Sunborn [Paperback]

Gregory Benford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 2005

The first manned mission to Mars has been a resounding success, and excitement grows as more new discoveries are made. However, one discovery continues to defy rational explanation - the 'marsmat' - a complex anaerobic life-form found in the planet's honeycomb of tunnels. This raises questions about the nature and meaning of life itself which will lead the curious and the driven to Pluto and beyond, to the cold void at the fringes of the solar system.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this unexceptional and somewhat slow-moving follow-up to The Martian Race (1999), Benford sends Julia and Viktor, the first astronauts to land on Mars, off to Pluto to investigate a number of strange phenomena. The solar system's coldest, most distant planet appears to be heating up and developing an atmosphere. Stranger still, another expedition has discovered life on Pluto, in an environment where it shouldn't exist. Benford has always been fascinated by the possibilities inherent in extraterrestrial life, and he takes advantage of his own scientific specialty, plasma physics, to create some extraordinary creatures. The competently constructed plot details the unraveling of a series of mysteries via the application of scientific method spiced with credible intuitive leaps. What fails to satisfy, however, are the characters. Julia seems too perfect, while her husband, Viktor, is little more than a nice guy with a funny accent. The second exploratory ship's captain, the daughter of the billionaire who financed Julia and Viktor's original Mars trip, comes across as a Paris Hilton with an advanced degree in biology. Her scenes with Julia, which involve stereotypical assumptions about how powerful women must interact, can be painful. Hard SF fans will find this an adequate read, but Benford has done far better work in the past.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

With their death-defying exploration of Mars and groundbreaking discovery of primitive Martian life, Viktor and Julia have become history's most famous astronauts. Now, after a series of exploits deemed reckless by space agency bureaucrats, they are being pressured to retire and spend their remaining days handling agency publicity. Fortunately, the Mars mission's primary financier, billionaire John Axelrod, has the political muscle to reassign them to an ongoing Pluto mission before it's too late; but the trip has a price tag: rescuing Axelrod's zealous astronaut daughter, Shanna, from a calamitous exploration of Pluto's frozen methane surface. By the time Viktor and Julia reach the outer solar system, however, Shanna has not only set foot on the planet surface but also established contact with a walruslike native creature known as the zand. Together, the three astronauts must forge a tenuous union to unravel the mystery of Plutonian life. Working from a thrilling premise and with original, speculative science, Benford, a premier practitioner of hard sf, is in top form. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Orbit (May 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1841491764
• ISBN-13: 978-1841491769
• Product Dimensions: 4.3 x 7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,304,194 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Benford's Been Better, April 16, 2005

By 

James Tepper (Boonton Township, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sunborn (Hardcover)

This is a sequel of sorts to Benford's "The Martian Race" (which was great). Unlike many sequels, however, it is irrelevant whether you've read the preceding novel or not. It uses two of the main characters from the "Martian Race" and obviously takes place in the same universe but that's about it.

It is an interesting twist on the "first contact" theme with not one but three new alien species discovered and communicated with. There is a tie-in to the "The Martian Race" at the very end that is not much of a suprise, having been pretty well telegraphed by the middle of the short novel.

Benford is a great SF writer, as well as a talented physicist and author. He is and has been one of the best authors of hard SF since the publication of "Timescape" some 23 years ago. But this one is a little disappointing. The human (and alien) characters are not well developed and are mostly flat and irrelevant placeholders to this plot-based novel. There is no real suspense and the hard SF is minimal. Of course, none of this will stop me from rushing out and getting the next Benford novel as soon as it's published, since he is one of my favorite SF authors, interesting and tremendously talented. Everyone can have an off-day. This was one of his.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life Beyond the Heliopause, August 2, 2006

By 

Arthur W. Jordin (Smyrna, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sunborn (Mass Market Paperback)

The Sunborn (2005) is the second SF novel in the Martian Race series. In the previous novel, Julia and Marc find life in the vented caverns under Gusev crater. The Marsmat is a symbiotic collection of single-celled organisms closely related to archaebacteria. When the ERV tests failed for the second and final time, Julia and Viktor volunteered to remain behind while Marc and Raoul returned in the Airbus nuclear vehicle.

In this novel, Shanna Axelrod is the daughter of John Axelrod, The Man Who Sold Mars and the organizer of the Consortium. Born to Axelrod's second wife, she had conflicts with the two later wives and finally moved back in with her mother.

Shanna had a long standing admiration for Clyde Tombaugh, the man who discovered the planet Pluto. When the ISA announced their intentions to send a ship to investigate strange changes in the Pluto/Charon system, Shanna was determined to become one of the crew members.

She was already a working astronaut in the commercial fleet with biologist/medic training. Although she was well qualified, so were other candidates. She called on her father for aid and he named her as the Consortium selection for the Proserphina crew. When the Captain of the Proserphina was later killed in an accident, Shanna became his replacement.

Julia and Viktor are being continually pressured by the quirks of the Consortium. A new manager is sent from the Moon to coordinate the Martian science effort. She is very abrasive and both Julia and Viktor try to avoid her. They sneak out on an excursion to Vent R, a newly discovered pressure relief vent from the Marsmat caverns beneath the surface.

Shanna discovers intelligent life on Pluto and rides the lander down to establish contact with the creatures. During a long conversation with the Old One, she learns that the zand are being killed off by the Darksiders. After a second landing, she discovers that the Darksiders are machines sent by some things beyond Pluto.

Shanna uses a jury-rigged weapon to repel an assault by the machines, but they still damage the lander and it crashes. The Darksiders force their way aboard the ship, but soon withdraw after repairing the damaged hull. Shanna almost freezes to death.

Axelrod sends a new fusion drive vessel to Mars and arranges for Julia and Viktor to take it to Pluto. Even before they arrive, Shanna has strong aversions to their presence. She is particularly envious of Julia, a fellow biologist with a well established reputation.

This novel incorporates some speculations concerning life within and between the stars. It even ties in the Marsmat with the huge Beings dwelling beyond Pluto. However, conflict results from the mutual ignorance of various lifeforms.

Highly recommended for Benford fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of space exploration, scientific inquiries and strange Beings within the Oort Cloud.

-Arthur W. Jordin

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars very different aliens, March 14, 2005

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sunborn (Hardcover)

Benford continues his earlier book, "The Martian Race", with this novel. If you liked the characters and logic in that book, you will probably be attracted to this. Rather didactic in parts, with schematics of, say, the heliopause at the outer solar system. These diagrams would not be out of place in a science text. Benford actively tries to educate his readers. At times this leads to dry passages in the text.

Did you know that Benford's research area is plasma physics? He parlays that expertise into envisioning vast alien intelligences that are basically sparse plasmas. A very evocative image. Along these lines, he makes a valiant effort to portray truly alien minds interacting with each other, and with humans. The effort is commendable. His aliens are not humans dressed up in funny skins, acting as aliens, which is what a lot of science fiction depictions end up as.

But I am not sure that he truly succeeds. While yes, the aliens do come across as different, I found the resultant read to be rather dull and sterile.