Review: Lakes of Mars

Lakes of Mars by Merritt Graves
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Many thanks to Netgalley and Merritt Graves for providing an ARC in exchange for a review. All opinions are 100% my own and independent of receiving and advanced copy.
Rating 3.5 stars.


Aaron, a seventeen year old kid, carries a lot of guilt for a shuttlecraft accident that killed his family. He was driving. He decides to enlist and figures he will get sent to the Rim to fight, which he knows almost means certain death. But he instead makes it onto the Corinth Station which houses the most elite military training school. Aaron quickly discovers that this school’s philosophy of survival of the fittest has bred cruel students and Aaron doesn’t know who to trust. Aaron quickly stands up for Sebastian, when becomes his best friend, and joins a unit who seems to want to protect him from a cruel leader, Caelus. But when Caelus reaches out to Aaron, telling him how he has been portrayed as a cruel leader for the benefit of others, Aaron is no longer sure whom to trust. Aaron learns of a sinister plot that may cause destruction to the planet below and all the people that inhabit the planet, unless he and a small group of friend can put a stop to what’s happening.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story. I loved Aaron as the conflicted hero and there were lots of memorable characters that I was rooting for like Sebastian and Eve, just to name a few. Not all the characters survive which is always refreshing because it keeps the reader on their toes. One of the tricks that the great George R.R. Martin uses (which he learned from the even greater J.R.R. Tolkien), is to kill favourite characters and kill them often. I enjoyed the world that was created, especially the school with all the military fighting, being in “The Box”, all of that was very cool and exciting. The story moved along at a good pace and I was interested to get to the end and see what would happen. The tension was well maintained, with nicely planned lulls where the author could build back stories, a budding romance and other good stuff.

My only issue that kept if from being 4 stars or higher was that I personally needed more world building and more explanation, especially at the beginning. I was really confused for a long time because I just didn’t know what was going on. I go the basic story, but I didn’t understand the construct of the world they were living in. I wanted to know more about how Aaron got there. It took me a while before I understood “The Box” and other aspects of the story. I still maintained my interest and never felt like not finishing the book. It, honestly, could just be me, that I couldn’t grasp what was happening, I mean, I didn’t really know if the Verex were aliens, or created by man for quite a while. I was well over 50% and still confused about certain things and I would have appreciated more detail about the construct of the world they were living in. The italicized parts were also never consistent. Sometime it was memories and sometimes it was dreams, so that didn’t help either. It didn’t detract from the story and like I said, I still was interested, wanted to keep reading and was invested in finding out what was going on.

For those that are interested, there is a soundtrack that goes along with the story. There are 12 tracks and it is worth having a listen to. Now, I am invested in the characters and storyline and can’t wait to see what happens next, now that they have landed down on the planet.

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