difficult to reconcile the political views of certain characters with their personalities and behaviours.
If you like really slow burn romance, forced proximity, lots of politics and bit of quirkiness, then I recommend giving this a try.
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I totally loved this book and it is my favourite read of the year so far. This is Natasha Pulley’s first foray into Science-Fiction and for me, she absolutely nailed it.
This book is full of so many briiliant ideas that there are too many to discuss them all in a single review. Natasha Pulley looks at the theme of mass immigration and what that might mean to a society as well as the idea of gender. In the Mars colony, the idea of gender is seen as something abhorrent and pronouns are all they and their. We also get an ecological disaster, a bit of weather science and some ideas about the sentience of large mammals. I did love the mammoths and the ideas of having to think in very different ways to communicate with other species. That also fits in with the theme of language and linguistics which threads through the whole book.
I loved the character of January from the very start as he rehearses for Swan Lake while wondering how long his career has left to run. The character of Gale grew on me gradually as the story progressed but I was definitely rooting for them at the end. I really liked January’s inability to trust Gale and the way in which Gale was portrayed sympathetically at the same as holding views which meant January would have to undergo naturalisation, a process that could cause serious injury and would certainly reduce his life span. One of my very favourite elements of the story was the banter between the characters especially the staff of House Gale. Some of the one line comments made me laugh out loud and I adored the cat references even though there are no actual cats in the book (unless you count the leopard in the bucket).
The lack of gender was an interesting concept. It’s quite hard to imagine characters without any gender and I think that my brain supplied some of them with a gender according to how they seemed to act or speak. Gale was the exception to this as they really came across to me as genderless.
The Mars House swept me up and carried me along with its characters and ideas. Some bits were predictable and other parts less well executed than others but I absolutely loved the book as a whole.
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I very much enjoyed this intelligent sci-fi novel which looked at an alternative future where we have colonised Mars the novel sets off with a great start with a fantastic first chapter, I’m immediately, interested in the story
I loved the set up for the Story clearly explained how Mars had been Terra formed with a population now living there permanently by introducing a livable atmosphere to Mars, the novel could be set on a planet where people were not confined to spaceships . The incoming earth people are used to the gravity on Earth, where it is much stronger . because of this, they are much stronger than those people born on Mars and have to be fitted with an exoskeleton to prevent them causing injury to the weaker people. this difference between the two populations causes friction and ultimately episodes of racism. Making one of the main characters, a ballet dancer on earth makes the fact that they have to be confined to the exoskeleton whilst on Mars quite poignant.
I liked the fact that the Mars residents had given up using the pronoun she and her and all went by the pronoun they .since this is happening more in the UK this made the novel very topical . I don’t think I’d have understood the concept five years ago, but since it’s happening more and more on earth now it all made perfect sense within the novel
The alternative world is described beautifully, and all the sci-fi ideas make perfect sense. This is really a very intelligent witty novel .
There are some lovely quirky ideas within the story such as a cat who is carried around in a bucket by an artificial intelligence I just loved that. this artificial intelligence appears in the chapter and doesn’t really get referred too much after this, which seemed a pity as I rather liked them
I loved the bit when they were able to talk to Mammoth using brainwaves
Am I a point which will probably no doubt be sorted by the time the public book is published was that It was a pity that the foot notes didn’t work on my Kindle version,. When I came to them at the end, they were as they were actually really interesting, and it would’ve been nice to read them at the same time as the story
I read an early copy of the novel on NetGalley UK. The book is published in the UK on the 19th of March 2024 by Ryan publishing group.
This review will appear on NetGalley UK, Goodreads, and my book blog, bionicSarahSbooks.wordpress.com . After publication the review will also appear on Amazon, UK.
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You would be forgiven for thinking that a story set on Mars in the distant future would be a big departure for Natasha Pulley but fans of her previous novels will soon feel a sense of familiarity.
The basic premise is that Mars, initially a colony of a burning up Earth, now has its own culture/ government and even genetics - lower gravity means people grow tall and spindly. Those incoming from Earth - Earthstrongers - are bulkier and stronger and can easily accidentally kill a native human Martian.
Rehearsing the details of the plot is pointless - as with her previous books it’s complicated and the joy is not so much in the plotting as the details. Pulley is brilliant at non human characters (the octopus in her previous work, here a dog and some mammoths..)
. I did really enjoy this book but I do wish she would try writing a character who isn’t an emotional intense gay man who falls in love with someone but is blind to their fairly obvious feelings. Nothing wrong with that as a plot line but it’s starting to feel a bit too much of a pattern.
