Oh, Christopher Pike, how I have loved you! Had any other author tried to sell me an ancient civilization vampires on Mars horror story (oops, spoilers!), I would have laughed, then thrown the book to the ground. (Not literally. I couldn't be so mean to a book.) But this book -- every time it took a turn from a straight Mars SF novel that should have annoyed me, it was such a familiar Pike move that I felt nostalgic "Awwww!"s rising up within me.

Pure nostalgia crack, melding the Stine/Pike/King arc of my teen years with my more hard-SF loving self of today.

I really have no idea what you would think of this story if you aren't me. ( )

I was going to give it a solid 4.6 but then the fourth part began and it drastically fell. ( )

this was my fav christopher pike book! ( )

The novel is an intriguing blend of space opera, horror story with a very traditional monster, and even touches of high fantasy. In 2004 the second manned expedition to Mars is launched by the Americans with a crew of six that includes medical officer Dr Lauren Wagner. The first manned mission by the Russians a few years before mysteriously disappeared--and just before the mission is launched the American crew is told of a mysterious footprint that showed up in a photograph from an unmanned probe. A "Note to the Reader" by the author warns that this was originally written in the 1970s. "Please accept the odd dates and the strange absence of cellphones." Some lines did jar a bit because of that--slang like "dig" and quaint concerns about "liberated women" and astonishment NASA would put the health of the mission in the hands of a "woman doctor." It's worth overlooking though. This was one hell of a thrill ride--genuinely suspenseful, scary, creepy and goosebumpy (and at times gross). I very much did like how neatly Pike drew the various lines together with a neat twist. This doesn't have any pretenses to literature--the style isn't remarkable either for elegance or wretchedness--I'd call it serviceable. But Pike sure kept me turning the pages, and I'd say this is the kind of yarn that would do Stephen King proud. ( )

While I grew up absolutely in love with Christopher Pike, I have to say, this is not what I remember. It was too long, too slowly paced, too scattered. While the story of vampires being based on Mars, their long link to Earth, and the story of a religious nature involving humans and vampires was interesting and complex enough to keep me motivated to the end, it just didn't hit a home run with me. ( )