The Mars House is storytelling at its finest. From page one, when January’s wry voice swept me up into his story, I was utterly spellbound. This is one of those books where every word felt purposeful, and as one of the characters is a linguistics expert, it definitely fit. The story is told in a close third person, following January as he’s rescued from a drowning London and offered sanctuary in one of the few places taking refugees: the city of Tharsis on Mars. And so he leaves everything he knows behind to go and live on a cold, dry planet, where he has to wear a body cage so as not to cause accidental damage to those born on Mars with less bone density and strength. January doesn’t mind too much, though it’s a far cry from his days as a ballet dancer, and doesn’t try to get involved in politics despite one of the senators running for office wanting to force all ‘earth-strongers’ to naturalise, which has severe consequences in almost every case.

However, politics soon comes to him when said politician, Aubrey Gale, visits the factory January works at to interview the very people they are known to be controversial about. When January gets pushed in front of the cameras and verbally picked apart by Gale, he loses his job and possibly any future on Mars, until Gale proposes a five-year marriage contract to improve their ratings and apologise to January for his troubles. Now, the premise for this arranged marriage is a little flimsy when described in this way, but as I read it it just seemed to work. Aubrey’s home is also always being recorder as part of a way to make them more relatable to the public and drive interest by making their life a reality show, and so January must navigate this as well.

I think that most of the elements of this story were simply to pull these two widely different characters together and create a slow-burn relationship while tackling difficult ideas and seeing how people with opposing ideologies can learn to communicate and see each other’s sides. Mostly what I enjoyed about The Mars House was the writing style, the setting, and the focus on the power of words. I also loved the mammoths. Yes, there are mammoths on Mars, and they are delightful! I also enjoyed the twist, even though it was something I guessed very early on. The execution of the reveal was timed well, and so I didn’t mind waiting for it.

Since finishing The Mars House I have seen quite a few negative reviews, most revolving around the political, racial, and gender-related themes of the book. It soured things for me a little, because it feels as if so many of these reviewers didn’t actually take in the story. Now I can’t speak for whether or not there is racial insensitivity in the way this was written, though Pulley at no point is trying to portray China, but rather a melting pot of cultures on which Chinese history exerts a big influence, as they were the ones to colonise Mars. But as for the rest, such as immigrants from Earth having to wear caged suits to accommodate for Martian gravity, at no point is the author saying these are good things. They are simply part of the situation the characters find themselves in, and influence their choices and thinking. In fact, one of the main points this book brings up over and over is that there is rarely a simple solution to problems when many types of people are involved, but compassion and empathy go a long way to solving things in a way that works for everyone, even when the chasm at first seems too wide.

I have been a fan of Natasha Pulley‘s books for a while now, so I was expecting to like this one. However, I didn’t really know what it was going to be like because usually she writes novels set in the past, not in the future. And her historical fantasy novels have a specific vibe that you can’t really have with scifi.

Basically, this book felt very different to her usual style. Instead, it kind of reminded me of M.L. Wang‘s writing style. Especially, I kept thinking of Blood Over Bright Haven. It has a very similar style and pacing.

The Mars House is about January, who is a dancer in London, but once the city gets flooded due to climate change, he has to leave earth to be a refugee on Mars. However, on Mars, humans are seeing as dangerous since they are much stronger than the local population due to changes in gravity. Just one small shove from a human can kill the people from Mars. So basically, humans such as January live as outsiders, working in factory jobs. That is what January does until a series of events leads him to be in an arranged marriage with one of the Senators of Mars who is running to be Consul of the colony.

I absolutely loved this book!! The whole setting is very interesting, with the colony and Mars and everything surrounding that. Also, the political aspects concerning the Consul election are very fascinating. There were also a lot of moral questions that made you think.

It’s just a very interesting story, set in a fascinating place with very likeable characters. I really hope we get more stories like this from Natasha Pulley!!

I would class Natasha Pulley as one of my favourite authors and this novel is the perfect example of why they are so good. A slightly different feel to usual as this one is set on Mars and I admit it took me about 40 odd pages to get into it as I weirdly struggle with “space” books – totally my problem and in no way reflective of the author’s skill! However, after my hesitant start it was utterly wonderful. Addressing some big topics such as privilege, politics, environmental disaster and refugees with love at the heart of it all. Fantastic stuff.
My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own unbiased opinion.

The Mars House starts promisingly enough with central character, and ballet dancer, January Stirling trapped in a London that's been hit by major flooding. Yes, this is an Earth that's been ravaged by catastrophic climate change: some areas are flooding, others are ravaged by wildfires. Oh, and the US and Russia are at war.

