Novelization Makes the Most of 'Red Planet'

Posted by tourdemars to Entertainment at October 31, 2000 12:00 PM

Warning: spoilers ahead! Peter Telep has churned out his share of novelizations and media tie-in books, and he’s put that experience to good use in his novelization of the upcoming movie Red Planet (Ace Books, $6.99 paperback). Like the stranded astronauts of the story, he makes the best of what he has, and the result is a decent though slightly ludicrous adventure novel. In the year 2050, humanity has been terraforming Mars for 28 years. Nuclear blasts have melted some of the polar ice caps and thousands of packages of algae have been dropped on the surface. Everything seems to be going well – until the oxygen level takes a nose-dive and the automated probes on the surface stop sending readings.