Customer Reviews

The Fifth Man

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Oxygen & The Fifth Man together tell one story,

A fascinating tale of near-future Science Fiction, the skill and brilliance of the writing of this pair of books more than compensates for a couple of technical, logistic oversights.

This is a rich and rewarding read with high drama, incredible risks, competing political and career goals for both individuals and for Multi-Billion Dollar industries. It combines competing ideologies, elements of romance, and a raw survival instinct in a harsh and completely unforgiving environment.

Winner of the 2001 Christy Award for Fiction, this is a delightful read.

Wow, John and Randall did it again. I want to go to Mars! I was on the edge of my seat with every page. Well written, exciting, believable characters and an engaging plot. I sure hope there are more books in the series.

The sequel to Oxygen is one of the most gripping, exciting, and best written sequels I've ever read. If you're looking for an excellent read - buy Oxygen and Fifth Man at the same time. You won't want to wait to start the first page of Fifth Man after you finish the last page of Oxygen!

Become the Sixth Man/Woman! Get them both now!

The crew has reached its destination Mars after a harrowing near death space trip from earth (see OXYGEN). Now a new survival test begins with the crew trying to live on a planet that makes Antarctica seem like a sauna and no rescue flight possible. Nothing should be able to survive in this frozen inhabitant.

The four member crew struggles with the harshness of life while trying to meet NASA's detailed expectations in which every nanosecond is booked. Meanwhile, deeply religious microbial ecologist Dr. Valkerie Jansen finds proof that life once existed on the angry red planet, but swears she has also seen a "fifth man" sabotaging their mission. No one else has seen this ET so Commander Dr. Bob Kaganovski worries that she is cracking up under the strain. Illness has hit the team too in what seems like a War of the Worlds reversal. Martian madness grips the crew, but is that why Bob cannot stop looking at Valkerie while they wonder if infected, can they go home?

The second book in John B. Olson, and Randall Ingermanson marvelous Martian mission, THE FIFTH MAN, is a great Christian science fiction thriller that enables the audience to feel they are living on the frozen tundra along with the crew. The exhilarating story line hooks the reader on several levels including the obvious survival adventure and whether THE FIFTH MAN exists or is imagined and if the latter who is sabotaging their chances of enduring the severity. Fans will wonder if bacteria could live on this ice cold orb while applauding the two authors for once again proving that science and religion are compatible.

Harriet Klausner

Just as life on Mars is becoming routine, several suspicious incidents create chaos for the four astronauts. For one, Kennedy (who was never quite stable to begin with) appears to have a previously undiagnosed mental problem. Bob is growing rather worried since Valkerie is rethinking his proposal. Lex and Val are searching for microbial life on a barren planet. needless to say, the tension among the group is getting out of hand.

After someone or something attempts to kill the crew, the paranoia from Oxygen returns full force. Suffice it to say that the killer is indeed real.

I enjoyed getting a better look at some of minor characters from Oxygen. Josh, Crystal, Cathe, Nate, and EECOM play key roles in uncovering the killer...or is it one of them?

Anyway, the authors competently explain the science behind much of the Mars mission. I greatly enjoyed this book. It tended toward being an action novel with enough introspection to be real. Definitely recommended.

What I liked best about The Fifth Man is that it isn't "from Mars." In fact, I slowly began to recognize Mars, not from anything learned at the NASA Web site (although that is a good place to begin), but from my own life as a child in a cold (sometimes horribly cold) climate, where everything is reduced to surviving the cold. Only life forms equipped to survive a level of cold that is essentially anti-life will make it.

Predictably, the four astronauts of the previous book, Oxygen, begin to experience the strain of such a life, now that they have ended up on Mars. They begin to imagine -- or are they imagining? -- that there is a "fifth man" around who is doing terrible things. Could the fifth man be an extraterrestrial? Extraterrestrials might not want Earthlings bashing around Mars. Or are the astronauts slowly going mental under the strain?

Think of this: If someone is on Mars, and you suspect that they have gone bush crazy, you cannot just pick them up and fly them out, the way you can fly them out of the Arctic or Antarctic. Can one person's craziness infect all the others? Or is that the answer to all the strange events? Something to think about as you read ...

I won't spoil the fun by revealing the ending, but I will say that this story should appeal to sci-fi and mystery buffs alike -- as well as to fans of novels of the North.

What I liked best about The Fifth Man is that it isn't "from Mars." In fact, I slowly began to recognize Mars, not from anything learned at the NASA Web site (although that is a good place to begin), but from my own life as a child in a cold (sometimes horribly cold) climate, where everything is reduced to surviving the cold. Only life forms equipped to survive a level of cold that is essentially anti-life will make it.

Predictably, the four astronauts of the previous book, Oxygen, begin to experience the strain of such a life, now that they have ended up on Mars. They begin to imagine -- or are they imagining? -- that there is a "fifth man" around who is doing terrible things. Could the fifth man be an extraterrestrial? Extraterrestrials might not want Earthlings bashing around Mars. Or are the astronauts slowly going mental under the strain?

Think of this: If someone is on Mars, and you suspect that they have gone bush crazy, you cannot just pick them up and fly them out, the way you can fly them out of the Arctic or Antarctic. Can one person's craziness infect all the others? Or is that the answer to all the strange events? Something to think about as you read ...

I won't spoil the fun by revealing the ending, but I will say that this story should appeal to sci-fi and mystery buffs alike -- as well as to fans of novels of the North.

