Official Review: ♂️: The Novel by Gerard DiLeo

[dorebri2020]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "♂️: The Novel" by Gerard DiLeo.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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Mars: The Novel is a fantastic full sci-fi novel that creates a brilliant universe focused on the newly terraformed and colonized Mars. Gerard DiLeo has created a masterful world with all kinds of new technology, creatures, and scientific advancements that can easily immerse a reader into the story. This novel follows a vast number of characters in their individual and connected adventures on the new environment of Mars in the 25th century. Faced with many new mysteries, Earth sends the best and brightest to decipher any natural forms of life on Mars, primarily any form of Martian. The main character, Dr. Renee Niemann, is a veterinarian struggling with personal issues. After 'telomorphing' and virtually stopping the aging process, Renee leaves her dying family on Earth to contribute to the veterinary studies of Mars. After discovering the existence of vicious ferropods, small creatures that distinctly resemble ball bearings, Renee and her team begin to investigate the new life form and question why it has begun to attack and implant itself into human colonists. Meanwhile, a power struggle is occurring on Mars as Denton Walsh, a representative of Earth, aspires to take over and control Mars as an independent society outside of Earth's control. His tyrannical ways threaten the new studies of Renee's team and the sanctity of Mars as a whole, leaving Renee's team and friends dealing with threats from vicious creatures and an internal threat from a violent government.

DiLeo's greatest achievement is the character development he accomplished. Even though colonization of Mars successfully is beyond our current imagination, DiLeo successfully created a society that is believable in such an unbelievable place. Every character is well-developed and has a believable backstory with motives to match, even though Walsh and the government can be a bit overwhelming. For instance, Renee is suffering from the guilt of telomorphing when her family declined the transition and is driven by her will to forget this guilt instead of accepting and forgiving. Each character practice such as this one is absolutely believable and heartfelt, allowing for a surplus of emotions in what is an overall pure scientific discussion. DiLeo also demonstrates expertise in creating a character of any age, as he explores the dynamics of 8-year-old Mare up to 100-year-old telomorphed characters experiencing the new world's mysteries. This adds a nice touch to the novel that can hook in readers, as it allows for relationships to build well between characters and shows that science fiction novels do not have to purely derive off of theoretical technologies.

The worldbuilding is also phenomenal. Every aspect of Mars is described in astronomical detail, which makes the imagery come to life. I could clearly picture the dust storms as they ravaged the newly terraformed area or the ferropods as they swarmed the helpless humans. Every scene created a picture in mind and helped me envision myself in that situation. DiLeo also experimented with many new forms of futuristic technology in his novel, most of which were logical and fitting in the plot. For example, there was essentially a fancy time machine entitled the ṺberCollider which capitalized on quantum theory to demonstrate how time could be altered to discover ancient mysteries. Having studied basic quantum theory, the device is logical and follows basic theory well. Every single one of DiLeo's new technologies is fitting with theoretical practice today and demonstrates the amount of research and effort DiLeo put into writing the novel, which I deeply appreciate. It truly brings a whole new layer to this sci-fi novel.

I did find a few issues within the book, however. To begin, there are many unnecessary characters or character development moments. There are already so many main characters that adding another backstory to a minor character is unnecessary and can appear redundant at times. This can be seen in many main plot moments where a character may be facing a traumatic event and will flashback to an unimportant detail in their life that distracts from the event that the author is describing. Similarly, there can be too much information provided about unnecessary technologies, such as how they work and how they have been used in previous centuries. These unnecessary details and characters distracted from the main plot and confused me when I focused on them too much. Therefore, if these sections were simplified and a few of the distracting plots were taken out of the novel, I feel I would have been able to focus more on the main plot.

Overall, I rate Mars: The Novel 3 out of 4 stars. While the overall premise and execution were great, and the character development alone made me want to give four stars, the distracting side plots made me detract a star. There were also a few grammar issues, which is to be expected of a novel so large, but that also contributed to the lower rating. I would recommend this to anyone who can appreciate a sci-fi read, or who is interested in a fun space story, although it is long and can cover some dark themes. If anyone dislikes long and technical novels and is looking for a typical adventure story, this is not the book to read. The novel also contains some crude language and references to erotic moments, so I would keep the book away from younger children. In the end, the book is one of the best sci-fi novels I have read, and the characters and plot were fantastic overall.

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♂️: The Novel
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[Gabriel Merêncio]

Even with the editing issues and unnecessary information, this novel sounds like an absolute must-read for sci-fi fans. I particularly enjoy stories that feature interesting, thought-provoking technologies coupled with politics, so I'll definitely be checking this one out. Thanks for the review!

[Erin Dydek]

The world-building does sound well done in this book. I enjoyed the imagery you described. Thanks for the review and recommendation!

[Erin Painter Baker]

This sounds like a really good book that could have been amazing with a really good developmental editor, who could have helped the author realize that just because the author knew every bit of backstory and every bit of technology, the reader did not need to know it.

[LinaMueller]

This is a wonderful review you have written here. Well done.

[Nisha Ward]

I can see why Renee would feel guilt over telemorphing but, at thw same time, it seems like hwr services are invaluable to the novel's plot. Also, I'm curious as to what happens with the ferropods. They sound terrifying.

[SunVixen]

This book look like real sci-fi, not some space opera. Thank you for great review!