Book Review: A Rover's Story by Jasmine Warga (second review on BookGuide)

A Rover’s Story
by Jasmine Warga (j Warga)

A Rover’s Story is from the perspective of a Mars rover’s inner life as he is built and tested on Earth, then as he works on multiple missions on Mars. He can understand the humans around him, but they never realize he’s sentient; other technology is another matter. Several technological characters can chat with each other, all of them having some level of personal willpower beyond their programming.

A second perspective comes from the daughter of one of the engineers. Starting in middle grade and continuing through college, Sophia writes letters to the rover. Occasionally, another character will actually read the letters to him, but the point of this part of the narrative is to show the time taken for such a long mission and how it can affect a family that has their own terrestrial struggles to deal with.

This is cute, comforting story with occasional mild tension that should do good things for children’s interest in robotic solar system exploration.

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Wishtree by Katherine Applegate, or The Wild Robot by Peter Brown.)

Recommended by Garren H.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: A Rover's Story by Jasmine Warga

A Rover’s Story

by Jasmine Warga (j Warga)

I was unprepared for the emotional journey that this middle-grade novel took me on. I initially checked it out based solely on the charming cover image, and the jacket blurb description: “Meet Resilience, a Mars rover determined to live up to his name. Res was built to explore Mars. He was not built to have human emotions. But as he learns new things from the NASA scientists who assemble him, be begins to develop human-like feelings. Maybe there’s a problem with his programming…”

 

This story, told from the point of view of Resilience (“Res”), goes from his first moments of awareness as computer software, to the assembly of his highly mobile body, to his journey to Mars, in the company of a flying drove he nicknames “Fly”, and ultimately back to Earth. The characters range from Res, Fly and Guardian (a satellite in orbit around Mars that assists in Res’ mission), to the team of scientists responsible for designed and building Res, which includes music-loving and joke-telling Xander, and super-serious Arabic-speaking Rania. Interspersed among Res’ regular “diary-like” updates are letters written to Resilience by Rania’s young daughter, Sophia.

 

Though Resilience, Fly, Guardian (and Res’ twin Journey) don’t actually exist, they are so similar to real-life Martian rovers such as Curiosity, Perseverance, Opportunity, Spirit and the Chinese rover Zhurong that the reader really feels the “reality” of Res and its mission. The fact that Res has developed elementary human characteristics and feelings (and doesn’t understand them very well, and is led by other mechanical devices to believe these are flaws), leads to both humor and highly-emotional moments in this story. To say more would be to spoil the reading experience.

 

Suffice it to say, this was an excellent story, told well, and would be a great addition to a middle schooler’s STEM readings. But even I, an adult nearing 60, enjoyed the storytelling. Of particular note: An author’s afterword talks about the real-life science that inspired this fictional story.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the animated film WALL-E and the live-action film Silent Running (not in library collection…try InterLibrary Loan).)

 

( official A Rover’s Story page on the official Jasmine Warga web site )

 

Postscript: I also recommend the documentary "Good Night Oppy", which played in theaters for one week in early November 2022, and will be available on Amazon Prime (which produced the film) by the end of the November. This is a documentary about the real-life Mars Rovers Opportunity and Spirit, which inspired author Warga to write the story of Resilience.

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Book Review: The Empress of Mars by Kage Baker

The Empress of Mars

by Kage Baker (Baker)

 

My science fiction club recently read Kage Baker’s The Empress of Mars for our monthly book discussion, and I really enjoyed it. Baker (1952-2010) had 14 novels in her series about “The Company”, and this one, published in 2009 (and enlarged from a 2003 novella) fits very early into the series continuity, and, oddly enough, doesn’t really feel like it is part of the series.

 

The Empress of Mars takes place on a human outpost on the Red Planet, where human beings have settled a small “city” on the planet, but life is still difficult and hardscrabble. The British Arean Company originally settled Mars by appealing to the “dregs” of human society on Earth — criminals, emotionally or mentally challenged, those that didn’t fit into normal society. Now that the company sees that Mars isn’t going to turn them a massive profit, they don’t have much interest in supporting the colonists and blue collar workers who are living there. This novel is about those social misfits, and their attempts to make a comfortable living in spite of overwhelming forces lined up against them. The “Empress” of the title is two things — the bar named “The Empress” where everyone passes through at one time or another, and also the nickname Mary Griffith, the owner of the bar, who with her three daughters and a ragtag group of friends and co-workers, is determined to make something of the difficult life they all have on Mars.

 

Though nominally part of “The Company” series, The Empress of Mars can easily be read on its own. It has colorful, interesting characters. It has lots of humor. It has underdogs worth rooting for. If its science plays a little fast and loose with reality, it doesn’t interfere in telling a good yarn. Highly recommended!

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try any of the rest of Kage Baker‘s many novels or short story collections — although the rest of our “Company” novels differ slightly in tone from The Empress of Mars.)

 

( Kage Baker entry on Wikipedia )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

The Martian Chronicles - in audiobook form - by Ray Bradbury

The Martian Chronicles
by Ray Bradbury [Compact Disc Bradbury] 

It has been over 30 years since I last read Ray Bradbury’s 1950 story collection, The Martian Chronicles. So when this book-on-CD audiobook version came across the desk at the library recently, I decided it was a good time to revisit an old favorite.

The Martian Chronicles is a “fix-up” novel, which is to say that it is comprised of a series of thematically related short stories, which Bradbury has written short connecting bits to connect to each other for what is, overall, a novel-length storyline. There are some cross-over characters and plots across the content of some of the stories. The Martian Chronicles is about the human settling of the planet Mars, over the course of several decades. The native Martian population is decimated by a plague caused by one of the earliest human missions to the planet, and the subsequent waves of humans to colonize Mars take over the beautiful Martian cities or build their own. The individual stories in this collection vary in quality and have a lot of different “tones”.

While, in many ways, The Martian Chronicles feels dated, it is still an absolute classic in the field of speculative fiction. Audiobook narrator Stephen Hoye provides a low-key narrative style to his voice work, which at times leaves the stories feeling a bit emotionless. But at the same time, it is a compelling listen, and he captures some of the characters very well. In the end, I’ll have to admit that I enjoyed reading this novel more than listening to it, but this was still a worthwhile introduction to the stories, if you’ve never experience them before!

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try any of the other works of the late Ray Bradbury, in print or audio.] [ official Ray Bradbury web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

The Martian by Andy Weir

The Martian
by Andy Weir

Mark Watney is a crew member on Ares 3, the third NASA mission to Mars. On the sixth day, a sudden wind storm hits and the crew must evacuate the surface, thus ending the mission. Mark is struck by flying debris and he is thought dead, forcing his crewmates to leave without him. Now Mark is stranded and alone, with no way to communicate with NASA, and not enough supplies to last him until the next mission arrives. Now what does he do? One does not need to be a sci-fi fan to enjoy this book. This is more of a fascinating story of one's determination to survive. By day 40 satellite photos of Mars shows NASA he's alive. Told from both Watney's point of view and that of NASA staff members, this is an exciting story of a rescue with international assistance. At times the disasters and odds seem insurmountable, but Watney's sense of humor gets him through (and you'll be quoting him for days). There are parts of this novel that you can't read fast enough due to the action, especially the final two chapters. If you enjoyed the Gregory Peck movie, "Marooned," you won't be able to put down this story. -- recommended by Charlotte K. - Bennett Martin Public Library [ See Charlotte's Reviewer Profile ]

[ official The Martian and official Andy Weir web site ]

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!