Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. Unfortunately, while the blurb really interested me, I have not been able to get into the book.

I wanted to like this book, middle grade sci-fi should be almost a sure hit. But it just wasn't. Some parts were awfully repetitive and felt like they were talking down to the reader, I'm aware that this is aimed at a younger audience but I know full well I would've been annoyed reading this at age 10. This book had a lot of potential and sadly I don't think it reached it.

http://freshfiction.com/review.php?id=66013

A stirring YA adventure of colonising Mars.
apparently this needs to be 100 characters.

I really wanted to love this book, but I just couldn't get beyond some of the really distracting things in it. Repetitive parts lost my interest, and the main character seemed immature, with some plot points just not making much sense. There is so much potential in this story of life on Mars . . . but I know that if I had trouble staying interested in it because of distracting elements, then my students would be even less patient with it.

I found this book to be stilted and awkward. It read like a corny sci-fi book from the 50's without even a hint of irony.

Let me first say that I am much older than the target audience for this book. I may ♥ YA books, and I may have read some amazing MG books recently, but this book is geared for a much younger age group.

I thought this was a YA book when I requested it. I just looked back on NetGalley, and I see that it says Middle Grade, but I was browsing through YA books when I found this one.

SIDE RANT: I would love it NetGalley would either integrate information from GoodReads into their site or develop their own information system that gives more information about books, besides their title, author, publisher, and a synopsis. for example, sometimes NetGalley doesn't list if a book is part of a series. I have unknowingly requested the 2nd or 3rd book in a series before, then had to find and read the other books before I was able to read the one book I thought I was requesting.)

But I digress...

Although this book was written for a younger audience, I still found it entertaining, and I know if I were younger, I would have absolutely loved it.

Not only does it allow younger readers to imagine what it might be like to travel to or live on a different planet, but it also touches on some important topics, like race relations, but in a way that younger readers can understand and enjoy.

I received a copy of this book from the publishers, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

This was a unique middle grade story about life on Mars.

While I was reading this story, I was reminded of the book The Martian. That’s the only book I’ve read that is set on another planet. However, in this story, Mars has already been colonized and humans have lived there for many years.

It was interesting to see the different alien races that also lived on Mars. The segregation between the aliens was a lot like race segregation in the real world. Belle’s friend, Ta’al is of the Nubian race. She has to go through separate entrances, and she is completely ignored by everyone else at school. Belle questions why this is, which demonstrates that she is an intelligent girl.

This book is separated into four parts. Each of these parts was originally published as a separate book. This is a little confusing at first, because the characters are reintroduced at the beginning of each part. My least favourite part was the first one. It was an introduction to the characters and setting, but I found it anticlimactic. The following parts had more solid storylines with lots of tension, so I enjoyed them more.

This book is great for kids who are interested in life in space.

I really wanted to like A.L. Collins' MG sci-fi book Redworld. An inventive and independent 13-year-old girl (Belle Song) in the year 2335 arriving on a terraformed Mars with her family and a "Home Helper" intelligent robot and having to adapt to a new world, a new (and unexpected) life farming, new neighbors (including several alien ones), and a host of dangers such as water raiders and feral animal hybrids? It sounded like nothing so much as a modern-da Heinlein juvenile, say Farmer in the Sky or (more obviously) Red Planet, two books I loved as a kid. Sign me up!

Unfortunately, my desire to like the book combined with my nostalgic yearning for a whiff of those early reading years could only carry me so long, and eventually disappointment won out over both, thanks to a flat setting, a character who became somewhat grating, and a host of implausible plot points.

The setting, as noted, is Mars of 2335, but to be honest, I'd be hard pressed to know that beyond the direct references to it. Granted, it's a terraformed Mars, but aside from a few stock references to dust storms and lighter-than-Earth gravity, I never felt like I was on Mars. Or anywhere that wasn't Earth. There just wasn't enough there there in terms of detail or vividness or otherworldliness. The book felt like it could have been set on Earth with only very minor and trivial changes, a few scattered phrases, names, and descriptions and that's about it. It seemed a huge missed opportunity.

