SPACE tourism is in vogue. Billionaires dream of travelling to the stars, bringing along a few lucky civilians for the ride.
But if you were offered a one-way trip to Mars, would you leave everyone you know behind for the journey of a lifetime?
That's the premise of David Ebenbach's 2021 novel How to Mars. The Destination Mars! corporation, owned by an eccentric billionaire, funds a reality TV show that sends six lucky scientists to colonise Mars.
At first, Josh, Jenny, Trixie, Nicole, Roger and Stefan are thrilled to be the first humans to inhabit Mars. The Marstronauts have the unique opportunity to study the Red Planet up-close, and viewers on Earth follow their adventure.
But once the initial excitement diminishes, the scientists grow terribly bored because Mars appears completely barren.
That's when Josh and Jenny break the one cardinal rule — no sex allowed.
When Jenny becomes pregnant, the Marstronauts and the viewers become obsessed with the challenges of raising the first child born on another planet.
Being the first people to colonise Mars allows the Marstronauts to establish their own civilisation.
But what sort of society do they want? How much of the old world's social rules and expectations, familiar and sometimes dysfunctional, do they want to import? How far are they willing to embrace the new?
These questions begin to preoccupy Stefan, by far my favourite character.
On Earth, Stefan was a completely ordinary Danish-English engineer who liked rules, discipline and order.
On Mars, he becomes hilariously unhinged. The moment they land on Mars, he is struck by this epiphany: "Everything was new and ungoverned".
Stefan is thrilled by the idea that they are completely free to do what they like because "nobody is in charge of this".
When Stefan remembers that the nearest policeman is six months away by rocket, he is convinced he can get away with anything.
At first, Stefan's impulses are amusingly childish for such a serious man. He fantasises about throwing everyone's clothes outside or going on urinating sprees. But things become violent during the Red/Orange debate.
When neither of them can agree about Mars's actual colour, Stefan breaks Roger's fingers on a whim because Roger is too Canadian for his liking.
After the finger-breaking incident, Stefan tries convincing the others to embrace anarchy since there are no laws. Predictably, everyone refuses, and the first Mars law is created: "You cannot break the fingers of other people."
Stefan grows despondent, knowing that he will never be truly free to express his will on Mars because like on Earth, there are other people and forces that can constrain him.
Stefan realises with horror that although he travelled 80 million kilometres to escape people, he is permanently stuck with the other five on Mars.
He goes through hilarious phases, where he considers running away, pretending to be like the others or murdering everyone.
It is only when Jenny goes into labour and she actively involves Stefan in the birth of her child that he finds acceptance.
Stefan's psychological journey as he learns to tolerate the messiness and unpredictability of other people, especially the baby, is cathartic and surprisingly relatable.
Ebenbach experiments with diverse literary styles to great effect. One standout feature is the inclusion of science notes and the Destination Mars! guidebook, which are interspersed throughout the narrative.
The science notes are written by Jenny and contain bullet points, tables, mathematical equations and pie charts. She gives her notes titles like
"Pregnancy as a Location in Space-Time".
The notes are deeply touching. They represent Jenny's attempts to analyse her complex and ever-changing feelings about pregnancy and motherhood on Mars.
The Destination Mars! guidebook is written by the company's billionaire and reveals an intelligent if rambling mind that's occasionally disconnected from reality.
One chapter, entitled "What You Can't Bring With You", cheekily says "Please understand: there is space, which is infinite, and then there is storage space, which is anything but".
The guidebook reminds the Marstronauts that they cannot bring umbrellas, fireworks or their curtains.
But it also reminds them that they cannot take their feelings of home, community and belonging, or the beautiful sensory experiences of Earth like sunshine or the seasons. These will be sacrificed forever.
How to Mars is an out-of-this-world human migration story that's wonderfully weird, stylistically creative, darkly funny and unexpectedly moving.
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