I received the Olson / Ingermanson duo's first book, Oxygen, in Christmas of 2001. Regardless of the new Lord of the Rings trilogy I was also given (in a collector's edition platinum-issue cardboard box, plus The Hobbit!), I was inexorably drawn to Oxygen. I finished it quickly, loved the characters, and loved the story.

So of course I was blessed to learn that chem/phys whizzes and word wranglers John B. Olson and Randall Ingermanson were already at work cranking out the sequel, The Fifth Man, subtitle: Will they find life on the Red Planet . . . before it finds them?.

The Fifth Man could work as a standalone novel; there's no Batman-TV-show-like "We have already seen . . ." prologue near the beginning. Right away, we're on Mars, with the crew of the Ares 10, year 2014, but with today's technology in full action in an actual Mars mission.

At first things might seem a little disappointing for Oxygen readers. We know that at the end of the first novel, all the psychological warfare and personal conflicts between the members of the Ares 10 crew was resolved. After all the chaos getting to the Red Planet, everyone had finally learned to cooperate, to trust each other . . . they had a bond.

Not so in The Fifth Man. Things are getting a little tight again, and crew members Valkerie Jansen, Bob Kaganovski, Kennedy Hampton and Alexis Ohta are back to fighting. Perhaps they have a good reason. An apparent spacecraft saboteur, a bomb, seeming infections by meteorite bacteria and of course the oxygen shortages were bad enough on the way to Mars. Now it seems that something else inhabits the planet . . . a being, a presence. It's scratching the sides of their buildings, stalking them, it's just out there . . . somewhere.

That alone causes enough misgivings for the crew. Then there's Valkerie's declining of Bob's on-Mars, live-on-international-TV marriage proposal. So both of them are at odds. But most disappointing is Kennedy-he's back to being an absolute jerk. Like the crew, I had just begun to like him at the end of Oxygen.

But don't think I was disappointed in the novel altogether. Not so. The Fifth Man is undoubtedly even better than its prequel. The Olson / Ingermanson duo have done even more homework for this mission, weaving science facts in with a little knowledge of Martian geography; everything is incredibly realistic. But this is also science fiction with characters you want to like-and I just found Kennedy's behavior depressing.

Like one other The Fifth Man reviewer, any readers who expect to see huge tentacles come snaking out of anyplace aren't necessarily going to find them. This is Christian fiction, after all, and many Christ-believers don't hold to the idea of life outside of Earth.

(The theology for this is simple: the Earth is the center of God's focus. Postulations about other planetary civilizations and even Narnia-like parallel worlds are interesting, but the Bible says nothing about these. One could say that if there were Martians, for example, Christ would have to incarnate as a perfect Martian to die for their sins . . . this seems absurd, to say the least.

But who's to say there isn't any "life" on Mars - not necessarily creatures with reasoning capability, but in the form of tiny organisms such as those Valkerie finds early in the novel? Evolution-believers would explain it as even more proof that life evolved there also. But as Bob explains to Valkerie, so what? All we would know is that the organisms are there; it doesn't prove any more evolution except to those who interpret it that way.)

I found it difficult to locate The Fifth Man's exact climax, because it seems to encompass the entire latter half of the story! In addition to the unknown being, the crew has to deal with an apparent raving space loon . . . and of course the conspiracies on Earth threaten the mission even further . . . and will the crew even be affected by back-contamination from unknown Martian microbes?

Everything is weaved together perfectly. Every circumstance has an explanation. The unanswered plot questions left over from the original Oxygen are also resolved perfectly. Regardless, we still don't have the Ares 10 crew safely on terra firma once again. Oxygen and The Fifth Man are spectacular enough, setting new standards in Christian fiction . . . but would The Oxygen Trilogy not sound even more impressive?

I'm holding my breath.

If you haven't read or reread the authors' earlier "Oxygen", take the time to do so--it will help! "The Fifth Man" takes up where the other left off with no "As you remember..." filler. It doesn't waste any time, either. We start in the thick of it, and things get more and more complex as the novel progresses. There are several intertwined plots that work well, IMHO. And there are enough red herrings (well, whaddaya expect? It's set on Mars, fer cryin' out loud!) to lull the reader many times into the delusion that he or she has it all figured out--when the plot goes somewhere else. There are a number of events that seem flatly impossible, but that are explained well and do make sense when all is revealed. There are no sudden plot resolutions to strain the reader's trust in the authors. Everything hangs together quite well. As far as I can tell, there's only one minor plot hiccup, and it can't be avoided. It calls for a bit of suspension of disbelief, but isn't a problem (I won't say more because I hate spoilers). One of the real strengths is that there's no wasted writing at the end, either. The final plot elements don't come to light until close to the last page. And it works. A great read from a great team.

Loved it. It's not what I'd have done with the premise, but it's probably better than I could've done. The science was concrete, the suspense was marvellous, and frankly it was a good read. There's not as much evolution/ creation angst as there was in Oxygen, and certainly no conclusions drawn about it. (Which, if you think about it, is best -- this isn't a textbook; it's fiction dealing with the human element, not unprovable arguments. If I'd written it, I'd probably have made it into a theme-paper about creationism, whereas what they did was suspense sf, and a darn good job.)
I guess one problem I had with it was that the ending seemed less perfect than Oxygen; i.e. there were still questions left unanswered. I'm hoping for a third book from this talented team, because, even with my nit-picking, this is still the best book I've read all year. Kudos, dudes!