Glory Be to Mars
by Thomas William Cronin
Category: Fiction

The beginning two novels in the series were about the early years of the first human settlement on Mars, but you don''t have to read them to enjoy this latest stand-alone novel, in which a new desert fox is the pivotal character in a great war on Mars. In the first novel, As It Is On Mars, three courageous explorers, abandoned to die on Mars in 2038, found a fantastic but illegal settlement. In the second, stand-alone novel, Give Us This Mars, European and American "rescue" missions in 2048 compete to take over the fledgling settlement, which turns out to have resources worth trillions of dollars.The story in this third novel, Glory Be to Mars, takes place over a quarter century later, in 2074. It has a whole new set of lead characters, and enough of the early history of the settlement is included for new readers to join the tale effortlessly.By now, the illegal settlement has grown enormously, and a whole new generation born on Mars has grown up, thanks mainly to an amazing machine the Martians have developed, unlike anything the world has ever seen. Getting rid of this well-defended settlement is now a serious military matter. But, as the story opens, a United Nations coalition armada approaching Mars is intent on doing just that; it is so overwhelming a military force that nobody on Earth thinks the settlement has a chance.Coalition governments on Earth have terrified their citizens into believing that the Martians'' amazing machine is a horrible weapon of total annihilation, capable of eliminating all human life on Earth. The fabricated fear has had the desired effect, and decent people are supportive of the obscenely expensive armada to Mars. They will pay anything for an end to the dangerous, illegal settlement and its abominable machine.The armada is the brainchild of two cunning, scheming, aristocratic brothers, both born leaders, out for wealth, power, and prestige. They are also out to avenge their father''s disgraceful death on Mars, and erase a demeaning stain of dishonor that has sullied their ancient family name.One brother, Harold Derk, is the CEO of Condor Copper Inc., the world''s largest resource company, bent on taking a huge copper deposit from the Martians, worth over ten trillion dollars. Harold paid for the warmongering political leaders who engineered the armada.The other brother, four-star General Oliver Derk, is the armada commander. This rogue general has genocide in mind, and has the overwhelming military resources he needs to kill off all his Martian enemies.The armada''s arrival triggers a great war on Mars, and this is the story of those who fought in that war, particularly a young man the war makes into a legend: the desert fox of Mars.The story opens with a small Martian work crew, far from home. They have just finished hiding the infamous Martian machine, to keep it out of the hands of approaching coalition forces. That evening, the Martian work crew makes a fluke discovery. Coalition forces have secretly arrived, unexpected early, obviously planning a surprise attack on the settlement. The workers now have to get home at once, to warn the settlement of the danger. They take an impossible short cut, up along the treacherous thirty-mile long Hell Ridge, which climbs up to a four-mile high plateau they must cross to get home.But then, in Chapter Two, disaster. Not long after, a deadly enemy of the coalition appears out of the southern waste, at the head of a dusty column of tanks, his predator drones flying overhead. It is Edward Russell, a young man with desert warfare in his genes. He is soon to be known as the desert fox of Mars, feared and revered on two planets.Two women are a major part of the story, both in love with Edward, and engaged in their own private war over which of them will have him. A religious American President is also involved. He is an enemy of the big resource companies, but is boxed in by the cunning Derk brothers, and left with no choice but to fight a war he has no heart for. There is a sly, psychotic hit man in the story too. He is an essential part of General Derk''s genocidal plan to kill every single Martian, and his first contract will be to arrange for an American war correspondent to have an accident: Americans must not know what is being done on Mars in their name.These characters, and many more, walk the pages of this powerful, fast-paced tale of war, malice, ambition, love, and treachery, in a story that takes the reader along on the tank columns of the desert fox, to witness his daring exploits in a war that transforms the western hemisphere of Mars into a gigantic military chessboard.