Lone Star Book Blog Tour: Mars Adrift by McFall & Hays (Review and Giveaway)

“Greed is like a dark form of emotional gravity, always pulling the worst behaviors out of people. Some people. Not everyone. But most. Yes, most.”

In Mars Adrift by Kathleen McFall and Clark Hays, The Halo Trilogy sadly comes to an end, but what an end it is! Gates of Mars, Scorched Earth, and Mars Adrift really should be read in order because they are cemented together by the characters and events and because they are all pure entertainment.

“According to my long-range sensors, things are about to get chaotic.”

In Mars Adrift, Mars really is adrift after being attacked by a mysterious force that everyone thought was long gone. Halo is down, and Crucial Larsen; his sister, Essential; and my favorite character, Sanders, are flying blind as they search for Melinda Hopwire and hope against all hope that she is still alive. Apparently, Mel, with her spunky kitten, Wisp, in tow, is the key to the Halo backup servers, and it becomes a dangerous race for Crucial and his squad to find and save her before the greedy bad people can fulfill their dastardly goal and kill them all in the process. The year is 2188, but the narrative often flashes forward to Chancellor Lauren Valentine encouraging her university students to examine history and historical perspectives, especially when Mars was blitzed all those years ago. While the bulk of the story focuses on Crucial in 2188, Valentine’s contributions decades later are equally important, maybe even more so because of her unenviable opportunity to view what happened years ago through her own experiences and through a lens polished, or perhaps made even murkier, by time and loss.

Hays and McFall have created yet another charismatic, action-packed tale that begins with a devastating attack and ends with thoughtful retrospection years later. Crucial Larsen is an incredibly flawed yet likable character who has slowly been revealing an empathetic and somewhat selfless side that no one, least of all him, would have ever expected. Notoriously self-centered and prone to drinking too much alcohol, Crucial plows through the destruction on Mars to find his true love, Melinda Hopwire, all while avoiding obliteration by his personal enemy and the enemy of anyone standing in the way of a total takeover. This story is intriguing because it presents the idea that introducing the Empathy hack into the AI Halo server may not be the complete answer to eliminating inequality. Too much of a good thing is a common trope, but without empathy, the planets will remain lopsided, with the few amassing all the wealth and the rest lapping up the leftover scraps to survive. But is there such a thing as too much empathy, especially if altruism causes societies to target specific people who are not empathic enough?

Such a good question, but when the Red Planet dust hits the fan, Crucial is only interested in finding Mel, saving the universe, keeping Essential in check and alive, and dragging Sanders along for the ride. Speaking of Sanders, how could any reader not fall in love with this cybanism? He is hilarious, and his love for and loyalty to Crucial is both heartwarming and heartbreaking because cybanisms can potentially exist forever, but humans cannot. Sanders may never become fully human, but in the wise words of Crucial, “If you’re confused by love, you’ve basically become human.”

Mars Adrift wraps up this thrilling trilogy and will leave readers with plenty to ponder, in terms of the human condition, the validity of historical hindsight and perspective, and the power of love. The entertainment factor in Mars Adrift and the other two books in the trilogy is way beyond sky high and will no doubt prompt readers to crack open the many other books by this fantastic writing team. Science Fiction may or may not be your genre of choice, but if you love a well-written, suspenseful, high-octane, romance/bromance, fight evil kind of story, you will thoroughly enjoy Mars Adrift, book three in The Halo Trilogy.

“A lot can happen in a second. Lives can end or begin. Or change forever.”

Enter the giveaway below on or before February 21, 2022, for a chance to win autographed copies of all three books in The Halo Trilogy by McFall + Hays.

I received a free copy of this book from Lone Star Book Blog Tours in exchange for my honest review.