The year is 2035, and the crew from the first expedition to Mars is
returning to Earth. The crewmembers are anxious to get home, and ennui
pervades the ship. The mood is broken by a series of mysterious events
that jeopardize their safety. Someone or something is threatening the
crew. Is it an alien being? A psychotic crewmember? A malfunctioning
computer? The truth raises questions about the crewmembers' fate and
that of the human race.In this novel, the intent is to show real
psychological issues that could affect a crew returning from a
long-duration mission to Mars. The storyline presents a mystery that
keeps the reader guessing, yet the issues at stake are based on the
findings from the author's research and other space-related work over
the past 40+ years. The novel touches on actual plans being discussed
for such an expedition as well as notions involving the search for
Martian life and panspermia.The underlying science, in particular the
psychological, psychiatric, and interpersonal elements, are introduced
and discussed by the author in an extensive appendix.Nick Kanas is
an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San
Francisco, where he directed the group therapy training program. For
over 20 years he conducted research on group therapy, and for nearly 20
years after that he was the Principal Investigator of NASA-funded
research on astronauts and cosmonauts. He is the co-author of Space
Psychology and Psychiatry, which won the 2004 International Academy of
Astronautics Life Science Book Award, and the author of Humans in
Space: The Psychological Hurdles, which won the 2016 International
Academy of Astronautics Life Science Book Award.
Dr. Kanas has presented talks on space psychology and on celestial
mapping at several regional and Worldcon science fiction conventions. A
Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (London), he has been an
amateur astronomer for over 50 years and is an avid reader of science
fiction. He is also the author of two non-fiction books (Star Maps:
History, Artistry, and Cartography and Solar System Maps: From
Antiquity to the Space Age) and two science fiction novels (The New
Martians andThe Protos Mandate), all published by Springer.