Unfortunately after this strong start everything kind of fell apart for me. January finds himself evacuated to Mars, a planet riven by anti-immigrant, or Earthstronger, sentiment and the narrative becomes bogged down by Martian, and gender, politics and an arranged marriage between January and natural Martian trillionaire Aubrey Gale.

Things pick up late on with the introduction of an utterly adorable herd of Martian mammoths and a subplot involving Martian to mammoth communication and the various plot strands start to come together only to be let down by an open-ended conclusion.

Thanks to NetGalley, Gollancz and the author for an advance copy.

Following an environmental catastrophe, January, formerly a leading dancer in London's Royal Ballet, finds herself a refugee on Mars. Life on the red planet presents stark differences – Mandarin is the predominant language, gravity plays tricks on perception, and gender has long been a thing of the past.

When Aubrey Gale, a trillionaire turned politician, advocates for the naturalization of all humans to adapt to Martian life, January's world is upended. A fateful encounter thrusts January and Aubrey into the national spotlight, leading to a five-year publicized marriage crafted to secure January's future and ensure Gale's political aspirations.

As their relationship blossoms, mounting political tensions threaten Mars's stability. Now, January and Aubrey must navigate the complex landscape, facing a pivotal decision that holds the fate of the planet in the balance.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

January Stirling is a ballet dancer, one of the principal dancers of London’s Royal Ballet living in a future (three hundred years or so) semi-flooded London. Unemployed, he is encouraged to go to Tharsis on Mars for work. Although it is basically grunt-work, January reasons that it is better than no work at all.

This future Mars is being partly terraformed, and so we have ‘naturals’, those born on Mars who are tall but fragile, and ‘Earthstrong’, those like January who have been born on Earth but who are a danger to the naturals as they don’t know their own strength in Mars’s 1/3 gravity. A few have invertedly killed or injured the natural Martians, and so the Earthstrongers when amongst natural Martians are made to wear a frame that limits their strength.

One option for Earthstrongers is that they can be operated upon to reduce their strength. This ‘naturalisation’ is a painful process, and there is no chance of then returning to Earth. Nevertheless to avoid discrimination and to get a job, January is considering the process.

At this point, the characters are engaging, and initially the plot manages to look at current issues such as climate change, refugees and migrants. Pulley does well to show that her future Mars is socially and politically divided, and the consequences of such discrimination.

Before he takes the step to naturalisation, however, January is given an opportunity for a five-year marriage of convenience to Aubrey Gale, a right-wing nationalist (think Trump or Nigel Farage) determined to become the next Martian Consul in the upcoming elections. This is not a meeting of people with similar minds – January realises that should Gale become the next Martian Consul, he will then limit immigrants like Stirling to an already overcrowded, overloaded Mars, rather like the current situation between Europe/UK and the English Channel.

However, the speed at which January takes up the marriage proposal is joltingly fast. I found that the arrangement takes some believing – after all, it is akin to Trump taking on Biden as a marriage partner – and I suspect that your enjoyment of the book may be affected by this. Having said that, I am also aware that whilst it seems to be very unlikely, it must be said that in the past such relationships were often used to legitimise and maintain power. (See also Frank Herbert’s Dune).

Despite his reservations, Stirling takes on the marriage to much social media acclaim, and showered with wealth by Gale a blossoming romance begins. As the two characters settle into their new roles, a terrorist attack by rival factions leads to the creation of an extreme dust storm, which threatens the solar power energy of Tharsis, something which Gale’s family have made enormous wealth by being in charge of maintaining. This creates a settlement in crisis and an element of danger to the story, which leads to a power coup. There is also the impending arrival of a mass of new migrants about to arrive on Mars, which may further alter the political power-balance.

Such a brief synopsis suggests an adventure novel, an updating of the sort of stories Heinlein was writing, but for a contemporary audience. To some extent The Mars House does this, for at times it is a social commentary, a romance, a planetary romance, and at times even a comedy of errors, something which has elements of Bradbury, Heinlein and even Kim Stanley Robinson in its make-up, and akin to say Greg Bear’s Moving Mars.

However, despite such ambitious and laudable aims, the author’s plot many conveniences and contrivances tended to bring me back to reality with a jump, just as I was starting to enjoy it. I’ll give some examples at the end should you wish to read them – there are others.*

Most of all, much of the book seems to be thrown away in the last quarter of the book, where there is a clangingly awful plot twist and where many of the issues brought to light at the beginning of the book are ignored or thrown away in favour of a happy ending.

