Review::Saving Mars (The Saving Mars Series 1) by Cidney Swanson

Saving Mars by Cidney Swanson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Saving Mars (The Saving Mars Series 1) by Cidney Swanson

I loved this this book. So much that even though I had purchased it as an individual before the triple pack came out, I went ahead and purchased the tri-pack. It's quite worth it.

I've already read and enjoyed the Ripple trilogy by Cidney and having loved that so much I purchased the saving Mars book 1 to get me started into that group of stories. I had let it set for a while I was doing other things and reading other things, but once I started reading Jessamyn Jaarda's story I couldn't put it down.

I think it's been noted by some that they felt the story has incredible science and I can see how that objection works what with having Mars being reliant upon Earth for food and having the entire population of Earth believing that no one is left alive on Mars, despite the food raids that Marsian's perpetrate every so many years.

Fortunately for me when I read I look for good character development. All the primary characters in Saving Mars are quite well crafted. But that doesn't stop me from appreciating the story including everything mentioned above.

Marsians are shown as more down to Earth type people than the people on Earth but they've had to scrape for their existence ever since the Earth decided to abandon its attempts to change Mars to something livable. The Marsians are still working toward that goal, but until they can do that they have to sneak to Earth to obtain food. Sneaking to Earth is complicated by a network of satellites that might be described as star-wars technology set up around Mars to destroy anything trying to leave Mars. It has long since passed the projected time that Earth Governments expected everyone who remained on Mars to die.

Against the odds and with the food raids they survive and they have developed a school to teach pilots to fly past the barrier to get to Earth to barter for food with Tellurium. Jessamyn is one of these pilots, but she also just an average teen who feels the need to prove herself.

When a fire destroys a majority of the supplies of food Jess and her brother and several others are chosen to break through the barrier and bring back food. But this time they also mean to break into the center that controls the star-wars satellites and bring the barrier down.

On earth there is a strange cultural shock of a sort in that everyone can and is pressured to switch bodies through consciousness transfer which is assisted by the use of tellurium. The transfer facilitates young people to older bodies supposedly for experience and ultimately for older people to gain younger bodies. There is an age limit for everyone to the age of 72. Most of Earth population seem to be alright with this although as the story progresses it seems fraught with peer pressure and in some cases court mandate with criminals. The whole concept seems a bit seedy and invasive with some lingering insidiousness that begins to rear its head.

This is a tightly woven story with a satisfactory conclusion despite that its being a part of a series. There's enough left open to want you to pick up the next book and get started right away. This is typical of Cidney's writing and I expect the best from her in the remainder of the series.

I'm a definite fan and I hope this makes you read this novel and become just as much a fan.

Great YA and Adult SFF with maybe more focus on fantasy; fans of these types of books should really love these. Even Romance readers should like this, though the Romance does not dominate.

If you like immersion into characters then you can't go wrong with this one.

J.L. Dobias



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