Mars Rocks

Notes on a 2018 novel set on Mars and a 1956 movie so far removed from current realities that it might as well be:

One Way by S.J. Morden

Since the early days of science fiction there have been hard scifi aficionados, who prefer the science and technology in the stories to be correct or at least credible, and soft scifi fans who don’t really care very much so long as the story has other merits. There are writers for each. A few scifi stories clank with severe techno-accuracy while others are pure fantasy. Most fall somewhere in the middle with at least one crucial improbability driving the plot, but they still tend to lean one way or the other. The planet Mars has been the setting for plenty of both types, including the soft scifi The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury and the hard scifi trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson starting with Red Mars. The latter is almost a terraforming textbook. Hard scifi has gotten a boost recently from the success of Andy Weir’s The Martian, which was made into a movie starring Matt Damon. S.J. Morden, a planetary geologist by training, is very much in the hard camp with his novel One Way, even though it is as much murder mystery as scifi.

Frank Kittridge is a murderer. He isn’t the ordinary sort of murderer if there is such a thing: he killed his son’s drug dealer. Nonetheless, he was sentenced to life without parole. The parent company of the private business that contracts to run the prison where he is incarcerated, however, makes him an offer: go to Mars and build a permanent laboratory base and living quarters for future NASA scientists. There is no coming back. He will serve out his sentence on Mars maintaining the facility even after it is built. At least technically it won’t be prison, but, of course, where can he go? Seven other life prisoners get the same offer. The six men and two women – most guilty of worse crimes than Frank’s – will work under a non-convict company supervisor who will return to earth after the construction. Frank understands that the eight prisoners are chosen for being cheap and expendable, but he accepts the offer.

After rigorous but rushed training in the desert they are off to Mars. The details of the Mars facility design and how it would be constructed are accurate and based on actual proposals. The plot thickens during the construction on Mars when prisoners start to die in accidents that to Frank don’t seem to be accidents.

The book’s biggest weakness is that the only sympathetic character is Frank, which is why he is the only one I’ve bothered to name in this brief review. Of course, that makes all the others, including the officious company supervisor, credible suspects if in fact the accidents are murders. This helps with the mystery though not with the human aspects of the story. Still, it is creditable hard scifi, and in other respects the book works at least well enough for an overall Thumbs Up.

**** ****

Rock Rock Rock! (1956)

Produced on the extreme cheap by early rock promoter Alan Freed, Rock Rock Rock! (1956) is a bad movie (it really is) that I like to revisit once a decade or so, partly as nostalgia, partly because it is unintentional camp, and partly because some of the music isn’t bad at all.

The plot barely rises to the level of simplistic. A young Tuesday Weld as Dori needs money for a strapless gown for the prom. Despite a singing voice dubbed by Connie Francis, she doesn’t win (or enter) a contest for the money even though a friend urges her to enter one. (I suspect the initial draft of the script had her do just that, but the contest was written out in a revision.) Instead (do I really need to warn of *spoilers* in a movie such as this?) she bamboozles daddy for the cash. Meantime she breaks up with her boyfriend but then makes up with him at the prom. During the quick makeup kiss, her boyfriend Tommy looks very uncomfortable and standoffish, as well he should: though both are supposed to be in high school, he (Teddy Randazzo) is 21 while Tuesday Weld is 13 (maybe 12 at the time of filming).

None of that matters. The plot is a bare excuse for Alan Freed to host musical acts on a TV show and (as happens only in the movies) at Dori’s prom. The acts include Chuck Berry, LaVerne Baker, Jimmy Cavallo House Rockers, Cirino and the Bowties, the Coney Island Kids, the Flamingos, and Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers. This film requires a high tolerance for low budgets, bad scripting, and bad acting, but with that tolerance it’s an amusing peek at a moment in time when rock’n’roll was getting its footing in popular culture.

Trailer: Rock Rock Rock!