In summary, then, The Mars House seems to be a book with good intentions, some valid social points and some good ideas, but whose plot points need reining-in to maintain some degree of believability – and I say that knowing that I am reviewing a science fiction novel. The author seems to throw away many good ideas for the sake of convenience in the plot and a quickly concluded happy ending. The fact that I finished it is testament to the fact that Pulley writes well, despite all the times I found myself annoyed with the plot. Others, of course, may be less picky.



*To give some examples: SPOILERS! (You may want to skip this bit):

Genetically modified mammoths set loose on the planet have a language that can be understood through a piece of technological flim-flam, a head-gizmo. This becomes important to the plot when, just by coincidence, the only people who can communicate with the mammoths are our hero and his companion, because his companion just so happens to have written a Mammoth’s Language Encyclopaedia. The coincidence is crushingly convenient.
Would people in three-hundred years time still use the word ‘mansplaining’ in conversation, because they do here?
We even have, towards the end, one of my ‘favourite’ plot-hates, the ‘Child-in-Peril’, plucked out of a pile of refugees for seemingly little other purpose than to try and develop a sense of peril and greater jeopardy for our main characters. [END OF SPOILERS]

I loved the experience of reading The Mars House and I love Natasha Pulley as a writer: but it's important to say upfront that this book has some massive problems. Other reviewers have suggested that it is racist, transphobic, misogynistic and just plain disturbing in its treatment of immigration and 'far-right politics'. My take is a little bit different, although I do suggest reading Theta's review and Kathy's review - they both have very important and absolutely right things to say about the appropriation of Chinese culture and the use of Mandarin in this story.

Pulley usually writes speculative historical fiction: this is her first foray into SF, and I think that might be where a lot of these problems come from. There's a fundamental misunderstanding at the heart of The Mars House about how to use science fiction to talk about our own world. In The Mars House, a Mandarin Chinese-majority culture have colonised and terraformed Mars. Several generations down the line, the 'Natural' inhabitants of Mars have adapted to its lower gravity - they are physically weak, very tall, with exceptionally fragile bones. Problems arise when non-naturalised, or 'Earthstrong' immigrants, flee to Mars because Earth is slowly dying due to climate change. Earthstrong life expectancy is short on Mars unless they continuously wear heavy cages that mimic the effect of Earth gravity. However, Naturals also want them to wear these cages because it reduces the risk of them accidentally hurting or killing Natural people, a risk which, this book decides, is pretty massive, with accidental homicides happening frequently. Some Naturals are now pushing for Earthstrongers to undergo compulsory naturalisation, a brutal medical procedure that brings with it a very high risk of permanent disability; non-naturalised Earthstrongers already don't have access to the full civil rights enjoyed by Naturals and the naturalised.

By itself, I think this could have been a fascinating and fruitful premise. I disagree that the Naturals, in this scenario, are simply positioned as far-right xenophobes. There are genuine questions here about physical capabilities that we don't face in the movement of peoples around Earth. And while forced naturalisation and limited citizenship is clearly a horrific policy, the best choice for Earthstrongers on Mars is not that clear: short, healthier life or longer, chronic-health-issues life? Unfortunately, Pulley upends and confuses this by introducing another issue into the mix. Mars, unlike Earth, is genderless: everybody uses they/them pronouns. Naturals have also messed with some sexed biological traits to 'reduce extreme gender differences'. I don't get this, at all. I'm not sure it can even be called misogynistic or transphobic, because it's so confused. There's no explanation given as to why this society has developed in this way, or why there was a need to tinker with biology to make society non-binary. Non-binary gender doesn't mean no biological sex. But more importantly, this decision introduces horrible problems for Pulley.

Reviewers have critiqued the central plotline of this book: in short, it's another political-marriage SF romance along the lines of Everina Maxwell's Winter's Orbit or Aliette de Bodard's The Red Scholar's Wake. January, an Earthstrong immigrant and former ballet dancer who obviously values his physical strength and health, marries Senator Gale, who is running for Consul, and who wants to force all Earthstrong immigrants to naturalise. Ouch, obvious issues. If we read this book as a simple parallel to our world, this is akin, as others have said, to a refugee to Britain marrying Nigel Farage. If we accept it's more complicated then that because of the different circumstances on Mars, this starts to seem a bit better... but then the gender issues thud in. Pulley also wants to draw an analogy between men and women, on the one hand, and Earthstrongers and Naturals, on the other. There's some suggestion that men dominate women solely because of their physical strength (echoes of The Power): and so, Naturals are right to be afraid of Earthstrongers, who not only hurt them physically, but are bringing back older ideas of female subservience and male dominance that Mars has abandoned. This creates some really uncomfortable moments. When January tells Gale that it's not fair to judge him based on the actions of a few, that he personally would never hurt anyone, are we meant to read this as an immigrant opposing racist prejudice, or a man pleading #NotAllMen?

