I'm entertained throughout, a testament to Newman's ability to place me in the head of her (always troubled, if in different ways) protagonists. And yet, there's none of the directionless feeling in the earlier chapters that such a structure might make me expect. In all three of these books, the final few chapters are quite different from the rest, as the reader (and often the protagonist) at that point finally knows what the book has been about this whole time. I also quite like how she is able to write easy, gripping narratives where the reader is very gradually realising what is actually going on. Whichever of the three novels you read first, the later ones will benefit from the added context you now can bring to casual mentions of shared backstory and societal concepts. I'm impressed by Newman's ability to make each of these novels utterly self-contained and yet enriched by each other's widening and deepening of the universe they take place in (they literally each occur on different planets, albeit in a roughly equivalent time frame). She is also, as the story progresses, trying to get to the bottom of a mysterious conspiracy, like the one in 'After Atlas', but unlike him, it is not her job to do so.

This novel's protagonist (the book is told in first person the way the other two were) struggles with trauma and depression like the one in 'Planetfall', but of a different (and less severe) kind. Where 'Planetfall' was a science fiction drama gradually turning into psychological thriller and 'After Atlas' was dystopian detective noir, 'Before Mars' somewhere in the middle. … ( more)Īnother great entry in the 'Planetfall' series of standalone novels by Emma Newman.

Is she caught up in an elaborate corporate conspiracy, or is she actually losing her mind? Regardless of what horrors she might discover, or what they might do to her sanity, Anna has to find the truth before her own mind destroys her. Finding a footprint in a place the colony AI claims has never been visited by humans, Anna begins to suspect that her assignment isn't as simple as she was led to believe.

She unpacks her wedding ring, only to find it has been replaced by a fake.

But in her new room on the base, Anna finds a mysterious note written in her own handwriting, warning her not to trust the colony psychologist. Throwing herself into her work, she tries her best to fit in with the team. Already she feels like she is losing the connection with her husband and baby at home on Earth-and she'll be on Mars for over a year. After months of travel, Anna Kubrin finally arrives on Mars for her new job as a geologist and de facto artist-in-residence.

Planetfall series by emma newman