With a title like Mars, Inc. and the name Ben Bova attached to it, you would think you'd know what to expect. Personally, I was excited to get my hands on an ARC,and went into this with high hopes. As much as I tried to hold onto those hopes, though, the 'real' story I expected to find beginning in the next chapter never materialized.
This was so very much not what I was expecting from a master like Ben Bova. It felt like a throwback to 60s and 70s pulp sci-fi, but not in a good way. It was cheap, sexist, and almost as lazy in respect to its business and it politics as it was smart in respect to its science - and we don't get nearly enough of that. What's more, there's no payoff, no grand spectacle, just the fact of a launch to end the book that we don't even get to see, much less experience.
Disappointing in just about every respect. I do wonder if there's a sequel to come, but I have neither the patience nor the interest for that.
http://beauty-in-ruins.blogspot.ca/2013/12/from-alderaan-to-mars-disappointing.html