So yes... I don't think there's a reading of this book that solves these problems (though I do think the claim of misogyny/Pulley still only writing m/m couples is not fair - Gale is not a man - there are no men on Mars as well as no women). Which is a real shame, because I think Pulley's writing here is some of her most engaging, magical and immersive yet. I loved the mammoths. I loved the Mars energy politics, even if they are light on scientific realism. I loved Gale and January. And I'd love to see Pulley write more SF. I just hope it's not like this.

[Rating for enjoyment not quality]

The Mars House sounded right up my street and I was really excited to read it. I found it started off well and I really enjoyed the first 40% - I read it quite quickly, the background, the language and the culture Pulley built for mars really intrigued me. January and his ideals and relationship was refreshing to read, I loved his background of being a dancer and how he narrated the political landscape of Mars. When he gets involved with Gale I found my interest waning slightly, his situation and the multiple strands in House Gale were complex and due to this my engagement withered and my reading slowed.
The last 10% of the book definitely picked up and I was satisfied by the ending but the middle of the book was tedious and overly dense. This is why my rating is a firm 3 stars. I wasn't a fan of the footnotes and, the lack of pronouns, while refreshing to read, made the book quite confusing when reading certain scenes. It did feel like because I didn't engage too much with the mysteries of House Gale, that I probably missed some of the unravellings of the narrative and due to Pulley's intricate writing style, this just didn't work for me.
This was my first read by Pulley and definitely won't be the last, but perhaps I'll fare better outside of sci-fi with their writing style.

Even before reading the Weinersmith's "A City On Mars" I thought that Mars colonies probably weren't going to be a viable option. Doesn't mean I don't want to read about them, Mars gives you a science fiction setting where you can to some extent pick and choose which of the variable hardships to apply to the civilization, and then potentially handwave off the rest of them. Natasha Pulley's book engages with the science a lot more than what its initial immigration allegory suggests. Its the future, Earth us facing ecological collapse and Mars needs workers, so offers those in need and refugees free travel and lodgings that can then be worked off. The problem is the low gravity of Mars means that the generations of people brought up on Mars a smaller, weaker and have very flimsy bones compared to the hale and hearty giants of Earth. The solution is an exoskeleton-style cage that all Earthlings must wear if they are in a public place or might interact with the locals that provides resistance to their muscles, counteracting their natural speed and strength. That;s the situation.

Of course many a science fiction novel has squandered a good set-up, and here its immigration/refugee allegory cannot be clearer. Human's can assimilate eventually if they get surgery to physically weaken them, making it impossible to return to Earth. Our protagonist, January, was a lead dance at the London Royal Ballet, until that and the rest of London got flooded (there is a really good character and scene setting opening chapter that does this). As someone used to using his body, he finds Mars particularly hard, not to mention turning up in an election season where one side seems to want to ban Earth humans or to force them to get the operation. He gets into a misunderstanding during a political meet and greet, and suddenly becomes a cause celeb, eventually being hired cynically to provide better optics for the anti-Earth candidate. By this point the book was so immersive it took me a while to realise that it had gone from sci-fi to political thriller to whodunnit and romance - and crucially is successful at all of these.

Pulley is largely known for historical fiction, though there has always been a dab of science or even science-fiction in her work (alternate universes, Russian nuclear testing), and she certainly takes to this story well. The politics of immigration are thoroughly embedded within a system where it is impossible it integrate without making serious decisions about your own physical wellbeing, but there is also a political system that feels naturally drawn out of the kind of oligarchies that exist and a spin-off of Chinese authoritarianism (did I mention Mars predominantly speaks its own version of Chinese, and is so beyond gender that the idea of a principal male int he ballet is offensive to them). Once you add the central locked room mystery to it as well, its a very impressive and enjoyable book with plenty of heft to its space romance.

