First the good. I love the idea of the book. Art Thrasher, a tech entrepreneur who believes we should be sending crewed missions to Mars, determines that private efforts can accomplish what the "g-d government" (this particular noun is distasteful to Thrasher, and is always accompanied by the profane adjective) has neither the will, the funding, or the drive to accomplish. I agree with him on that point. SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and other private, profit-driven companies will drive future space development as much as, if not more than, government has or will.
Bova creates a convincing argument that the biggest obstacle to taking strides in the space program is money. Thrasher gathers a couple dozen billionaires who are willing to sink a portion of their billions into a project for which the promise of return on their investment is rather slim. Further, Bova presents the science of Mars, Inc. in such a way that nothing in it seems to be a great leap beyond present technology. (I am speaking as a non-scientist, of course.)
Now the criticism. Mars, Inc. struck me as a very amateurish effort. I've read self-published novels, and novels by first-time writers that were better written. If I didn't know this was written by an award-winning, legendary sci-fi writer, I would have thought it was a no-name writer, published by a no-name press. The financial, political, scientific, and personal hurdles Thrasher faces are poorly developed, superficially described, and simplistically resolved. The characters are cardboard cutouts, and their relationships and interactions lack spark or depth.
So take the good with the bad. Mars, Inc. is a quick, fun read, that left me wishing I had a few billion laying around that I could use to put together a Mars mission of my own. But it's really not a very good book.
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