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“The Mars House follows a very unlucky man called January, who begins the novel as a lucky person. He is the principal dancer at the Royal Ballet in London about 250 years from now. Unluckily, London is sinking and, at the beginning of the novel, it finally sinks – it is sunken, pluperfect. And he ends up as a climate refugee in the only place that is open to refugees and is safe at the same time: a new colony on Mars called Tharsis. He really struggles, because the gravity on Mars is only 1/3 of Earth, so people who are from Earth are kept very segregated from people who are born on Mars. It’s like having Superman visit, he could hurt people by accident. This is very difficult. There are big cultural differences, and social differences as well – they’ve abolished gender. So there’s a lot for him to get used to. One of the ways that all these issues get explored in the book is through – surprise, surprise – a central romance. January – through various mechanisms that will read convincingly I hope! – ends up in an arranged marriage to a fire-breathing nationalist, a local senator who doesn’t think that immigration should exist at all. And this arranged marriage plays out live on a reality show that is broadcast across the city.” Read more...
The Best Sci-Fi Romance Novels
Natasha Pulley, Novelist