How to do a book of this scope and imagination justice in just a few lines? A book of Pulley's signature charm, wit and originality that defies genre and convention, this is something entirely new that would sit perfectly at home between Becky Chambers and Ann Leckie.
January, principal dancer of the London Royal Ballet, is preparing for a performance of Swan Lake when London finally succumbs to the floodwater that has threatened to drown it for as long as he can remember. With nowhere else to go, January finds himself among the refugees on their way to Mars. There have been populations on Mars for generations now, and January and the other 'earthstrongers' are three times as strong as the 'naturalised' population, who have adjusted to Mars' gravity and air pressure. January has always been strong, but he's never been dangerous - only now he has to wear a cage that suppresses his strength.
Earthstronger accidents are the primary cause of death for the naturalised population. Senator Gale is running for election on the proposition of a 'simple path' to equality; force every immigrant from Earth to undergo the disabling and sometimes fatal process of forced naturalisation. For January, that would be no life at all. When Gale visits the factory January now works at to talk to Earthstrongers, a misjudged joke turned disastrous media encounter threatens Gale's election prospects - and January's life.
A gorgeous addition to what we've begun to refer to as the Pulley Extended Universe, this is a beautifully realised exploration of the direction that culture, language, technology, politics, social media and art may overlap in a future that feels rich with detail and character. It's a story to be swept up in with all the drama and nuance we've come to expect from Pulley's writing, with characteristic depth and a deliciously philosophical edge.

I found this book utterly fascinating.
A story set on Mars with a binary diverse civilisation, arranged marriages, and different cultures and languages.
All surrounded by climate disaster and a high class divide and a smattering of racism chucked in. Along with two main characters, one an ex ballet dancer and a trillionaire senator, this was one read I found absolutely mesmerising.
I’ve read all of Natasha Pulley’s books and found this one to be intoxicating profound, and wonderfully written, I’m not sure she’s written anything better.

I knew this would be good as I have admired Natasha Pulleys work for some time. This novel pulled me in from the first wonderfully descriptive page and kept me rapt until the last word. A book I would recommend to all.

Okay, gear up for a long review, because I have a lot to say.

I adored this book, but it is one that I think is going to be very controversial. The problem is it’s handled with a subtlety that is easily lost. It encourages critical thinking when the instinct of many people on the left (myself included) is to read the start of the book and stop listening.

First up, the romance. I want to say that despite what it says on the blurb, I wouldn’t call Gale Xenophobic. Their policies are, certainly. But they are coming from a place of trying to do what’s right when they’re wildly out of touch with the people their policies affect. This is a book about communication. It’s a book about understanding one another and it’s a book about changing to do what’s right.

I also think that this situation that Pulley is describing is one that’s incredibly complex, with multiple sides. It’s not as simple as “earth is dying and mars must take in the refugees” because there are multiple other issues at stake here. It hints at colonialism and cultural erasure in a way that most of the cases of this issue we have on earth, just don’t have.

I loved the way she tackled gender in this book. She created, what is essentially an alien species (technically human but so far removed from our concepts of gender and identity that they’re completely different) and she decided that they had culturally and biologically erased gender from their society. Their entire culture is one that expresses themselves in other ways than male or female. I loved this normalisation of a race without a gender.

There was also very much a celebration of language in this book. I enjoyed seeing how much the author obviously enjoyed language and word origins. It really came across to me and it delighted me as much as I’m sure it did her.

All in all, this is a very subtle book. It doesn’t tell you what to think or feel, it tries to encourage you to think critically about it. I strongly believe that it was written with the best of intentions, though if I’m wrong then I’ll change my opinion. I can see how this book can be taken wrongly, but I can also see the beauty and the subtlety in what the author was intending to do.

For me, this book was beautiful.

DNF @ 26%

I'm not enjoying the story, and I struggled to connect with both the characters and the plot. I won't push myself to continue reading. It's disappointing, especially since I have heard great things about Natasha Pulley.

January had a bizarre out-of-body moment where a detached part of his brain said: You’re very cold, it’s Monday, and a senator is arguing about you with a mammoth. On Mars. [loc. 4929]
When London floods, America is on fire and at war, and most countries aren't accepting immigrants or refugees. January Stirling, principal dancer at the Royal Ballet, is offered a place on a ship to Tharsis -- which, he is surprised to discover, is a Chinese colony on Mars. Several generations into the colonisation process, the air in Tharsis (four miles below 'sea level') is more or less breathable; refugees from Earth, known as 'Earthstrongers', must wear restrictive cages to stop them injuring Mars-born people (despite which Earthstrongers are the leading cause of death in Tharsis), or undergo the risky and potentially fatal naturalisation process; and gender has been pretty much abolished, through a combination of genetic and social engineering.

January, who's been working as a manual labourer, makes the mistake of arguing very publicly with Senator Gale, a nationalist and pro-naturalisation politician who was badly injured by Earthstrongers in a riot: his joke about not murdering anybody falls flat. In short order he's out of a job, destitute and desperate. He's about to submit himself for naturalisation when he receives an unexpected visit, and an offer of marriage, from Gale themself.