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I’ve only just finished this one and my thoughts still feel rather confused…
Firstly, let’s get the context out of the way: I have really loved everything I’ve read from Natasha Pulley: from The Watchmaker on Filigree Street to The Half-Life of Valerie K – I do prefer her more fantastical historical re-imagined settings. I love her world building, the tenderness of her characters’ relationships, the lgbtqia representation… So I was really excited to see The Mars House appear on NetGalley!
And, certainly I enjoyed it… eventually.
The premise is interesting: at some point in the future, Mars has been colonised for some generations now and is being run as an independent state. It’s inhabitants have adapted genetically to eliminate gender – very native Martian is a Mx and uses them / they pronouns – and to adapt to the new conditions becoming taller, slimmer, weaker, better adapted to the lower pressure and gravity. Simultaneously, the climate crisis on Earth has made life there generally untenable. A flow of refugees from Earth to Mars looks likely to become a flood.
January Stirling is one of those refugees, confined to wear a cage to limit his physical strength – the book repeatedly tells us that Earthstrongers are three times as strong as their Natural counterparts – life on Mars is not a great experience. Once the lead at the Royal Ballet, January is now one of the Earthstrongers, exploited for their utility in manual labour jobs and under constant threat of Naturalisation, an invasive and brutal procedure to reduce his sterngth to be commensurate with Natural Martians.
An unguarded comment in an interview with Senator Gale – who wants to resist immigration and compel naturalisation – leads to January’s arrest and, as a publicity stunt in the u0coming elections, Gale’s propsal of marriage on his release. It is a little bit of a strain on credulity but, okay…
January and Gale’s mutual dance around each others feelings, navigating their own fears and suspicions of the other was by turns sweet, frustrating and tender. It also felt a little drawn out despite the rather half hearted bomb threat.
The pace of the novel really picks up when a massive months-long dust storm is generated – an attempt to undermine Gale’s election prospects as he is responsible for power on Mars. Combined with a mysterious person in an orange jumper, rumours of ghosts, a suspicious Consul and omnipresent media cameras, Gale struggles to erect a massive tower to raise solar arrays into orbit to survive the dust storm, before refugee ships carrying uranium, people and potentially an army arrive to usurp him.
For me, although I did love the characters – Gale’s love of etymology and of mammoths was compelling and charming; January was sweet – I found the structure a little jarring. There was a secondary plot surrounding the disappearance of Gale’s first consort – Alex and River – in suspicious circumstances and a huge revelation dropped onto the reader. Perhaps more time spent with Gale, Alex and River – perhaps chapters alternating between the past and present – could have both raised the pace of the first half and cemented those characters more clearly in the readers’ minds, preparing us for the revelatory moment.
Pulley does seem to have a predilection for power imbalances in relationships: Thaniel and Mori, Merrick and Raphael, Valerie and Shenkov, all have massive power inequalities, and yet they are all tender and careful. This novel does explicitly address this issue: the earthstrongers are terrifying because they are three times stronger and can cause terrible numbers of injuries and deaths, but there are more forms of power than political power. The Natural Mars inhabitants are physically weaker but tall and looming, their social class and education and privilege as well as their political power make them even more terrifying in many ways than the earthstrongers.
It was brave of Pulley to evoke so directly the issue of immigration, and to present us with a charming character whose policies of compulsory Naturalisation were abhorrent. January, after his time in prison, was on the verge of giving up and going to be Naturalised and the consequences were horrific and crippling, if not fatal – especially to someone used to having the strength and grace of a dancer. It is as an escape from that horrific decision that prompts him to marry Gale – and it is a fate that always looms over him, at the end of the fixed-term five-year marriage, in the event that Gale wins the election. Would Pulley force him to cripple himself? Or does she shoehorn in a happy ending? I have to say that the ending of the novel was very optimistic but very forced and struck me as rather contrived. It did leave a sour taste.
Finally, I did love some of the smaller quirkier details – the footnotes, the little nod to Mori and Daughter watchmakers of Filigree Street and, although I was disappointed by the lack of octopuses, I did enjoy the titanic mammoths especially as they start to philosophies and show a humanity and compassion that some of the actual humans struggled to achieve!
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As I have said before in various reviews, I love Pulley's writing and I will happily read anything she writes.
In the author's note for this she mentions being a historical fiction writer but I think that's ignoring the very strong sci fi elements of her previous work, and really does show why genres can be restrictive. This is definitely sci fi though. And she write romance, doesn't she? All her books have completely swoony queer romance at their hearts. This one has a Fake Relationship and there's nothing more rom fic.
