Worst Martian Playlist by Corrie Garrett

Blurb

“No one should die in silence. May I make a suggestion?”

A pair of shell-shocked astronauts struggle to survive in Worst Martian Playlist, a suspenseful science fiction adventure that mixes near-future science, AI, and humor.

The first caverns of the new Martian base, Tenacity, were dug by rovers and tested by the Forerunner crew. But when the first long-term crew is on its way, catastrophe strikes. 

Miranda Oceveda and Caleb Wexler are the sole survivors. In the caverns and tunnels that comprise the new Tenacity base—still scheduled to have over a thousand residents by 2110—they do their work diligently.

But they are plagued by their losses.

When NASA uploads an AI assistant to the Tenacity system, they both welcome it. Sure, it’s a little pushy with its recommender engine (Ero was originally a proprietary personality for Amazon), but it’s handy, comes with tons of media, and supposedly has a good psychiatric function.

But when Miranda begins to be reckless with her safety…

When Caleb begins to lie about his tasks…

They both have to grapple with what Ero has become to them. Because Mars is waiting to kill anyone who slips.

Review

I saw a recent review of this book and immediately thought this is a book for me. I downloaded a sample on my kindle and that was me sorted, I couldn’t put the book down. 

Miranda and Caleb have been stuck on Mars for a long time and things are not good, they are having to do the jobs of a crew and there are only two of them. They are tired, overworked and still in shock from what happened on the voyage to Mars and they are not handling things or each other well and then there is Ero. 

Ero is an AI and very obsessed with giving the best media selection to Miranda and Caleb even though they are never keen on his suggestions. Even though he was a precursor to Amazon’s Alexa he runs the Mars base brilliantly and does his job well and Miranda and Caleb depend upon him. 

At the start of the story it is clear that Miranda is not well and she is taking more and more risks with her safety. Caleb is very worried about Miranda but doesn’t know how he can help and nobody else can help as they are so far away. Then things take an interesting turn when Ero has ideas of his own. 

As the story develops you begin to see how things are panning out but never sure of what will happen next. I simply couldn’t put this book down and will definitely be reading more of Corrie Garrett’s books. 5 out of 5 Dragons from me.

🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲

Purchase Links

Amazon

About the author

Corrie began writing in 2010, when she discovered NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and finished her first novel in a month. She has a degree in History & Political Science, along with Computer Science, since she mistook her love of science fiction and romance for a love of computers and history. But she doesn’t regret it, since it led to her very own happily ever after. Corrie lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband, four kids, and a lot of very pushy fictional characters.

Corrie loves classic science fiction, from Isaac Asimov to Andre Norton, and enjoys writing science fiction and fantasy with an old-school vibe and a bit of romance. Her second love is retellings – be it myths, Bible stories, or classics.