Jack Stillwaggon

If you enjoy technology, space travel and survival stories, this book is for you. I liked the fact that, even though I'm not a scientist, I followed a lot of the main character's tech solutions and even anticipated a few of the them. I warn you though not to give up during the first 10% of the book. After that point, the story evolves and other characters are added. It becomes more interesting. There is a plot and some character development. A few things bothered me. The dialogue which is laced with vulgarities comes off as juvenile. I found it distracting. I know from experience that military aviators use that kind of language but in this book it seemed excessive and even forced as if the author or editor felt it would be essential. I'll bet the book would be fine with 90% less. The other distraction was the reference to anachronistic items such as comparing the size of an airlock to a phone booth. A phone booth? The astronaut is on Mars and he's referring to something we haven't seen in many years. Also, references to jpeg and ASCII and battery packs. I hope by the time we get to Mars those things will be ancient history. In spite of those points, I think the author did a very good job of getting us to care about the protagonist and the mission. I also believe that the setbacks were believable and well spaced to keep us hopeful of a happy ending.