A Rebel's History of Mars

When we have finally managed to destroy Earth, some of us may already be living on Mars. If you stay inside the domes, I hear it can be quite pleasant. However, what happens when we start to destroy Mars? The issue with all these planets is not the landscape or the lack of oxygen, it is the fact that humankind has populated them. A Rebel’s History of Mars by Nadia Afifi is a split timeline narrative about two societies that humans and have somehow managed to mess up. 

Azad lives a simple and managed life on Nabatea, his choices are dictated by his computer companion. Everything only has three options and all you must do is follow one of them, but there is never the option to find his missing twin sister. Events conspire to set him out on a mission to find his sister, but to discover where she is, he will need the help of a group of rebellious historians and the past. Martian Kezza lived centuries earlier, but her life is about to inform in the present. 

It is a trend in science fiction that a planned utopia ends up in a dystopia and in the case of Rebel there is more than one of these. The narrative is split into two, a thousand years apart. In the present we have the closeted Azad as he discovers there is more to life than just three choices. A thousand years earlier is the far feistier Kezza, aerialist and rebel. Both live in what should be a new opportunity for humanity, but both are failed states. 

The ideal of social engineering is one of the key components of the story and one of the most interesting elements of the book. Afifi makes the social engineers the enemies in the book. Kezza is obsessed with killing the man that designed the colony on Mars in which she lives. She blames the man for her father’s death and the hideous life that most of the population on Mars have. Azad lives far into the future on a planned planet that is very controlled. As the story unfolds, the two socially engineered stories come together. 

Initially, the book reads like separate tales, but when Azad meets some historians this changes. In his society, learning about the past is frowned upon and sometimes illegal. By using a device that can see the past, the historians discover why the past was hidden. 

Like the title suggests, Rebel has a rebellious heart. The characters are all fighting against the norms, trying to understand and make things better. However, history can repeat itself as the next rebellion may easily become the next establishment. The cycle will continue. 

Rebel is an interesting book, and the dual narrative is a clever idea. I enjoyed bouncing between the two timelines, and it allowed some surprises to bubble up. A new discovery from the past suddenly informs the present. I do think that some science was a little dubious, even in the realm of science fiction. I was not sure that something like the Barry machine to see the past could exist in this book’s universe. Firstly, why was the tech randomly invented by rebels, not that likely? And if this tech had been invented, I would assume that plenty of other solutions and technology would also have been present, altering the course of the story.  

The balance of the technology is a little off, Afifi prefers to use a convenient story device to push the narrative, rather than clean science. It gives you an idea of who would enjoy the book the most. Sci fi purists may struggle with some of the science concepts, but those who enjoy strong characters and intrigue will like the way the story unfolds. Afifi does a good job of weaving the two stories together into a satisfying whole towards the end, even if some deliberate engineering has been done to the science to make it fit the author’s chosen vision.