Genre: Science Fiction, Mystery
Reviewer: Scott
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About The Book
A long-dead genius. A hidden invention that could save—or doom—humanity. Can Leif find it before it falls into the wrong hands?
The Martian Girl is a myth, some people say, created in the dark years after an apocalyptic global war. Perhaps she was a genius in mathematics and the greatest theoretical physicist since Einstein and Hawking. She may have made a mathematical breakthrough or a powerful weapon. No one knows for sure.
In AD 2726, Leif Grettison, former army ranger and exoplanetary scout, returns from the stars a weary man. Four and a half centuries have passed since he was last on Earth. Now, statues honor him, and history books extol the almost-accurate legends of Lucky Leif. But all he really wants is a small cottage on a hill with a good view and no neighbors. (Good luck with that, Leif!)
Leif knows nothing about the Martian Girl. But when he agrees to a simple request, his path leads to a relationship he never expected, two teens nobody wants, and a scheme to revive the Martian Girl’s former home, a dead city on Mars. Suddenly, discovering what the Martian Girl did is the center of Leif’s life.
Bringing a city on Mars back to life is hard enough, but some of the team are agents of competing powers, each determined to find what the Martian Girl created. They will resort to anything, even murder, to possess it. If there is a weapon and Leif cannot secure it, his friends will be in danger, the shaky peace on Earth will collapse, and the world may plunge into devastating wars.
Can a legend still gripped by his past save our future? Or will the Martian Girl’s invention push humanity over the brink?
The Review
I first became aware of Colin Alexander’s Leif the Lucky series because I worked with the author on the Indie Author Committee at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Association.
The premise of the series intrigued me. Each individual novel tackles a different sci-fi trope. I have been following them eagerly as they come out, and just finished the final book, The Martian Girl.
In each of these books, Leif, a US Army Ranger everyman, leaves Earth for a “starshot” to another planet. Relativity plays tricks with him, as he comes back to Earth after every trip to find something different. In one book, he returns to the Golden Age of human civilization. In another, it’s to a post-apocalyptic nightmare.
The latest version of Earth is something in between – a civilization reminiscent of the early 21st century, in some ways more advanced, but without the internet connectivity of our age. With the way that artificial intelligence contributed to the downfall of civilization, this new human society is bound and determined not to go down that same path.
What I love about Alexander‘s work is how he plays with overarching ideas in his work which supplement the plot. For example, in previous novels and in this one, he touches on how disinformation makes humankind distrust everything. This time Alexander takes things a bit further, as these people of a technological age try to piece together their past, often with hilarious results.
The animating arc of this volume is a myth that’s called variously The Martian Girl in the west and The Little Sister in the East. A number of cultures on Earth have a similar myth – that just before the Tribulations, the period of immense upheaval after the apocalypse, a young girl on Mars invented something of immense importance that’s been lost to time.
A mission to Mars is mounted to reinhabit one of the pre-Trib cities there, and to look for evidence of the Martian Girl and whatever she might have been working on. Various factions of this new world, including New Terra, Pacifica, and the Middle Kingdom, are all keen to track down and take control of this idea or piece of technology. The one remaining heir to the woman behind the legend, a gay teen named David Saint Germain, has assigned the rights to whatever is found to the Commonality, a loose the global government.
Was it a weapon? A mathematical theorem? Or something far more interesting?
Leif ends up joining David and his friend Sanae on a mission to Mars, to discover whatever the Martian girl was working on. In the process, he finds a new purpose in life. I was thrilled to see a queer character included, and Sanae stole every scene she was in with her wisecracking teen persona.
One of the enduring themes of the series is that, while it undergoes sometimes catastrophic upheavals, some of the basic things about humanity never change. Even in peaceful eras, there is an underlying violence, and yet the human race seems to find ways to come out on top. This final volume offers both a compelling mystery and a satisfying conclusion to Leif’s journey.
The writing is stellar, the pacing is good, and the underlying mystery drags you forward through the story as you search along with Leif for clues to who the Martian girl was and what she was working on.
My reading time is limited, but even so, I did not want to put the book down, especially as it drew to a close. I finished the last hundred pages in a rush, and have to say that I was very disappointed – only because there wasn’t more of this wonderful book.
In Leif, Alexander has crafted a consistent and compelling “everyman” character, whose moral compass guides not only himself, but also the civilizations that he touches in his brief visits between starshots. He’s relatable because he was born close to our own time. He’s an avatar, one of those focal points in history on multiple occasions, a legend who walks out of the dust of the past onto the stage a number of times, much to the surprise of the humans of each era.
The series is also a well thought out time travel story, only the time travel happens in only one direction, in leaps and bounds toward the future.
The Secret of the Martian Girl is an extremely well written, fascinating take on where our future is headed, fused with an action adventure and mystery that will keep you guessing and turning the pages. I don’t usually give stars in my reviews, but if I did, this one would be a 5+.
The Reviewer
Scott is the founder of Queer Sci Fi, and a fantasy and sci fi writer in his own right, with more than 30 published short stories, novellas and novels to his credit, including two trilogies.
