Book Review: The Strange, by Nathan Ballingrud
True Grit on Mars.
Saga Press, 2023, 304 pages
1931, New Galveston, Mars: Fourteen-year-old Anabelle Crisp sets off through the wastelands of the Strange to find Silas Mundt's gang who have stolen her mother's voice, destroyed her father, and left her solely with a need for vengeance.
Since Anabelle's mother left for Earth to care for her own ailing mother, her days in New Galveston have been spent at school and her nights at her laconic father's diner with Watson, the family Kitchen Engine and dishwasher as her only companion. When the Silence came, and communication and shipments from Earth to its colonies on Mars stopped, life seemed stuck in foreboding stasis until the night Silas Mundt and his gang attacked.
At once evoking the dreams of an America explored in Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and the harder realities of frontier life in Charles Portis True Grit, Ballingrud's novel is haunting in its evocation of Anabelle's quest for revenge amidst a spent and angry world accompanied by a domestic Engine, a drunken space pilot, and the toughest woman on Mars.
Most reviews of this book call it "True Grit on Mars," and this really is an apt description. Annabelle Crisp is a 14-year-old girl living in a small Martian frontier town with her father, when outlaws come and ransack their little restaurant, setting off a series of events ending with her father in jail facing the noose. Annabelle goes on a quest for vengeance. So, teenage girl trying to outwit and out-moxy bad, dangerous men in a lawless frontier. True Grit is one of my favorite books so I was predisposed to like this book, and Nathan Ballingrud does a good job of evoking both the frontier Western and all the other Martian colonization novels that have preceded this one.
The Strange is set in an alternate history in which Mars was colonized in the early 20th century, and also resembles what people in the early 20th century thought Mars was like (i.e., it's cold and dry but habitable, and has strange native flora and fauna). Annabelle lives in a town that was mostly settled by Americans fleeing poverty on Earth, but there are also British and Germans and a few other nationalities, and it's mentioned that some Native American tribes emigrated to Mars as well, though we never see them. The technology is "steampunkish" as there are flying saucers that run on traditional fuel, and also robots that function both as household appliances and war machines.
Annabelle's parents started a little restaurant on Mars. Then Annabelle's mother receives a message from Earth that her mother is dying, and she returns to say good-bye, promising her husband and daughter that she'll be back. After that came the Silence, when suddenly they lost all contact with Earth. No more ships arrived, and the one ship already on Mars has the only fuel left on the planet, so the colonists are afraid to send it back.
Thus Annabelle and her father are living in an increasingly poor and desperate frontier town while Annabelle is struggling with feelings of abandonment by her mother. Tensions in town, along with threats from the nearby mining settlement, lead to a series of tragic events and Annabelle, not acting entirely rationally, decides to go looking for vengeance.
I have previously only read a couple of short stories by Nathan Ballingrud. This is his first novel. I think the tone was perfect: Mars is a hard, gritty frontier full of desperate, scrabbling settlers and desperadoes, and it's also a pulp era alien planet with more weirdness than Annabelle realizes at first. Her adventures take a strange and eerie turn, and the threats range from old World War I-era war robots to alien moths that possess dead bodies. Annabelle herself was kind of annoying at times; she really is a 14-year-old girl. She's brave but not always very smart, and being driven by emotions leads her into trouble more often than not.
It ends with a much older Annabelle reminiscing about her life, so on the one hand, a lot of questions remain unanswered, but on the other, Ballingrud probably could write a sequel if he wanted to. The Strange is a good book that almost feels like an old sci-fi classic.
My complete list of book reviews.
Saga Press, 2023, 304 pages
1931, New Galveston, Mars: Fourteen-year-old Anabelle Crisp sets off through the wastelands of the Strange to find Silas Mundt's gang who have stolen her mother's voice, destroyed her father, and left her solely with a need for vengeance.
Since Anabelle's mother left for Earth to care for her own ailing mother, her days in New Galveston have been spent at school and her nights at her laconic father's diner with Watson, the family Kitchen Engine and dishwasher as her only companion. When the Silence came, and communication and shipments from Earth to its colonies on Mars stopped, life seemed stuck in foreboding stasis until the night Silas Mundt and his gang attacked.
At once evoking the dreams of an America explored in Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and the harder realities of frontier life in Charles Portis True Grit, Ballingrud's novel is haunting in its evocation of Anabelle's quest for revenge amidst a spent and angry world accompanied by a domestic Engine, a drunken space pilot, and the toughest woman on Mars.
Most reviews of this book call it "True Grit on Mars," and this really is an apt description. Annabelle Crisp is a 14-year-old girl living in a small Martian frontier town with her father, when outlaws come and ransack their little restaurant, setting off a series of events ending with her father in jail facing the noose. Annabelle goes on a quest for vengeance. So, teenage girl trying to outwit and out-moxy bad, dangerous men in a lawless frontier. True Grit is one of my favorite books so I was predisposed to like this book, and Nathan Ballingrud does a good job of evoking both the frontier Western and all the other Martian colonization novels that have preceded this one.
The Strange is set in an alternate history in which Mars was colonized in the early 20th century, and also resembles what people in the early 20th century thought Mars was like (i.e., it's cold and dry but habitable, and has strange native flora and fauna). Annabelle lives in a town that was mostly settled by Americans fleeing poverty on Earth, but there are also British and Germans and a few other nationalities, and it's mentioned that some Native American tribes emigrated to Mars as well, though we never see them. The technology is "steampunkish" as there are flying saucers that run on traditional fuel, and also robots that function both as household appliances and war machines.
Annabelle's parents started a little restaurant on Mars. Then Annabelle's mother receives a message from Earth that her mother is dying, and she returns to say good-bye, promising her husband and daughter that she'll be back. After that came the Silence, when suddenly they lost all contact with Earth. No more ships arrived, and the one ship already on Mars has the only fuel left on the planet, so the colonists are afraid to send it back.
Thus Annabelle and her father are living in an increasingly poor and desperate frontier town while Annabelle is struggling with feelings of abandonment by her mother. Tensions in town, along with threats from the nearby mining settlement, lead to a series of tragic events and Annabelle, not acting entirely rationally, decides to go looking for vengeance.
I have previously only read a couple of short stories by Nathan Ballingrud. This is his first novel. I think the tone was perfect: Mars is a hard, gritty frontier full of desperate, scrabbling settlers and desperadoes, and it's also a pulp era alien planet with more weirdness than Annabelle realizes at first. Her adventures take a strange and eerie turn, and the threats range from old World War I-era war robots to alien moths that possess dead bodies. Annabelle herself was kind of annoying at times; she really is a 14-year-old girl. She's brave but not always very smart, and being driven by emotions leads her into trouble more often than not.
It ends with a much older Annabelle reminiscing about her life, so on the one hand, a lot of questions remain unanswered, but on the other, Ballingrud probably could write a sequel if he wanted to. The Strange is a good book that almost feels like an old sci-fi classic.
My complete list of book reviews.