The Mars House feels very much a pandemic novel, though here the catastrophe that confines everyone to their homes (and provokes online exercise classes, daily briefings and requests to check in on neighbours) is an apocalyptic dust storm that blocks almost all sunlight -- essential for energy and water on a cold, dry planet. It's also a novel about immigration and colonisation, and about vengeance: and it's a romance, a political thriller and a murder mystery. Gale hopes to be elected as the next Consul; the current Consul is pro-China and wants Tharsis to remain a colony, and also happens to be related to Gale's former partner, Max, who disappeared without trace. January is increasingly drawn to Gale despite finding their political views abhorrent: he wants to believe that Gale is a good person, but he'd like to know whether Max really ran off with Gale's 'twin', River, or whether Gale had them killed.

It is possible to love a book while appreciating that it is flawed, and not the author's best. This is certainly true of The Mars House, which has brought me a great deal of joy with a soupçon of annoyance. There are some inconsistencies in the world-building (why don't they use water from the Poles? why only mention the third, artificial moon very late in the story? why does nobody ever question Kasha the dog's reactions?); the story of River and Gale and Max, which casts a very different light on earlier scenes and events, is unravelled too late in the novel; the finale lacks resolution; and I found Gale's comparison of Earthstronger-Martian deaths with historical femicide jarring and rather distasteful. ('There is another situation in which one set of adults mixes with another set who are generally far stronger. It's on Earth. It's men and women...The worst genocide there has ever been... is femicide: the murder of women. It happens everywhere, in every culture, in every time, ever. Except ours.' [loc. 943]) For one thing, Gale has already stressed that most deaths at the hands of Earthstrongers are accidental: most femicide is decidedly not.

But I loved the romance; I loved the mammoths, and Ariel (the AI in charge of the Met Office, who lives twenty vertical miles above Tharsis, on the peak formerly known as Olympus, with a genetically-engineered cat), and the hints of the original, American colony's fate; I love Pulley's prose and the sometimes-whimsical little details and the fascination with language and interpretation. The footnotes (which feature Mori and Daughter, a shop on Filigree Street; bathroom terminology in Mandarin; The Clangers; mammoth jokes and mythology; and Shuppiluliuma, Ariel's cat) are sheer delight. And I adore the exchange between January and Gale, near the end of the novel, when Gale says 'I can tell you, if it would help', and January says, 'it doesn't matter'.

This book was an unexpected one from Natasha Pulley. I’ve enjoyed all her previous books but I found this one totally stunning. The world created in the first few pages with a drowned London and refugees fleeing to another planet really drew me in. The lead, January, is beautifully created. January is the principle dancer in the London Royal Ballet but where can you dance when the waters are closing over the city? The reality of his life really hits home with poignancy about him even before he becomes embroiled in the strange politics of Mars. Well, initially you think it’s strange until you stare into the mirror of how we currently live in a world where refugees are shunned and treated badly because we lack empathy or the ability to imagine how easily it could happen to us.
This book haunted me for several days and I’m sure I will be picking it up again. It manages to be an eco thriller, political thriller and a dystopian all rolled into an unlikely romance. I love it!

Phwoar! How do I talk about ‘The Mars House’?! Its plot is much too complex to try to summarise in a review (the bare premise being that our climate crisis forces populations of the future to colonise Mars), and re-hashing a book’s blurb and existing synopses is not my thing, anyway. Is there a quote that’ll sum it up?

'It was the first time that January really understood that normal life was over.'

‘Still Life’ by Sarah Winman was my best book of 2021, 2022 was ‘The Change’ by Kirsten Miller, and last year, it was ‘Starling House’ by Alix E. Harrow. And I’m confident in saying that ‘The Mars House’ is my best book of 2024. I don’t anticipate anything will top it!

I have been a Natasha Pulley fanatic since she began publishing, and getting the chance to read a pre-release of her latest is a delight for me, but I’ve really been feeling the pressure on this one to do the novel justice in a review that speaks to all the ways that distinguish me as a reviewer. I feel like I’ve got to speak with the voice of all 40-something lesbians in relation to what Pulley depicts here, and so I’ve been picking at this review for weeks. Part of me just wants to write a single sentence and be done with it, something like: PULLEY IS GOD! or NOBODY NEED EVER WRITE ANOTHER NOVEL BECAUSE NATASHA PULLEY HAS WRITTEN THIS BOOK!

I’ve been tying myself in knots over how to respond to the divisive issue of gender abolition in this novel; what it means for Pulley’s ongoing representation of women, which has become problematic as she continues to excise female characters from her novels. Certainly, characters are not always mouthpieces of their authors, but we do have to be mindful that it’s been the author’s choice to write exactly THIS story and not any other story; they’ve crafted all its elements with purpose, so we can rightly lay down at their door our responses to their decisions.