Belle herself is likably bright, independent, and impetuous at first. But her impetuosity and its consequences began to feel repetitive and formulaic. And to be honest, annoying, as she never seemed to be affected by past events. It was as if every adventure happened in a vacuum. After getting one of her close friends captured by violent criminals, and potentially injured or even killed, one would think she'd at least have been somewhat affected by that experience. But there's no sense of that the next time she does something "impetuous" (read "stupid"). Or the time after that. Or the time after that. Not to mention at some point you'd think her parents would realize that just saying "don't do anything dangerous" wasn't exactly cutting it.

Strong plotting could have compensated somewhat for character issues, but there were far too many implausible moments in the book beyond her parent's lack of reaction and Belle's lack of responsibility. The farmers are troubled by water raiders whose "hidden lair" is simply unbelievably close to the farms themselves and which Belle just stumbles upon. I actually went back to reread thinking I had missed something that would explain she'd somehow had traveled farther than I'd thought. But not the case. I had to do the same, also in vain, when she was threatened by a pack of feral animals, unable to understand why she wouldn't cry for help or why her parents were wholly oblivious. These were not at all isolated cases, but I don't want to belabor the point. Suffice to say by the end my margin notes consisted of writing several times "seriously?" The plot wasn't helped by repetitive "recap" moments, making it obvious the different sections were written (maybe published) separately or perhaps serialized-I have no idea why an editor didn't simply remove them.

There is a worthy underlying theme of bigotry and, to a lesser extent, environmental stewardship, that runs through, but even for a MG book it's pretty heavy-handed and weakly resolved. And Collins does play with structure a bit by interspersing Belle's journal entries throughout, but as they mostly recapitulate what we already know, or can assume, they felt unnecessary.

Honestly, beyond the superb illustrations by Tomislav Tikulin, I'm sorry to say that it's difficult to find much positive to say about Redworld. And certainly, with so much good MG and YA out there, I just can't recommend it.

This series looks like it is actually comprised of four books, Homestead, Raiders, Tharsis City, and Legacy. I was suspicious of this when I was reading the book and there was a recap of events or who people were at the beginnings of what seemed to be chapters. This makes the books a much more manageable length, but confuses matters when reviewing the book, since I read it as one book.





cover_imageCollins, A.L. Redworld: Year One

February 1st 2018 by Capstone Young Readers

E ARC from Edelweiss Plus



Belle, her robot Melody, and her family move to Mars so that her parents can work for BAMcorp in the big, fancy city, but right after arrival, they are "made redundant". Not wanting to flee back to earth (although Belle is okay with that), the family buys a farm and heads out into the "wild west". They have a hover wagon pulled by horsel (a camel horse hybrid), which is big enough to sleep in. This is a good thing, since their house is a shack on the windswept Martian prairie. Luckily, neighbors Lucas (who is half Sulux) and Myra happen by and show them the the shack is really just the "front porch" for a much nicer, more modern living space below. There are still a lot of similarities to US pioneering life, and Belle soon finds herself at a small school. She takes a liking to classmate Ta'al, who is Nabian, and doesn't understand why the other children ignore her. She gets assigned to work on a science fair project with Lucas, and has to work on an agriculture project involving turken chicks instead of improving her previous science fair winner, Petripuffs. (Small balls that, when thrown, release a toxin that paralyzes the victim for 30 seconds. They are mentioned a LOT.) When Raiders appear to steal Belle's family's water, Belle gains a wolf dog and manages to disprove the widespread notion that Nabian's are Raiders. When her mother realizes she is pregnant, the family needs to travel to Tharsis City for a doctor's appointment. Lucas and Ta'al's families decide to come along, and the groups run into problems when both Raider, the wolf dog, and Melody are kidnapped and must be rescued. In the final book, Belle finds an archaeological site that proves that at one point, the Sulux and Nabian people were friends, which helps the two groups make peace and finally get along.

Strengths: This had some interesting world building (sort of like Heinlein's Farmer in the Sky), and the mix of Little House on the Martian Prairie and science fiction elements was interesting. Belle is constantly getting herself into trouble, which will appeal to tween readers. They will also wish that they had a robot like Melody who could tell them bad jokes but but also save them from wolves. There is a good message about prejudice and understanding people who might be different from you. The families are all supportive, and positive. There is a little about terraforming and agriculture on Mars, which was interesting as well.

