The Mars House

In his soul, he did know it was all right to defend yourself if someone was trying to maim you, and Gale was trying to maim him. But he felt like he was going mad, because half the people in that stadium and half the people in this room just didn't agree. It was one of those basic things he would have thought everyone could agree about, and seeing that an awful lot of people thought he was the Mars equivalent of a horrifying misogynist for thinking so . . . it was turning his lungs to glass.

It's in vogue to make outlandish media comparisons in book blurbs these days… but honestly, this felt like a mashup of the film Arrival, Winter’s Orbit, and the short story ‘Harrison Bergeron’. Although I liked two of those three, this book largely failed to meet my expectations, and my experience was something less than enjoyment. Admittedly, I’m not usually a romance reader, and this book fits in easily with the current trend of ‘forced marriage’ and ‘enemies-to-lovers’ tropes, and the entire discussion of trope-targeting trends in publishing that makes me gag. Still, it promised sci-fi, Mars, and it was Natasha Pulley—whom I have not read yet, but whose penchant for casually posting about linguistics and the quirks of ancient Greek verbs made me adore her instantly. I’m still going to give her debut and other novels a shot, but this one just wasn’t it.

The protagonist, January Sterling, and his partner in the forced marriage, Aubrey Gale, are both ridiculous characters. Similar to Winter’s Orbit (hereafter the book that shall not be mentioned, for how terrible it was), both characters are supposed to be in their 30s and 40s, and yet read like they could be teenagers. Gale seemingly was also coded as an autistic character, though this was never explicit, and perhaps the idea here was going for normalization rather than pathology, which is fine.

Their personalities felt like cardboard cutouts rather than real people; Pulley certainly makes an attempt to flesh them out, unlike the book that shall not be mentioned, which read like a fanfiction and therefore had zero characterization or development. Pulley at least gives some backstory, but it didn’t feel convincingly real. The character development and subsequent romance also was more telling than showing, and the result was a rather disappointing attempt of fleshing out characters. I found myself largely not caring for them, mostly being annoyed at January acting incompetently, and of course at the classic trope of countless misunderstandings from a lack of common-sense communication.

The plot was slightly more compelling, though not by much. There are a series of disasters and catastrophes for our characters to undergo together, thereby strengthening their bond, presumably; but the stakes never felt that dire. The interactions between the characters was also slightly cartoonish. The final reveal was altogether not very surprising, and more or less along the lines of what I was anticipating, anyway. And of course, everything wraps up rather conveniently by the end. The pacing could also slow down at times; the first part of the book was a bit of a slog to get through, but once we got to the mammoths, things started to pick up.

Yes, mammoths—this book is set on a terraformed Mars, one in which, for some unfathomable reason, ‘scientists’ decided to test out mammoths in the frozen environment… and then just let them roam free after the fact, for some reason. As silly as that is, I actually found the mammoths somewhat endearing. Pulley reminds me of Arrival and similar works here, invoking the concept of a mammoth linguistics; without getting too much into spoiler territory, suffice it to say I actually enjoyed this part and would have loved to read more of this, instead of… whatever the rest of the novel is supposed to be. I could read Pulley nerding out about linguistics anytime.

Pulley’s narration style was rather enjoyable, content notwithstanding. She is supposedly known for her footnotes, which were much remarked upon in her debut; I do enjoy the copious amounts of footnotes and the little tidbits about the world that Pulley drops into it. However, it sometimes veered on the absurd, as we would get a detail, and then a seemingly non sequitur of a footnote telling us what January thought about that specific topic or idea, even though we had little reason in-story to have access to such a thought in terms of logical narrative flow. Still, I can’t fault it entirely, and the novel was mostly an easy read, though the descriptions could go on at times, and occasionally the chapters dropped the reader in a completely random narrative point, treading water briefly until connecting the thread with the rest of the book.