There are no surprises here with regard to romance, and I hate to think that Pulley is only ever going to use her exceptional talents to write unvarying relationships between gay men: Valery and Shenkov, Joe and Kite, Merrick and Raphael, Thaniel and Mori. I can’t speak for heterosexual women, but my main niggle is with this restrictive principle as to who-falls-in-love-with-whom in Natasha Pulley’s novels, and this unreservedly exclusive use of GBT male couples as central characters (there’s no ‘L’ – correct me if I’m wrong, but all romance in Natasha Pulley is at the expense of lesbian characters). Okay, let’s play devil’s advocate – a few of my favourite writers, and some other writers that I greatly respect, write exclusively heterosexual romances, so why should I (or anyone) be irked at Pulley for writing exclusively man-on-man romances, or now – after ‘The Mars House – perhaps that should be re-worded as romance-excluding-women? Because what Pulley does in creating her gender-less Mars colony as the setting of this novel, is do away with the concept of women altogether. And that’s important to me because I’m a woman who loves women. Still, I sincerely hope that it’s not just men and naïve straight women who award this five stars, but others like me who reflect a readership not represented in the book.

So, Pulley depicts whipped-up controversy over gender, but, if you dig a little, it is possible to argue ‘The Mars House’ as a feminist piece about equality. There are some really interesting thought gymnastics going on if you cast Pulley writing the whole thing as a satire of patriarchal society here. Gale (the genderless political candidate) speechifies: “There is another situation – very well established and well documented – in which one set of adults mixes with another set who are generally far stronger. It’s on Earth. It’s men and women.” Perhaps feminism is recast in another light at the resolution at the close of the novel, but in the early pages, Pulley writes “The worst genocide there has ever been in the history of the worlds is not from a war, or a slave trade. It is femicide; the murder of women. It happens everywhere, in every culture, in every time, ever.” If I were to stop there, this’d be a good quote to support a feminist reading. But the fact is, Pulley continues Gale’s speech with two little words: “Except ours.” So, in the world of this novel, nobody ever need worry about the wee women.

‘The Mars House’ is undoubtedly a love story, although a tortuous one. BUT! It’s testament to Pulley’s storytelling that the above concerns, which in the hands of perhaps another straight author or a male author, would’ve had me in a pique, did not affect my wholehearted enthusiastic consumption of the novel, and never eclipsed its five-star prestige.

‘The Mars House’ demonstrates remarkably swift worldbuilding and character establishment: it takes Pulley literally four pages. By page ten, I was fully gobbled up by the story. I feel unqualifiedly safe in Pulley's hands. She can take me anywhere: historical London, Peru, or Japan; alternative reality United Kingdom; a surreal ‘60s Soviet city, and I’ll swallow any premise she feeds me. I’m very credulous when it comes to her books. And it’s not only the stupendous worldbuilding, but her ability to make all that’s crafted seem not only believable, but frankly solemn. Pachyderm dictionary, anyone?

'January had a bizarre out-of-body moment where a detached part of his brain said: You're very cold, its Monday, and a senator is arguing about you with a mammoth. On Mars.'

As always with Pulley, it's indescribably gratifying to read the work of an author who so intrinsically understands and moves with the formal crafting of fiction, acquiescing with structural pacing etc. I reached the 30% marker and, whoop! protagonist has crossed another threshold, entering the fundamental plot situation. And Pulley’s assured methodology continues throughout, with this stability of form allowing her to play with her substantial gift with language to add the grace notes.

There is so much heart in Pulley's writing. It's not only that that everything is pulsingly alive with feeling and a rawness that's not quite earnestness. It’s also that character descriptions and actions, each piece of dialogue or internal commentary, is clean-stripped to the essentials of human interaction. And I felt no need to understand the science-y bits. I’m here for the fiction, and with this author, I’m fully prepared to, and able to, suspend my disbelief. So long as it’s authentic to the fictional world, I’m not too worried about whether the correlation between humidity levels and dust cloud production is sound. But when these two things combine? Emotional richness and science? THAT’S Pulley’s mesmerism.

Take this episode: ‘[January] did the coffee runs and explained how things were going to the drones, interrupted once by the little bull with Gale's [silk] jacket, who used it to fluff up his hair and turn him into a dandelion. The bull was sneaking up on anyone too distracted to notice a sneaking mammoth.' In this scene, our mc plays with a baby woolly mammoth who has just discovered static, after people have translated to the herd of mammoths what electricity is and why they need it to live. How else is a writer going to make a bizarre humans-on-the-brink-of-extinction-on-Mars situation more full-of-heart than having a cute baby mammoth running about playing a prank on people who are giving television interviews about the current could-be-the-end-of-the-world situation? Superb!

