How to Mars

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Product Details
Price
$16.95  $15.76
Publisher
Tachyon Publications
Publish Date
Pages
240
Dimensions
5.4 X 8.2 X 0.8 inches | 0.6 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781616963569

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About the Author
David Ebenbach writes. He has been writing ever since he was a kid, when he kept his whole family awake by banging away on an enormous manual typewriter, and he's never wanted to stop. He is the author of eight books of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, and his work has picked up awards along the way: the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, the Juniper Prize, the Patricia Bibby Award, and more.

A Philadelphia native, these days David does most of his writing in Washington, DC, where he lives with his family--because he uses a laptop now, he doesn't keep them awake with his typing--and where he works at Georgetown University, teaching creative writing and literature.
Reviews
A Nerd Daily Fantasy & Sci Fi Book to Look Out For

"David Ebenbach's new novel wittily dismantles the classic space adventure story. In it, the first colonists on Mars struggle not only with the technical and existential challenges of living on another world, but also with much more familiar conundrums: boredom, cabin fever, a crazy coworker, an unplanned pregnancy, corporate incompetence. Funny and wonderfully inventive, How to Mars is equal parts an absurdist cautionary tale and a warm-hearted exploration of those things, good, bad and indifferent, that make us human."
--Emily Mitchell, author of Viral Stories

"Six Marsonauts must survive on the red planet after their reality TV show is canceled in this delightfully unconventional novel.Two years after having been chosen to receive one-way tickets to Mars for a lifetime of research--all while living under constant surveillance for TV--six scientists are finding life undeniably monotonous, especially since their show was canceled because of low ratings. 'After a while even scientists can get bored of science. Especially here. Mars, I can tell you, is pretty much rocks, rocks, rocks, ' according to Josh, a psychologist. But when Jenny, the astrophysicist, realizes she's pregnant after having begun a romantic relationship with Josh--although the Destination Mars! Handbook repeatedly stresses that sex is strictly forbidden--the small community must come together to resolve the looming issues associated with welcoming a newborn into their cramped habitat. Not surprisingly, once the TV producers are made aware of Jenny's pregnancy, the show is brought back and ratings soar. Told from the perspectives of various characters--even ethereal Martian life-forms that refer to themselves as the Patterns--and complemented with excerpts from the Destination Mars! handbook and Jenny's humorous research notes, the story has a strong sense of whimsy, but Ebenbach also creates depth by exploring issues like engineer Stefan's feelings of estrangement and violence and Jenny's guilt over her sister's suicide years earlier. A poignant examination of what it means to be human."
--Kirkus

Praise for David Ebenbach

On The Guy We Didn't Invite to the Orgy

David Ebenbach inhabits a series of minds that most of us would classify as unknowable; he does so with empathy and wisdom, and often with humor as well. . . . Ebenbach is more at home in the minefield of ambiguity than most of us are in our houses.
―Roy Kesey, author of Any Deadly Thing and Pacazo

If The Guy We Didn't Invite to the Orgy were a clothing pattern, it would be plaid, and it would be plaid that used a lot of colors―maybe all the colors―and one of the colors would think, 'All of the other colors go great together, but I don't fit in.' And each of the other colors would be thinking the same thing.
Monkey Bicycle

On Autogeography

Wit, tenderness and an earnest attention.
--Jennifer K. Sweeney, award-winning author of How to Live on Bread and Music and Salt Memory

Unsettling, spiritual, real, and relevant.
--Jonathan K. Rice, editor and publisher of Iodine Poetry Journal

On Into the Wilderness

[A] lush, honest and beautifully written collection.
--Karen Paul-Stern, CurrentMom

With charm, insight, and humor, Ebenbach reveals a deeper meaning to everyday events that by their very ordinariness rush by unnoticed, moments typically experienced without thought or examination.
--Washington Independent Review of Books

On Miss Portland

Ebenbach delivers an absorbing, suspenseful story of emotional depth and complexity.
--Fiction Southeast

A complex, intimate, and deeply humane portrait of a person whose experience of the world is both alternate and poignantly familiar.
--Foreword Reviews

Anybody who has ever tried (again) to make a fresh start, to begin again (again), to give it all another shot someplace else (again), will adore Miss Portland.
--Peter Orner, author of Peter Brown and Other Stories