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1991 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (nominee)
Publisher's Weekly
Space travel is viewed with a witty, original eye in Bisson's entertaining novel. The U.S. has survived the Greater Depression by selling off assets to settle its debts. Disney has bought NASA, and now wants to film a movie on location on Mars. The mothballed, never-used, joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. spaceship, the Mary Poppins , is restored to active status, and takes off. On board, in addition to the movie crew, is a stowaway teenage girl, who, when the leading lady does not awaken from suspended animation, gets her big chance to become a movie queen--maybe. Back on Earth, business mergers are threatening not only her chances, but also that of the entire voyage, as Mission Control goes bankrupt and can no longer provide the sophisticated course correction the Mary Poppins requires. The writing is enjoyably silly: Bisson ( Fire on the Mountain ) describes this making of a B-movie in tongue-in-cheek prose, itself deliberately reminiscent of the hackneyed plotting of that genre.
Library Journal
In a future where Disney owns NASA and private enterprise has a lock on international politics, the first manned trip to Mars is--not surprisingly--sponsored by Pellucidar Films. Bisson's ( Talking Man, LJ 10/15/86) flair for offbeat characters and rapid-fire prose delivers a considerable punch to this slimly plotted but entertaining sf satire. For large libraries.
School Library Journal
YA-- In Bisson's fourth novel, readers find no 12-foot-tall Burroughsian aliens or memory-blocked Schwarzeneggers turning the landscape viscera red. Instead, the tranquil Martian sands become Hollywood's largest and most remote on-location filming. Set in the 21st century, a near bankrupt U. S. government is reduced to selling off federal agencies to private industry, e.g. NASA to Disney and the Smithsonian to Nabisco. Enter Pellucidar pictures, which has launched the first Mars mission as a money-making ''long shot'' and Academy Award winning hopeful. The cast and crew are a zany mixture of aging astronauts, wacky Hollywood types, and a teenage stowaway. Budget cuts on Earth and equipment malfunction threaten both the picture and the lives of the crew. Take the socio-political satire of Philip K. Dick or John Brunner and the hard science of Larry Niven and stir in the irreverent humor of Harry Harrison or Robert Asprin and you get a glimmer of what Bisson's original, imaginative yarn is like. --John Lawson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Genre: Science Fiction
Space travel is viewed with a witty, original eye in Bisson's entertaining novel. The U.S. has survived the Greater Depression by selling off assets to settle its debts. Disney has bought NASA, and now wants to film a movie on location on Mars. The mothballed, never-used, joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. spaceship, the Mary Poppins , is restored to active status, and takes off. On board, in addition to the movie crew, is a stowaway teenage girl, who, when the leading lady does not awaken from suspended animation, gets her big chance to become a movie queen--maybe. Back on Earth, business mergers are threatening not only her chances, but also that of the entire voyage, as Mission Control goes bankrupt and can no longer provide the sophisticated course correction the Mary Poppins requires. The writing is enjoyably silly: Bisson ( Fire on the Mountain ) describes this making of a B-movie in tongue-in-cheek prose, itself deliberately reminiscent of the hackneyed plotting of that genre.
Library Journal
In a future where Disney owns NASA and private enterprise has a lock on international politics, the first manned trip to Mars is--not surprisingly--sponsored by Pellucidar Films. Bisson's ( Talking Man, LJ 10/15/86) flair for offbeat characters and rapid-fire prose delivers a considerable punch to this slimly plotted but entertaining sf satire. For large libraries.
School Library Journal
YA-- In Bisson's fourth novel, readers find no 12-foot-tall Burroughsian aliens or memory-blocked Schwarzeneggers turning the landscape viscera red. Instead, the tranquil Martian sands become Hollywood's largest and most remote on-location filming. Set in the 21st century, a near bankrupt U. S. government is reduced to selling off federal agencies to private industry, e.g. NASA to Disney and the Smithsonian to Nabisco. Enter Pellucidar pictures, which has launched the first Mars mission as a money-making ''long shot'' and Academy Award winning hopeful. The cast and crew are a zany mixture of aging astronauts, wacky Hollywood types, and a teenage stowaway. Budget cuts on Earth and equipment malfunction threaten both the picture and the lives of the crew. Take the socio-political satire of Philip K. Dick or John Brunner and the hard science of Larry Niven and stir in the irreverent humor of Harry Harrison or Robert Asprin and you get a glimmer of what Bisson's original, imaginative yarn is like. --John Lawson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Genre: Science Fiction
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