Weaknesses: I'm not the target demographic, and expect my science fiction to be more sophisticated. More details about terraforming, new technologies, and innovations would have improved this for me personally, even though younger readers will just like the adventure and the old school tech. I had trouble believing that Belle's family would sell vegetables and skeins of wool they spun at the market, the message about prejudice was really heavy handed, and at one point I thought I was reading a plot synopsis of Land of the Lost. I also firmly believed that after her first ill-advised adventure, Belle would have probably perished and not been able to go on other ill-advised adventures.

What I really think: Probably shouldn't have read this while I was listening to Weber's Off Armageddon Reef. The exciting intrigue and unique technologies in that adult book made Redworld seem a bit lacking. (The whole idea of a PICA...wow.) I can see my students really enjoying this, and I can appreciate all the work that was done to make this appealing to middle grade readers and am interested to see if this series will be longer than four books.

*thank you to Netgalley and Capstone for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review*

2 stars.
I really really wanted to like this. The idea of the story sounded fantastic! But, it had just few too many scenes that I found uninteresting and my mind often wondered.

First of all, I love the illustrations at the beginning/end of each book division. They are HYPE. The story concept has a ton of potential. An "Earth kid moves to Mars colony and deals with environmental and personal perils as well as xenophobic tensions between alien races" plot has so much room for creativity and adventure. I enjoy space westerns, and I was hoping for the Mars version of a pioneer story.<br>
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Unfortunately, I found the reality of the book a little underwhelming, compared to what it could have been, as shown by the awesome illustrations. Though the main character is twelve and thirteen years old, the book seems very young. The relationships seem more like "we're friends now! yay!" eight-year-old friendships than anything else, and the inter-species racism is also dealt with pretty shallowly. <br>
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Belle deals with all her problems by panicking, disobeying her parents, and running at someone screaming. She survives and gets credit for things as varied as defeating a marauding band of outlaws, breaking up a dogfighting ring, and discovering an ancient archaeological site because of her deus ex machina nanny-droid and her smart friend Ta'al. Without them she would be dead as a doornail. She doesn't seem to realize this, and throws fits every time her parents ground her for wantonly disobeying them. "I'm thirteen! I need some freedom!" Do you, Belle? Do you now? Why should your parents let you out of the house when all you do is try your hardest to force natural selection to act?<br>
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The book is divided into four "books," each with its own main subplot. Weirdly, at the beginning of each "book," the background and cast of characters is re-introduced. Do they think I just read a fourth of this book and then set it down for seven months, before picking up the rest of it, so I need everything re-explained to me? Was <i>Redworld</i> meant to come out in installments? I have no problem with breaking the book up into sections -- thousands of books have done that -- but I was left confused and a little annoyed by including this "previously on" repetition, like I have no idea what came before.<br>
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I wish the book itself had been a lot more than it was. I wish the book had stuck to one main plot and dealt with that in a deeper way. I wish the water raiders had been scarier. I wish the book had dealt with the weirdness of having all-powerful assassin/policeman robots providing law enforcement to a population still paranoid because of the Robot Wars two hundred years ago. I wish the worldbuilding had been more, instead of just crossing two Earth farm animals into a portmanteau word. I wish it had been as vivid and compelling as it could have been, as the illustrations are.

I hope that the author, (A.L. Collins) is planning to write more sequels to this book! I thoroughly enjoyed reading about a family from Earth who traveled to Mars to start a new life in a city called Utopia, but the job was not there when they arrived and they were given return trip tickets to an overpopulated, polluted, and dying Earth. Belle, who was 13, wanted to return to Earth, but her parents, Yun and Zara, wanted to stay on Mars, a terraformed planet that had extreme winters and hot summers.

The Song family also had a Home Helper personal robot named Melody, who was a gift from Belles grandmother. Robots were not trusted by some humans because intelligent androids had tried to overthrow Earth 50 years ago, but they were defeated during the Robot Rebellion - however Home Helper robots were not involved in the Rebellion. Melody was trusted by the Song family, and she had guided Belle through her lifetime.

