The Heart of Mars [Hardcover]

Chuck Rosenthal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2007

Part fantasy, part fabulism, part detective, award-winning author Chuck Rosenthal creates an alternative future for humankind and the universe.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Rosenthal's My Mistress, Humanity (2002) explored the trials facing a near-future Earth devastated by global warming. Now, 400 years later, with environmental disaster averted, a new but no less bewildering challenge faces human beings, who are dubbed homans after Earth becomes known simply as Home. Home's benign, amphibious, extraterrestrial rescuers, the Nutians, have stabilized the planet and supply its remaining populace with a steady diet of fish from Jupiter's transformed, cetacean-populated moon, Europa. In epigrammatic, bite-size chapters, Rosenthal follows the picaresque adventures of Marl, a 200-year-old half-homan, half-Nutian investigator seeking to discover why a fish-laden space freighter has been hijacked to a terraformed but still mostly desert-covered Mars. As he searches, Marl encounters intelligent whales, falls in love with an alien, and uncovers a brewing conspiracy against the Nutians. Rosenthal's quirky but poetic prose brims with allusions to classic literature, such as Conrad's Heart of Darkness, while envisioning one possible, albeit whimsically inventive, path humanity might take after surviving a major threat to its existence. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

A must have for the serious science fiction reader looking for something more creative, visionary, and intellectual than the mainstream efforts currently on the market. -- The PODler, May 5, 2007

"[Rosenthal] creates a fully formed vision of the future in "The Heart of Mars," and it's a fascinating one." -- Erie Times-News, March 25, 2007

Chuck Rosenthal entertains his audience as he says we get what we ask for in this fascinating space thriller. . . -- Harriet Klausner, Alternative Worlds, February 12, 2007

Should you read this book? Yes, you should!. . .So beautifully written, and so intriguing, that I was drawn into it. . . -- Edogawa Ranpo, The Thunder Child (thethunderchild.com), August 2007

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 172 pages
• Publisher: Hollyridge Press (April 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977229858
• ISBN-13: 978-0977229857
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,924,202 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Psychedelic sci-fi sleuthing, April 5, 2008

By 

Devon Kappa (New England, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Heart of Mars (Hardcover)

It is four hundred years after mankind was rescued from ecological disaster by benevolent extraterrestrials. Much has changed. There are few pure humans left. There are no machines -- everything is biological, alive. And there is no more writing, or storytelling. It's just not how things are done.

The Heart of Mars is poetic, almost psychedelic. The loose plot, involving half-human Marl's investigation into the hijacking to Mars of a ship full of fish, is only there to give the wispiest of structure to an elliptical journey that involves all manner of strange places and even stranger creatures with still stranger dispositions. The novel is a bit like an Alice in Wonderland in space, except that Marl, unlike Alice, is an intrinsic part of the strange world he inhabits.

In the end, the plot essentially falls away. As Marl gets closer to solving the mystery, the mystery itself becomes less and less relevant, until all that remains is the importance of telling the story. The Heart of Mars may ultimately be too oblique for readers looking for a straight-forward narrative, and, to be honest, I'm not sure I understand it all. But the sustained otherness of the journey is enthralling.

2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars burn it four RA RA RA billion years, July 9, 2007

By 

Shell Don Ray "pelican coo-coo" (duck river USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Heart of Mars (Hardcover)

Chuck Rosenthal. Chuck Rosenthal. Obscure, I found you in the clearance rack eight years ago in the crimson hub, already out of print. I bought copies for everyone on the horizon, and then hired myself as scribe. Forgive me the outer strip. Your orbit! True dream, every one. This sounds ridiculous, and I understand it's a secret of sorts, yet, in peace you write the wave of my startlingly simple heart. Wool under bellied, laconic lachrymonts, breathe him in, and watch your blue scraps glue. A lucky Buzz, my brother, walks as we need our pears.