Edward M. Lerner's "Life and Death on Mars," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Life and Death on Mars by Edward M. Lerner.

The entry begins:

Let’s start with the novel itself: near-future adventure set mainly—no surprise, given its title—on and near Mars. The action kicks off with a Space Race to make the Sixties competition with the Soviets seem lackadaisical. Making matters more exciting, beyond American and Chinese expeditions is another, bankrolled by a mysterious cabal of Earth’s billionaires.

And then we have …

The face scarcely seemed human. Scarcely seemed a face.

Bloated, purple-mottled flesh, the swollen lips almost black. Oozing pustules. Tissues peeling and flaking, even to scattered glimpses of muscle and bone. The nose little more than naked, pitted cartilage. Eyes, except for anime-sized black pupils, all blood-red. Had it not been for the snaky, sweat-soaked tresses, languidly adrift like some somnolent Medusa, even to speculate at a gender would have been impossible.

Yet there could be no question who, or where, this was.

Those are only the novel’s opening paragraphs! How can this book not become a movie? Think The Martian meets For All Mankind … with...[read on]

Learn more about the author and his work at his website.

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Q&A with Edward M. Lerner.

My Book, The Movie: Life and Death on Mars.

--Marshal Zeringue