The Martian Testament: by Alexander Castle

The Martian Testament peels back the myth of creating a new Earth on Mars. The view from the red planet is startlingly different, and deeper, than anyone imagined. Going to Mars? Throw away the rulebook. Four main characters descend on the red planet for their own reasons: one marooned, another on assignment (so he thought), a third as a lark, and a fourth as an extraordinary power play. As to which is the hero, the reader will have to decide. Much like the Wild West, the "new Martians" write their own rules, even though they need each other to survive the extreme conditions. A journalist makes the long voyage to Mars; his bunkmate is an ambitious politician, with schemes of his own, which unfold in the town, as the journalist discovers one aspect and then another of this amazing planet, capped off by the discovery of the journal of the original "first Martian," who survived years alone on the red planet, ferreting out the secrets of survival, and perhaps the early history of Mars and Astra (which later became the asteroid belt) long before intelligent life began on Earth. Many discoveries, adventures, and revelations. A different kind of novel by Sasha Newborn is also available (www.createspace.com/4176600), The Basement, a Novel of the Sixties -- part memoir of the early Peace Corps in Africa, part a culture clash on returning to an America at war with itself as the narrator also struggles to find himself.