THE SIRENS OF MARS Searching for Life on Another World

Cassandra Campbell is a talented narrator and an ideal choice for this combination of science history and personal memoir. The author, a renowned planetary scientist and NASA veteran, describes the history of Mars observation from the time it was a mere a red dot in the sky through the period of spacecraft exploration. Campbell's friendly voice moves from supposition to discovery as fiction is enlightened by fact, covering her childhood fascination and adult quests, technical terms and remote locales. The audiobook is not limited to Mars. Johnson has been all over our own planet on scientific expeditions. She also describes snippets of her personal life, including marrying and beginning a family. This is, in part, a portrait of human minds trying to find patterns in chaos. Once we saw canals, for example; later they weren't there. A very human story with a first-class narrator at the helm. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2020]