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Eight months into their stay on Mars, the life-sciences specialist of the first crew to land on Mars discovers a microbial fossil. Subsequent to this, the crew begin to suffer various mishaps, including damage to mission property and direct attacks upon themselves. Complicating the situation is the
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away from the preachy, tract-like novels of the 1990s and toward novels with "crossover appeal"—that is, novels that a non-Christian might appreciate nearly as well as does a
Christian. Christian science fiction is very rare, primarily because of the inherent restrictions that apply to a Christian
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visitor as an agent that assaults the astronauts (and ultimately murders one of them), some
Christians find it impossible to accept such a concept. Thus the agent of the mayhem that plagues and pursues the astronauts must be a human agent. The realization of this fact has led some readers to
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engineer who fears that the crew, now on their way back to Earth, are bringing back a germ that could potentially kill millions of people—this although the crew clearly showed that the germ was sensitive to the antibiotics they had carried with them. The mission ends with the psychiatrically
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But when the life-sciences specialist falls ill from an actual microbial infection—from live bacteria which she has subsequently discovered—the mishaps multiply, with a corresponding increase in the physical danger to the crew. Someone
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As such, these novels are two of the most realistic novels yet written that describe what the first crewed mission to Mars, and the program of which it is a part, might look like and how it might actually work.
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exist on Mars. The surviving astronauts see him very briefly before they make their hurried take-off. They do not recognize him, but anyone who has read the third chapter of the
Biblical
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novel—in this case, that such a novel may not create a character or a situation for which the Bible holds no warrant. Thus, while the title of this work strongly suggests an
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challenged commander sacrificing his own life to save the rest of the crew—and the marriage of the two mission specialists aboard their
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clearly shows that the same character responsible for killing
Astronaut Hampton and almost killing the rest of the crew, was
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apparent psychiatric breakdown of the mission commander and his definite attempts to injure or kill his fellow crewmembers.
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responsible for the failed "lifeboat" mission in the earlier novel. More to the point, however, a Fifth Man
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the Flight
Director is responsible for this. At the very end, that someone is revealed to be a
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Astronaut
Valerie "Valkerie" Jansen, Mission Specialist, Life Sciences and Crew Medicine
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extraterrestrial, after all—but not in the usual sense in modern popular culture.
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severely, accusing the authors of the literary equivalent of bait-and-switch.
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Astronaut Bob "Kaggo" Kaganovski, Mission
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53:. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed.
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On Earth, the Mars
Mission Director, working with an agent of the
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2002 novel by John B. Olson and
Randall S. Ingermanson
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Lookout Design Group, Inc. (actual person uncredited)
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69:Learn how and when to remove this message
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368:Literary significance and criticism
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59:December 2022
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357:prequel
115:English
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