Things are bad on Earth. London's mostly underwater, the US is on fire, and there's war between Russia and America. After a particularly severe flood, January, principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, is forced to flee. He's offered the chance to escape to Mars with other refugees, and he takes it. Things on Mars are different. Despite generations of terraforming and suchlike, it's still freezing cold and there's no water. This makes people tense. Something else that makes people tense is that native Mars born humans (Naturals) are evolving - or being modified - to deal with the different gravity. They're taller than 'Earthstronger' humans but weaker. Those born on Earth are a risk, with multiple accidents every year resulting in the deaths of Naturals. The tensions created by this situation are as you might imagine.
There's an election coming up. The incumbent Consul thinks Mars should accept that it's a colony and allow as many refugees in as want to come. The opposition senator thinks Earthstrong should be forced to 'naturalise' - a life-limiting process that results in osteoparosis and can cause dementia and permanent disability.
The story of how January becomes involved with the senator is twisty, complex and full of risk, both physical and emotional. There are lots of questions here about responsibility, nationalism, and the personal v. the political. Plus some wonderfully realised worldbuilding. The mammoths are amazing and Pulley's footnotes about language (on Mars people speak Mandarin, Russian, and English in that order, and dialects are developing - there are seven generations of Naturals so far) are fascinating. I love footnotes, and linguistics.
I think I said in my review of Valery K that it would be interesting to see Pulley write something set in a place or time where there are no issues about sexuality. (The jeopardy in the romances in the previous books is always about this.) On Mars it's rude to gender people. All the Naturals are referred to as 'they' and their appearance is gender neutral. They've been genetically tweaked to avoid human sexual dimorphism, and looking at a person's clothes will give you no hints about what might be going on underneath.
It's interesting that one's own socialisation leads one to interpret various characters in gendered ways. I saw a review that suggests Pulley attempts to avoid the accusations of misogyny she's dealt with before by simply not including any women, which is not strictly true although it's not a completely unreasonable comment. However in the same way that gender neutral clothing in 'real life' tends towards masc rather than femme, I think there's an inclination to interpret gender neutrality as default maleness. This is just a book review, not an essay, so I don't have the time or energy to discuss this futher.
There is also a weird thing going on about weight, but I'm prepared to accept that this is January's issue not Pulley's (since the things characters say and think cannot be simply extrapolated to represent the author's opinion). I think we all know that ballet dancers live a very odd life, and their diets and attitudes to their bodies are not necessarily normal or healthy.
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I didn't like this one, unfortunately. The worldbuilding consisted exclusively of info dumping, there were too many terms you didn't understand and there was way too much time spent explaining things that weren't relevant to the reader at all. This book could have been cut by 200 pages easily.
I also didn't really understand the message this was trying to convey, the whole system regarding gender was impossible to understand and also, honestly, didn't really make sense. Besides, would it have hurt to have a woman appear in this book?
Last but not least the romance didn't work for me at all, I'm usually very into fake marriage of all kinds but the trope of the xenophobic character falling for the person they hate should be left in 2023. I also didn't see any character development, if anything it was in a worse direction. A big miss for me, sadly.
Also, Bethlehem is in Palestine.
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I was very excited to receive this ARC from Netgalley as Natasha Pulley is one of my favourite authors. This book did not disappoint,
January is a ballet dancer in a future London where the world’s environment has led to massive flooding and massive immigration to countries where the situation is slightly less desperate. Of course, these countries do not want to take in the rest of the world and are closing their boundaries. January ends up with nowhere to go apart from the colony on Mars. The theme of immigration continues throughout the book as the characters struggle with the implications a tidal wave of people from earth will have on the fragile bodies and society of Mars. Pulley does not pretend there are simple answers to these questions and shows sympathy to different feelings.
On Mars, January finds that new immigrants from Mars are significantly stronger than people who are evolved from several generations of living with such different gravity. The strength of the Earthstrong population is viewed as a huge threat and there are rules that keep them segregated and poor. The book explores the idea of strength in many different forms and how to take away the threat from power of many kinds.
January meets a powerful Senator called Aubrey Gale and, for political reasons, ends up in an arranged marriage with them, This romance has echoes of more traditional romance novels but is very much a slow burn and their characters are well developed during this time,
The book also takes the opportunity to explore ideas of gender as the naturalised Mars inhabitants are all referred to as ‘they’ and there is the complicated idea that ‘extreme gender traits’ have been removed genetically. What this might mean is not explored and is probably a minefield well worth avoiding,
Added into this is political intrigue, environmental disaster, the mystery of what happened to Aubrey’s previous partner and brother and reality TV documenting their lives.
There is so much to take in that I will need to reread this but about 50% of the way through I didn’t really want to do anything else other than find out what was going to happen next. I loved this book and highly recommend it. Please don’t be put off by it being science fiction as what is happening to everyone is so very relevant to lives now (although there is one marvellous bit with mammoths which you will either love or hate). Definitely 5 stars.