You will enjoy reading how Belles family became farmers on Mars, how Belle becomes friends with children from two alien races the Sulux and Nabians, that settled on Mars before humans came, and how her curious nature got her into a lot of trouble!

The artwork is fantastic in this, beautifully conveying an alien world. Sadly the story is only ok. There's little depth to it, Belle is whiny and rebellious for the sake of being rebellious, and there's a lot of recapping. It's a shame because this has the bones of a really great story, with a little more work. I really hope it does well.
Thank you for the chance to read it.

Probably a 3.5. The story was interesting, and I think middle graders will relate. The book could have benefited from some editing. It seemed like a couple of stories were combined, and explanations of what had previously happened were repeated.

Couldn't do it. This book is just so poorly written. I liked the idea of a Mars colony and a kid adapting to that world, but the book reads like no one ever came near it with an editing pen. It is really repetitive sometimes explaining what just happened in a previous chapter. And it is boring. How you can make a book about living on Mars boring I don't know, but it is. I got about 1/3 of the way through and decided I had enough.

I was so excited to read this book when I was approved for it, but then my joy faded when I saw that the only format was PDF. It's impossible to read a book in PDF if the font is not edited to allowed people to read it. I wish the publisher had put a Kindle version, even a PDF for kindle. Kindle can read PDF, so it was the better thing to do.
I tried to read it anyway, but I had to stop at 11 pages because the reading was to hard. I loved the pictures and the other stuff, but I hate I couldn't read it because the format was wrong. Hope next time they'll put the right one.

This story had a great concept, but lacked all the execution. The idea of people moving to Mars, way in the future, as if someone nowadays would move to a different county was an appealing start. Belle’s ignorance of her new world was unbelievable as she seemed to know absolutely nothing about a world colonized for hundreds of years. It was a good way for the reader to learn new things, but only made the character more unlikable to me. Belle was portrayed as very whiny, unaccepting, and too foolhardy to be a character that most readers would enjoy. The world itself was a good concept and was the one redeeming factor that kept me somewhat interested to see how else the Mars colonies could be set up.

I have to be honest...I couldn't finish this book. I got about halfway through, and while the premise of the story was great, and the fact the theme dealt with racism in a way that is more subtle and makes you think, the characters were unlikeable. The main character seemed whiny and rebellious. She refused to listen to anyone but herself time and time again, and I didn't see any progress from the beginning of the story to the middle--maybe by the end she grows up, but I just didn't have the patience for it.

On the other hand, I loved the description of the farms on Mars, the aliens, different creatures, etc. The world-building was definitely all there, and I love a good Mars story. There were just some big elements that were lacking.

This book was okay with a few things that I just couldn't get past, but we'll get to those later. First, I loved the concept and some of the execution. This book comprises the first year of young teen, Belle's, first year or so living on Mars. Her family moved there from Earth only to find her parents wouldn't have the jobs they expected. They became farmers instead. I loved the thought of a human moving from Earth to another planet with alien races and having to get used to thinking of themselves as the alien.
Unlike some other reviewers, I didn't dislike the main character but I also didn't really bond with her. She had feelings but I didn't feel like I got a real personality from her. I enjoyed her best friend, Ta'al, much more. Probably the thing that bothered me the most and I had the hardest tinge just ignoring is that the book felt like web episodes or journal entries that were meant to be stand-alone stories that were thrown together instead of a cohesive book. There are certain things that are explained multiple times in the book when it was completely unnecessary. Some good copy editing could have corrected this. I do definitely want to note that I was reading an ARC so this could be corrected by the final version. I absolutely loved the artwork!
Overall, still an entertaining enough read and most kids (the target audience) may not notice what I did. For the fantasy of a world we sort of know, reimagined, it was worth the read.

Found it an interesting read, with a good cast of characters. Would definitely recommend for 9/10+ kids who like adventure stories and are really interested in space.

Wouldn't recommend for older than 11, as the writing style was quite simplistic.