Donna Shirley

Quote about Mars Crossing


JPEG of Mars Crossing cover

"Old fashioned science fiction, in the good sense."

Donna Shirley, manager of the Mars Exploration Program at JPL during the historic Pathfinder mission, has this to say about Mars Crossing:

"Mars Crossing is old-fashioned science fiction, in the good sense. Adventure, peril, and daring, all wrapped in a solid base of realistic technology and setting. Geoff Landis was an experimenter on the Pathfinder "Sojourner" rover in 1997. Mars dust is featured prominently in his story, and that's fitting, since his experiment measured the amount of dust which drifted onto the rover each day. His landscape captures the feel of Mars as glimpsed from Pathfinder's landing site and imaged from above by Mars Global Surveyor, including the recently discovered dust devils. Landis' characters are well realized and their history, shown in flashbacks, gives them depth and a rationale for their fates. All in all an excellent, fast-paced read with several twists in the plot."

--Donna L. Shirley


Donna Shirley was manager of the Mars Exploration Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1994 to 1998, and was the leader of the team that developed the Mars Pathfinder's "Sojourner" rover. She is the author of Managing Martians, an autobiography, which includes the story of the Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor missions. She is currently the Assistant Dean of Engineering at the University of Oklahoma.

Mars Crossing will be available in December from Tor Books

More quotes about Mars Crossing:
Charles Sheffield: "Science fiction at its best and as it ought to be."
Michael Bishop: "Sign on for an unforgettable journey."
Maureen McHugh: "a myriad of wondrous details."



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Page updated November 2000