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Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
Richard M. Anderson’s Outbound: Meta Mars follows Dr. Virgil Greenly, an environmental scientist who arrives on Mars in 2260 to help transform Valles Marineris into a vast enclosed habitat for permanent settlement. Project director Timothy Storm has crews building a roof across the immense rift, creating room for an Earthlike environment that could eventually support millions of people. Virgil brings Ofelia, a sentient virtual being interfaced with his brain, into a settlement already expanding beyond the original NASA base. Engineer Charles McKeever oversees construction as Virgil turns toward the ecosystems that will make life inside Marineris possible. Beyond the valley, new spacecraft and orbital projects push Martian development farther into space as increasingly sophisticated robots begin raising questions about what happens when artificial minds become part of the society humans are building.
Richard M. Anderson’s Outbound: Meta Mars is brilliant hard science fiction, and Mars feels like a place where people could actually build. The science is fantastic, especially aboard the Spindizzy, where Daria and Simone travel under standard gravity as platforms adjust with acceleration. There's an agricultural robot! Bob is my favorite, and his literal thinking has a dry edge that makes him feel present beside the humans. The science fiction elements are creative and blend organically into Martian life, whether it is Isadora mapping Phobos Minor for grappling robots, or the Hammerhead deploying the Pavonis Space Ladder beneath a ballast moon. The pacing keeps moving as Marineris expands into a civilization built around engineering. This is book two in the sophisticated Outbound series, but readers who are new to its immersive world will not be lost, although missing book one, Islands in the Void, would be a real shame. Very highly recommended.
