Dawn
ENGL 3850-02N
Sci-Fi Lit
Dr. Coats
24 April, 1997
A Review of Martian Time-Slip
I tried to finish this book, I really did. However, I lost interest and can only report on about half of it. What I read was okay, but it reminded me too much of a soap opera. I mean, when I saw the cover of the book, I thought wow, this looks cool and it deals with stuff in my major field (schizophrenia, I'm a psychology major). I was very interested in the schizophrenia bit, but other than that I felt like I was experiencing "Days of Our Lives" on Mars.
There wasn't much of a description of Mars in this book, other than the Bleekmen, who were the equivalent (or so I thought) of black slaves on Earth. They were treated very harshly and surprisingly (for a Martian culture) were very primitive compared to other Martian cultures that have been encountered in this class so far.
I didn't like this picture of Mars at all. There were no warrior Martians or exciting adventures. There were greedy, evil humans though (apparently this is something that most of the authors, encountered in this class anyway, seemed to agree on).
My favorite part of what I read was after Norbert Steiner died, when Anne Estherhazy was trying to tell Arnie Kott about it. At first, Kott tried to explain that some people are destined to kill themselves. Then Anne tells him that the person who died was Norbert Steiner and Arnie gets mad because now he can't get black market goodies! I have to admit that I laughed out loud at that - Arnie Kott is a piece of work!
Hopefully, sometime in the future I will finish this book, but like I said, its too soap opera-ish for me. I like adventure and horror and fantasy, not a space soap opera. I don't mind a little romance or the like, but I would have liked this book more if there had been more adventure or evil green Martians or something to keep my interest going.