1995 SF, third and last of its series. "Star" Svensdotter and her
children are sent off to assist the expedition that's looking into
alien ruins on Mars.
There's rather less of the heroic engineering for the Great God
Profit in this book, and rather more exploration and sense of
wonder—and for me it works rather better. Our heroes are dropped off
in a complicated balloon (in the wrong place) and make their way
across Mars, seeing amazing things and meeting the few people who are
there already.
There are certainly still problems. Star is grieving for her husband,
and everybody except her knows that she's doing it wrong and tries
to make her do it right instead; I know that it's possible to grieve
in unhealthy ways, but this kind of attitude always feels like
paternalism (in this case literally "mother knows best") and real
people grieve in their own time and according to their own psyches,
not following a formal progression like the much-abused Kübler-Ross
model.
Also there are a couple of passages where it's clear that Stabenow
thinks that the orbit of Mars is outside that of the Asteroid Belt.
Which is the sort of thing you should probably check if you're writing
SF with rivets. Also they can steer their unpowered balloon by
deploying or retracting sails
(Andrée
would have loved it). And I am distinctly dubious about flying with
personal wings in 0.006 atmospheres of pressure even if there is lower
gravity than on Earth. (Real designs for Martian aircraft tend to look
like a rocket-powered U-2.)
Still,the rest of the book is enjoyable, even if there does need to be
a stereotypical villain to spice things up. The alien ruins are
appropriately enigmatic,the tech is mostly plausible, and most
importantly the people make sense as people (even if personalities
beyond Star's own are a bit one-note).
After the disappointment of rereading the first two books in this
series I'm glad to have ended on a more positive reaction, though I
won't be surprised if I don't choose to revisit.