The Lakes of Mars doesn’t know what it wants to be. On the surface it tells about Aaron Sheridan, 17, a rich kid from Mars, drowning in guilt about his terrible accident that killed his parents and sister. Aaron enlists in the Fleet, hoping to go to the Rim where everyone dies, but is instead sent to Corinth Station where the Fleet trains its officers-to-be.
Corinth is the oddest officer training school, full of bullies, sadistic instructors, top scientists, and virtually no rules. In fact it’s obvious to Aaron that the school really doesn’t care if the students kill each other or even if they learn anything. What Aaron can’t figure out is why the school exists, who are the good guys (more or less) and who are the villains, what the scientists are really doing and why no one seems to care about the students’ drug addiction.
There are jarring moments in the story. The students tie in to Fleet members’ actual experiences, live and fully real. What we see are near mutinies among the grunts, drinking and despair among officers, and universal, painful death. The rest of the novel has plenty of violence, too much really.
The characters are not well developed. Aaron is in a fog much of the novel, and his fog prevents us from knowing him because he doesn’t know himself. The most interesting character is the maybe-villainous Caelus Erik, top student officer, who is maybe trying to kill Aaron, maybe not. I would have liked to see the story from Caelus’ point of view as he was more interesting and on top of things than Aaron.
Several reviews on NetGalley compare this to Ender’s Game with little reason other than the superficial similarity of being on a space station/military school. Ender’s Game keeps us engaged throughout while Lakes of Mars moves in fits and starts.
The plot is full of holes which we can gloss over during the fast paced sections. For instance, does anyone really think that a powerful space fleet wouldn’t simply evacuate everybody and quarantine the planet with the Verex? Or nuke it? The planet is supposed to have valuable minerals but if you add up the financial cost (to say nothing of moral costs, the waste of of lives) to constantly fight as the Fleet does, how can it make economic sense? It doesn’t but we need that constant violent background to give credence to the story.
By far the most objectionable part of the novel is the cursing and blasphemy. I get it that these are kids, desperately tired and frightened and they will swear. I expect the F-bombs and the rest, but there is zero excuse for taking the Lord’s name in vain, which the author does, page after page after page.
Overall I finished the novel – which yes, ends on a cliffhanger with temporary (?) truce and danger staring down at Aaron and the rest. It’s fairly fast read, reasonably easy to follow although the student interactions are convoluted and messy. The romance under story is unresolved.
2 Stars.
I received an advance copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.