I didn’t find myself empathising with the protagonist January, but I did sympathise with him, and fully engaged with his viewpoints, his challenges, obstacles, and character arc. Pulley pitches perfectly the balance of the narrative focus between January’s relationship with Gale, and the mystery of House Gale’s vanishing heir and spouse. Sweetly, the plot had just enough of Aubrey Gale and just enough of River Gale to offset the devotion to January’s story.

This was a quick read. It’s writing the review that has confounded me! I found every element in ‘The Mars House’ necessary or functional, vital; nothing surplus, nothing indulgent or unjustifiable. Pulley builds her world without information dumping, even employing footnotes (which are an absolute treat!). The politics and society on Mars are kind of ‘out there’ somewhere, things that happen or are happening outside of January’s narrative, external to the enclosure within which January lives (literally his ‘cage’ in one case, moreso once he is holed up in Songshu, and ultimately, within the enclosure of his marriage/relationship).

In my view, the portrayal of political candidacies, manifestoes, and political intrigue are purely functional mechanisms necessary in order to furnish the plot with the rationale for manoeuvring January into House Gale, and into his relationship with Gale themselves. Reviewers are right to comment on and engage with the societal structures that Pulley erects but – whether with authorial intent or not – I experienced these things as secondary or tertiary components orbiting the nucleus of the novel, which (for me) is the relationships between January and the members of House Gale (or, the Mars House).

Doubtless, ‘The Mars House’ offers us dynamic commentary on gender, on nationalism and colonialism, on class privilege, politics and electioneering, economic collapse, immigration, refugeeism, working rights and furloughing, racism, climate crisis and environmental disasters, Big Tech/tech omnipresence, even on the sentience of animals and – with that – a lot of the critical theory of linguistics. Only by reading another novel at the same that sparked a sigh or an eye-roll of indignance from me every few minutes with its discussion of similar issues such as class, education and wealth, did I come to realise that Pulley's writing is analytical not only from an informed perspective, but with an openness that comes from true curiosity, and fairness. We can, for sure, discuss whether Pulley presents each matter she constructs (such as gender abolition) fairly, but I believe some of these contentions just don’t have any easy answers, certainly not at present (but then, here we are on the brink of commercial moon landings, and suddenly they seem a lot more immediate!).

Heartfelt thanks to Orion Publishing Group for providing me with an eARC.

To begin with, I found this book frustrating, as it seemed to jump about a lot, and I felt it started slowly. However I persevered, as I loved January, the central character, and it was ultimately a very rewarding read.

After a devastating flood on Earth, January has become a refugee on Mars. He is a former principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, but because he is very strong, he becomes a manual worker. Life on Mars is far from easy – as Martian gravity is lower than Earth’s, people born on Mars are weaker, and easily injured. January gets himself into trouble because of this, and comes to the attention of Aubrey Gale, who is standing for re-election as Senator. They (gender has been abolished on Mars) offer to marry January, partly to save him from prison, and partly to help their election campaign. At this point the plot becomes more complicated.

There are so many ideas in this book, aside from questions of gender. I used the pronoun him for January, as he thinks of himself as male. Questions of language are important -Mandarin is the main language used on Mars, and Aubrey is a linguistics specialist, working on how to communicate with mammoths, which have been bred from stored DNA. It amused me that the mammoths are clearly the most intelligent species on Mars! Ecological issues are raised when the population is threatened by a devastating dust-storm.
There’s lots to think about here, but ultimately I would say that “The Mars House” is a very touching love story, with some surprising elements: can a character be sympathetic and antagonistic at the same time?

I definitely recommend this.

Thanks to NetGalley for the e-arc.
I gave this book 3 stars.

I enjoyed the setting and the mix of sci-fi and romance. I found the pa e dropped a bit in the middle which is why I dropped some stars

I know other reviewers have mention sinophobia so I was on the lookout for it but I generally got more of an anti-immigration sentiment which is also portrayed as controversial. I don't think we should shy away from discussing these issues.

I really enjoyed this but I did find it slow going, I’m not sure why so am going to assume it’s because I have been under the weather.
It was a great mix of romance and science fiction, with some very interesting political stuff thrown in. There was also some weird goings on, that I was relieved to see resolved well as I’d oversimplified it in my mind but it did make sense in the end.
I enjoyed the relationships, and the fact that even though some people had some bad ideas it was mainly down to a lack of information and not because they were inherently bad people. It felt hopeful about a future where good prevails alongside a willingness to learn.