My thanks to Scott! He’s helping other readers find my book and more great sci-fi too. Check out the complete review of Hermit on Mars and find lots more stories in Sci-Fi – click here to go to Liminal Fiction.
Rauner’s Colony on Mars continues with this third book in the five book series, Hermit on Mars. I’ll admit, when I first read the title, it seemed a bit claustrophobic to me – would the whole book be about a single person living alone in a cave on Mars?
Our hero is someone else altogether. Sig is blundering through middle to late middle age with something less than grace. His kids are grown, the last one about to leave his family kinderen home, and relations with his partner, Helmi, have grown strained. She’s a by-the book type, and is unhappy that Sig’s mother is living a life free of the usual societal constraints with the Hermit.
Sig is on his way to deliver some critical parts to the mkazzi – the loners, mostly prospectors, who live in the caverns underneath the Hermit’s home. Who is the mysterious Hermit? Why have the mkazzi never met him? And why are power outages worsening, threatening to send this pack of independent people back to the order and organization that they despise?
It’s been fascinating to watch the colony grow, from the original Kamp Kans to the addition of the District in the last book, and the start of Cerberus, the halfway point that by now has developed into a small town of its own. In Hermit on Mars, Rauner plays with themes of order vs. freedom, safety vs. danger, and we start to see some of the true Martians – people born on Mars who are shedding Earth ways and habits. I loved the tension between the colonists and the mkazzi, and there were moments of great beauty as Sig learns to appreciate Mars in all her glory, instead of just huddling behind the protective walls at Cerberus. Scott at Liminal Fiction
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Kate's Science - Real and Fantastic 