Customer Reviews

Voyage

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

VOYAGE was the second book by Stephen Baxter that I've read, but it's the best one. I have to say it--Baxter's got stones--big ones. He tackles an alternate history's journey to Mars in 1986 with ease. Everything is researched to the letter and feels real, from the inner workings of NASA to the tragedy of a nuclear-powered Apollo flight (shades of the Challenger disaster) to the characters themselves. Here is a writer who actually gives a damn about the characters he creates, and does not give them the short strift just to lavish everything on the technology. True, I wished there could have been more on the astronauts' exploration on Mars, but that was not Baxter's point. It's _how_ we get to the Red Planet and _why_ we should go that's important. He also shows the scientific cost--no space shuttle, no Voyager or Viking missions... To put everything in simple terms--if you like science fiction, if you are interested in the space program, or if you just like books that are damned good--read VOYAGE.

Stephen Baxter's VOYAGE takes place in an alternate past: What if John F. Kennedy had survived assassination and lobbied for NASA to send astronauts to Mars in the 1980s, instead of building the space shuttle? It's a fascinating premise and certainly one worthy of a unique Mars novel.

Baxter himself holds a doctorate in engineering, so it's no surprise that he really knows his way around the technical stuff of spaceflight. He's quite knowledgeable in space history, as well. He presents an impressive amount of authentic detail, far more than I've seen in any other novel of its kind. Perhaps too much, in fact, because many spaceflight scenes repeat events and dialogue from real-life missions almost verbatim. On the whole, VOYAGE feels quite faithful to the era described, even if it's somewhat too faithful. It's also interesting to catch him using a few historic dates in spaceflight -- July 1976, April 1981, January 1986 -- so we can contemplate the differences in his alternate past.

Geologist Natalie York is VOYAGE's most reliable protagonist; she comes across as determined but not easy to root for. Baxter makes a few generalizations based on astronaut mythology, and he rarely hides his disdain for NASA's old "pilot vs. scientist" culture. One veteran astronaut is so surly that in the real space program he would have been permanently shelved from flight status (a la Wally Schirra). Nonetheless, Baxter avoids many of the stilted stereotypes of Ben Bova's Mars novels, so at least these characters are more subtle and level-headed. For the most part, he steers clear of the soap-opera style plotting that cripples most Mars books, and that alone is commendable.

VOYAGE's "major malfunction" is that Baxter spends far too much time laying the groundwork for going to Mars, and it dominates the pace of the novel. Almost nine tenths of this book is back story. The launch of the Mars flight opens the book, but by page 200 we're only up to Day 3 and we've barely left the earth behind us. At page 466, we've reached Day 171 of the flight, yet we've only arrived at the swingby of Venus, and we're still almost seven months away from the red planet!

While the author deserves praise for presenting a credible rationale for going to Mars, you can only go so far with a book about a Mars flight without actually describing the flight. I kept pleading for Baxter to get away from the project's early days and get to the damn point, but it practically never happens. Once I figured out how diminished the Mars flight was, it took me ages to finish reading. Because it is so dominated by background, this 772-page story unfolds in almost geologic time.

Even with my complaints, VOYAGE is easily the most technically accomplished and reasonable Mars novel I've ever read, and I've read a great many of them. It is frequently interesting and packed with details, but I just wish Baxter had spent more effort flying the mission instead of building his case. It is a solid four-star novel if not for the heavy reliance on background.

You have to ask yourself if the alternate history scenarios portrayed within this amazing book would have meant a more glorious space program. Would sacrificing half of the Apollo lunar missions, the Viking landers, the Voyager probes and the Space Shuttle have been worth it for one, single flight to Mars? That is a question Baxter makes you ask yourself through implication. This novel is one of the finest creations of 1990s science fiction. But I was a bit annoyed when I read it, as I was researching to write a very similar book to this! (aw, shucks) All the flashbacks within the story should have been annoying but Steve Baxter makes it all work very well. In an ideal world with lots of funding, ALL the Apollo lunar missions would have been retained, there would have been a series of Skylab space stations and mankind would have worked and lived on Mars. ALL this before the 21st Century. SIGH...

