The Strange by Nathan Ballingrud
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is definitely one that will sit on my mind for a while. There's a lot of great worldbuilding aspects to this Mars-based (but apparently not futuristic!) western. I've been fascinated by this from the very start. Get this: even fifty years prior, in the 1880's the first lander on mars started this whole colonization kick, the wild west on what would otherwise be a Barsoomian planet, able to hold atmosphere and crops, and we have outposts, towns, and cities.

And then all communication and travel with Earth went silent a few years past -- and now we've got the psychological horror of being cut off, alone, and the things that people do in that situation.

And this is just the beginning. I'll tell you -- I got PISSED. And frankly, I fell into this tale, raged with it, and was all down for the OTHER mystery, the one that the book is named for. The mystery of Mars, itself. Add the robots, AI creativeness, the idea of consciousness, and a WHOLE LOT of INJUSTICE -- and we get a really cool western that's also all SF while being very creative.

I don't want to give away the goodies, but suffice to say, there ARE some delicious goodies here and great characters.


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