This is nominally sci-fi, but the environs didn’t really convince me. The terraforming is given brief context, but it doesn’t feel as enmeshed in science as, say, The Martian did. There are also some fancy high-tech gadgets that are almost inconceivable, especially when highlighted against the fact that, for some reason, January has a smartphone. Yes, a freaking smartphone from several centuries ago, which is supposedly a precious family heirloom that he is just carrying around, because his family was too poor to afford the latest and greatest. I don’t know about you, but… that isn’t how smartphones work, and that isn’t how most people treat family heirlooms (certainly not to the point of accidentally breaking their fragile screens!).

I get not being able to afford the latest tech (in this case, lens implants that are connected only wirelessly, of course). But the solution is not to make January seem like he was plucked out of 2020s England. Moreover, the language at times veered on the Twitter-esque at times, too, which was awfully immersion-breaking (not that I was that immersed to begin with). There are some attempts at constructing a futuristic society—like how everyone Tharsis, the Mars colony, speaks Mandarin natively and thus has no concept of gender. (In the book, calling someone he/she is akin to calling a human being ‘it’; something reserved for animals and objects… though they make exceptions for the Earth migrants, of course.) I mean, I know Sapir-Whorf is popular in the popular consciousness, but really, shouldn’t Pulley know better?

Finally, before I get carried away much further in this rant review, I want to address some of the underlying themes of the novel, and how they were executed poorly. Given the premise—January being forced to move to Mars due to climate disasters on Earth—there is ample room for comparing this and the current migration crisis. Moreover, because ‘Earthstrongers’ have the benefit of growing up in greater gravity, they are naturally stronger than those who have only lived on Mars. This creates a power imbalance of sorts, and naturally results in the kind of fearmongering that we see even in our own world against migrants. This is one of the core issues of the novel—Gale is a politician whose platform is to naturalize, or essentially bioengineer, Earth-born people, almost certainly crippling them and January is an Earthstronger whose instincts rail against exactly that.

As you can tell, whenever people use speculative fiction as allegories to contemporary social issues, it can get… dicey. For one, the comparative message here is that migrants who come to a new residence must not only be forcefully integrated, but they must cripple themselves and be subservient to the whimsical feelings of the ‘native’ Martians (who, may I add, were also all from Earth at some point). It’s classic Harrison Bergeron, but with the exact opposite ending. Moreover, January, who is initially adamant about refusing such treatment, becomes startlingly compliant by the end. I don’t know if this is really the kind of message Pulley ought to be sending, unless you have some seriously outdated ideas about the migrant crisis. For one—the statistics, as presented in the book and in real life, emphasize that migrants (or immigrants, if we want to speak broadly) commit fewer crimes than the native-born population.

Migrants work harder, get fewer state benefits, and are often harsher against crime in their own communities; this is all reflected in the novel, too. However, the main takeaway from this seems antithetical to common-sense. In The Mars House, wearing a cage is simply the natural response to not hurt the native-borns, and you’ll grow to like it, too! The solution to the migrant crisis is not only to welcome migrants, Pulley shows us, but also to come with enforcement as backup to make sure they comply to your rigid standards. (Even though, as I’m guessing is likely, the Martians are part of the reason why Earth has gone to shit in the first place—how many more lives could have been saved if, instead of spending money on terraforming, they spent it on carbon capture technology? And yes, I know carbon capture has its own host of issues, but that is merely one example.) There are some relevant plot-specific turns too, which I don’t want to spoil, but I didn’t find their development quite natural, and it also didn’t help my unease at how these topics were handled.

Natasha Pulley, I respect you and your love of ancient Greek verbs and mammoths, but please stick to a book about linguistics nerdery without setting yourself a needlessly high task of dealing with so many complex issues all under one title. Unfortunately, I can’t with good conscience recommend this book, though maybe if you are the type of reader who just cares about tropes and not much else of substance, you may have a good time. I’m rather sorry that I didn’t.

Disclaimer: I received this book through NetGalley and the publisher, Bloomsbury Publishing. Thank you to both for providing an advanced copy, and thank you to the author, Natasha Pulley. My review reflects only my honest opinions.