Six explorers, three married couples, have been chosen for the first manned expedition to Mars – the mission commander and the ship’s doctor, Jim and Barb Klein, geologist Cindy Gould and her husband, explorer Peter Judd, biologist Campbell Stanhope and his wife, astronomer Lani Monroe. Each has capabilities that the expedition need – but many of them are hiding dangerous secrets. And when they make the discovery of a lifetime, the tensions within the group threaten to shatter the mission irreparably, risking even the lives of the crew.
THE GREATER GOOD is a tension-filled adventure, with threats both internal and external around every corner. Each character has a thoroughly-developed personality, and the author uses their secrets and their hidden weaknesses admirably to develop the story. The personality clashes and collisions that occur among the group members are given clear roots in their internal motivations, and the reader is allowed to get inside each mind in turn, giving multiple perspectives and a sometimes-overlapping view of the situation. In particular, the main villain’s internal dialogue gives a chillingly realistic view of his own self-deception and self-justification, as he gets more and more deeply entangled in his own ego. The science involved is reasonably plausible, and the author explains it just enough, without either improbable magic gizmos or long-winded descriptions that interfere with the story.
The story can be a bit predictable in places – some of the most dramatic events are rather too clearly telegraphed to an alert reader. Sometimes, too, the author’s repetition of events from different viewpoints misses its goal and merely becomes, well, repetitive. And while characters are for the most part three-dimensional human beings, there are aspects of their personalities that can feel a bit stereotyped at times – the risk-taking explorer trained by natives, or the spoiled rich boy out to reclaim the family “honor,” measured in dollar signs, for example.
THE GREATER GOOD is a psychologically rich exploration of the potential conflicts and difficulties faced by a six-person mission to Mars – and it is also an enjoyable, entertaining, and action-packed story.
~IndieReader.