Voyage, by Stephen Baxter, offers the intriguing possibility of NASA undertaking a manned mission to Mars in the 1980s instead of building the space shuttle. The book, however, suffers from a couple of flaws.

First, the narrative alternates between the years leading from the Apollo moon landing to the launch of the Mars expedition and the voyage to Mars itself. It is sometimes very hard to keep the two separate stories straight in one's memory. There is also next to nothing about what happens on Mars after the landing.

Second, Baxter totally fails to suggest that doing Mars instead of the shuttle would have any effect on society and history outside of the US space program. This is doubly puzzling because he basis his altered history on a John F. Kennedy having survived Dallas a cripple. (That premise may be one built on quicksand. Recent revelations about JFK's health problems and his private feelings toward space exploration make the idea of his physical survival into the 80s problematic, not to speak of his advocacy of a manned mission to Mars.) Regardless, the survival of JFK to be a kind of gray eminence of the Democratic Party would have been an interesting concept to explore, even without the space theme.

The story also has a bitter sweet air about it. Several Apollo lunar missions, as well as a number of unmanned probes such as the Pioneer and Voyager missions to the Outer Planets are cancelled to pay for sending people to Mars. And there is the faint whiff of melancholy that after humans return from Mars, there might be no further expeditions.

--Mark R. Whittington (...)

If Tom Clancy is the "Tom Clancy" of warfare, Baxter may be his equal in Engineering. The book is written in near scholarly text when explaining the nueclear rockets, and chemical propellant vehicles that mankind would have used to go to Mars in the 1980's. That was a turn-off. Another turn-off is the non-chronological sequence the story is told in. The first passages have the crew that is going to Mars on the pad. Then the book retreats from there to when Natalie York, Mission Specialist and one of the many protagonists in the book, decided to become an astronaut. And then it comes back to different points in the Mars Mission inter-mixed with the life stories of the other two Mars explorers going to the Red Planet with her, the bids to build the hardware going on the voyage, the shakeups at NASA, even York's search for an apartment near NASA. It would have been better if it was told from point A to B. I found this to be a terrible way to have to read the book. For instance, you knew the Nueclear rocket program had it's problems before he wrote about them since it was explained earlier in the book.

On the plus side, and there are many plusses, the book explains from an "insider's" viewpoint what these astronauts go through. It isn't pretty. The sterile appearance of the space program is stripped away with broad strokes. These people are street fighters who look at competitiveness as one of the four food groups. The politics of NASA, the in-fighting, the seemingly ordinary choices these men and women made that would effect how history books are written decades later are described in hard-headed, unromantic terms. All at once you are enamored and a little bothered at what is written. "Could it be that superficial and heroic at the same time?" was a question I kept asking myself.

And then there is the subtext of the book. Let's go to Mars. We knew we could do it in the 1970's and the fact that we haven't done it has deposited this country at a destination that is subordinate to its destiny.

I am a fan of 'Sciene Probable'. That is to say, science fiction that is based on fact and known science.

This book hits that mark dead on.

The adherence to the technicals and history of the Apollo program is well done and worked seemlessly into this alternate history. The description of science is detailed enough for those so inclined while not going so overboard as to bore the less technical reader.

The structure of the writing is perfect for a story that must cover such a long period of time. Baxter is able to carry the story over decades without ever losing momentum or the interest of the reader.

The character development is great. The story is progressively told from the perspective of different characters, in the third person.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. One of the best I've read.

I suppose I'm glad Stephen Baxter didn't manage to become an astronaut! I think he is still longing to go into space, and his novels give him -and us - the opportunity to go after all.

This longing is very obvious in 'Voyage'. Baxter decides to take a crucial point in the history of the U.S. space program - Kennedy's call to go to the moon and Mars. Kennedy here survives the assassination attempt and goes on proclaiming manned space missions. At the end of the sixties, Nixon decides to expand the manned missions to go to Mars as well...

A fever possesses NASA. Almost everything goes to Ares - the name for the Mars mission. And almost a generation later, in the mid-eighties, 'man' (i.e. woman) stands on Mars... Ohhh yes, it would have been so nice.

