The Empress of Mars

The Empress of Mars was written by the late Kage Baker (June 10, 1952 — January 31, 2010; 1st name pronounced like ‘cage’). It started out as a novella (2003; read it on Asimov’s for free), which won the 2004 Theodore Sturgeon Award and was nominated for a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award, but was later expanded into the full-length novel published in 2009 that I review here.

The Empress of Mars is not Martian royalty. This is not Barsoom, the Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs. You won’t find a John Carter-type hero fighting native Martians and rescuing princesses within these pages, though Baker does pay homage to Burroughs’ Mars tales. Tars Tarkas makes an appearance as the Martian Santa Claus, for example.

No, The Empress of Mars is a restaurant and bar owned by one Mary Griffith, an early settler of Mars and former biological scientist. A tough, motherly figure, Mary Griffith embodies the rugged individualism and pioneer spirit that pervades Baker’s The Empress of Mars. Baker’s tale is more scientifically literate than Burroughs’, and qualifies (mostly at least, see below) as hard science fiction, leavened with superior writing and humor. It is set some unspecified time after the year 2186 — marking a past event, the year the Kutuzov expedition discovered Olympus Mons is not an extinct shield volcano, it was the only date I recall seeing in the novel.

The story revolves around Mary, her three daughters, and a host of other quirky characters, some of whom she takes under her wing, others she befriends or does business with, as they deal with at first neglect by and then interference from the bureaucrats of the British Arean Company (BAC).

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This science fiction book is only tangentially related to Baker's Company series--in the same universe but no character or plot overlap. Baker has created a vivid picture of a dying colony on Mars, with a nearly bankrupt corporation cutting their colonists off with nothing in an environment depicted with realism and depth. The characters are distinct and colorful, the plot lines intertwine, and the story moves along with vigor.

So why am I left feeling just a bit unsatisfied at the end? Even though this is very character-based, there is lots of action as well. Is it the rapid denouement? Or is it the feeling that we have just dipped into this reality for a slice of time, and leave before we are really ready? ( )

Plucky colonists eke out a living on Mars and eventually triumph over the neglectful company that brought them there. Tangentially related to the Company series. ( )

The Empress of Mars is most certainly an experiment in expectations. Having read Baker's The House of the Stag (and loving it, by the way), and being wholly unfamiliar with her Company novels, I had expected The Empress of Mars to be another adventurous, incredibly internalized story, only with spaceships and other science fiction furniture instead of magic and half-demons. Only, that's not what I got. Instead, The Empress of Mars provided me with more of Baker's ability to craft character and a strangely vibrant vision of a Mars that just might be, without the need for explosions and laser pistols to keep things interesting.

The Empress of Mars takes place on, well, Mars, obviously, and follows Mary Griffith, a worshiper of "the Goddess" and owner of a seedy bar called The Empress, practically the only thing she owns, and a business she is struggling to keep afloat. There, she and her daughters, and a ragtag group of unwanted men and women who have come to Mars for the chance to make a life for themselves, eke out a meager living under the stern hand of the British Arean Company. Mary has had a hard life, too, with the BAC breathing down her neck, but unable to do anything about her, and all manner of unsavory characters wanting to see her pushed off the planet for good. After a string of good luck, however, Mary finds herself the target of the BAC's legal rumblings and business acumen. Now everything rests on Mary's shoulders: her business, the fate of Mars, and, most importantly, her family.

Baker's pension for character is certainly a feature of this installment in her Company series. Mary Griffith is one of a set of astonishing array of unique characters, all with powerful motivations, wonderfully realized dialogue, and Baker's own flare for creating fascinating black and white figures on both sides of the coin. You still hate her bad guys, but you at least understand why they do what they do and disagree with them either because you hold different beliefs or because their tactics are unacceptable. Her good guys have similar problems, and this makes her story incredibly character-driven, because as the story moves along, Baker creates for us a long string of flawed, but endearing figures that you can't help but love, even if you disagree with aspects of their lifestyles. There are no wooden characters here.

Pacing and world-wise, The Empress of Mars doesn't leave too much to the imagination. Some might conceive of this as a flaw, considering that much of Baker's novel is not at all unlike what we might see going on today: legal blunders, corporations overstepping their bounds, bitter attempts to steal land from underprivileged people, etc. The plot does take some time to get moving, but once it does, Mars comes to life as a clear, but somewhat exaggerated (and necessarily so) reflection of our present. Everything is laid out for the reader, bringing focus to the characters and their struggles with what is going on around them and de-centering the wider struggle of mankind; this creates isolation in plot and world, providing ample space for Baker to develop the scenery and history of the Mars colonists. Only in the end do things move a little too quickly, and some questions are left unanswered, but perhaps for good reason (the supernatural might have played a welcome--or unwelcome, depending on your perspective--hand in the overall story, but that's up for the reader to decide on his or her own).

Beyond a somewhat lingering plot, Baker's imagining of religion seems to have a stronger connection to exoticism than realism. I feel as though the insertion of the mostly-pagan worship of the Goddess was inconsistent with what actually might be true in our own future. Mary's relationship to "the Goddess," while interesting, reflects more of the old, somewhat absurd early renderings of Mars in science fiction. Granted, I have not read her other Company novels, so perhaps there are some clear and powerful motivations for the changes in religion and social dynamics that I am unaware of in reading The Empress of Mars, but regardless, this seems a somewhat absurd complaint to have when the overwhelming majority of my thoughts about this particular novel center on my love for Baker's writing and her ability to create memorable characters.

If everything up to this point hasn't indicated whether or not I liked this book, then I'll clarify now: while The Empress of Mars is not perfect, I found myself thoroughly engaged by the characters and once again loving Baker's writing style. This novel may not be for everyone--after all, it is not about galactic wars or spaceships or many of the more explosive and action-packed elements of the science fiction genre--but it will certainly appeal to many readers, particularly those who enjoy stories centered on the characters, rather than on the shininess of the setting. ( )