The Ares mission to Mars has an expensive price ticket. A lot of other missions have to be cancelled, there is simply not enough money for them in the NASA budget. So, there are never more then just three Apollo missions; there is no space shuttle. Many other missions are cut down: no Magellan to Venus, no Voyagers 1 & 2 to the gas giants. We don't know anything about them that we do know in our own universe.

Are we better off in this alternate universe? Maybe not for non-Martian planetary scientists. But by going to Mars so soon, NASA and at least the U.S. commit themselves to the red planet - and maybe other nation will get Mars fever as well, and start lowering their weapon budgets. I suppose NASA in the 'Voyage' universe will get a huge increase in their post-Ares budget

Buy and read this book!

This is an interesting book about how NASA might have gotten a manned mission to Mars by now. The story revolves around one very dedicated geologist, and her issuance into the boys club of astronauts. The book starts well, but about half way through, Baxter gets bogged down--as so many books about NASA and US space missions seem to--in the details of the mission. The book loses touch with human elements, and is a bit boring.

But, again following previous themes, disaster wakes the plotline up, and Voyage runs with good inertia to the end.

The plotline is well conceived and interesting, but any of you that are interested in the alternative history (which I have read only one other book about), Baxter may disappoint you. There is very little in Voyage of any political or historical consequence (well, other than NASA getting a manned mission to Mars). Real figures in history (such as JFK) take a very big back seat, and add almost nothing to this book. I found this lack of tie-in disappointing (especially with the teaser on the back cover mentioning JFK).

And finally, I was dismayed with the last four pages of this book. Baxter builds everything up nicely for the finale, and completely misses. The ending is completely out-of-character, and performs a jump back to "NASA mission mode" (i.e., downplayed and disappointing). Too bad, as otherwise, Voyage was an interesting read.

3 of 5 stars

I am relatively new to the world of Stephen Baxter, and I picked a pretty good book to start off my getting to know him, I think. 'Voyage' is not so much science fiction as it is a novel of alternate history, a history I might add actually COULD have happened had NASA made a few better choices in the 70's. There are few moments that I was more proud to be an American than when watching Armstrong & Aldrin walk on the surface of the moon, and I KNOW that feeling would return if we made that leap and went out to mars.

'Voyage' gives us several point-of-view's regarding this undertaking. First off, Kennedy survived his assassination attempt, but sustained a severe injury. We also get the view of the astronauts as they BEGIN the mission in the present, while the rest of the novel skips around to the politics surrounding just WHO will be the first humans on another planet, HOW we'll manage to pay for such a tremendous undertaking and the most important question: just HOW will we be able to pull it all off? Serious questions arise. Methods are tried, some fail, some do not, but it all seems pretty risky--and some even die in the pursuit of an experimental rocket that turns out to be less than reliable.

This is how it COULD have happened. I wish it had. I wish it WOULD. But by the time that eventually happens, most of us might be long gone. Maybe a trip back to the moon would be more appropriate at this point. All I know is that 'Voyage' made me

think a LOT about the space race and where will we be going next should we actually TRY to go ANYWHERE. Fantastic space opera and I honestly believe the reality of this story is almost unheard of in this day and age. The science holds up and even though it's a bit dated because of the time the novel takes place, it just add's to the realism this novel develops throughout. Great story and an even better idea of 'What If?'

I liked the book a lot; even if I felt, as some others have, that maybe a world with Mariner 10, Viking, Voyager and Hubble is actually a richer one than one with a single-shot Mars mission. Part of his achievement is that he makes you really ask yourself what you'd rather have seen happen.

However, I don't think the political mechanism he invents is as plausible as the technology.

Others have noted that aspects of the novel draw on Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox's excellent "Apollo". Readers may also like to seek out "Angle of Attack" by Mike Gray, as this book on Harrison "Stormy" Storms of North American appears to have informed the J K Lee character; and "The making of an ex-astronaut" by onetime NASA scientist-astronaut Brian O'Leary, which contributes a couple of threads to the Natalie York character.