The Mars Conspiracy-Dr. Razi Ahmed

Book: The Mars Conspiracy
Author: Dr. Razi Ahmed
Publisher: Treeshade Books

I was provided a media copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Do you believe that there is life on other planets?

A man dreams of colonizing Mars. His quest has a connection with a great ancient civilization and the mysterious Pharaoh Ankhenaten. 1300 BC, Ancient Egypt: The great Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty—Amenhotep III, takes help of the 'visitors from the sun-disc,’ to save his dying son—Ankhenaten. He will change, they say, and he does! 2021, Simdega, Jharkhand: A mysterious creature attacks and kills a villager near the Space Tech Facility, where three social media influencers discover a crop circle. Dr Daniel Soren joins the Mars Colonisation Project headed by the enigmatic Noel Minj, unsuspecting of what’s brewing within. Noel is preparing for the inaugural unmanned rocket, 'The Starship’, to carry the resources for human survival to Mars. All eyes are on this mission. Nothing must go wrong! But what happens when Noel's secret starts to slip away? How are the Pharaoh Ankhenaten and the ancient Egyptian civilization connected to the mission of colonizing Mars? Are we alone in this universe? Is the first unmanned flight to Mars really unmanned?

The concept of the book is quite interesting and it brings together science fiction with history and creates a narrative that keeps you guessing about the motives of the characters. What I liked about the book was its writing. The storytelling is simple and easy to understand. The author has taken time to establish the plot and given due importance to the science bit as well as the fiction bit which keeps you interested in the events and not run to google each and every small thing. Razi has also explained the Egyptian history in detail as it pertains to the story and woven it into the fiction part of the story seamlessly. Another interesting aspect of the story is that the author has taken a real-life event and built the story around it which helps the reader relate to it a bit more. However, while the story works exceptionally at a concept level, the execution of the same in the second half didn’t work for me. The first half of the book is spent mostly in building up the research, science and the concept part of it, and the interest keeps rising as you turn the pages. However, as the second part of the book starts, it starts resembling more like a Bollywood romance movie rather than a science fiction novel. I felt that the focus on the relationship between Ankhenaten and Nefertiti was too much and the way it unfolds in the climax was something that definitely did not work for me. I felt that the science fiction part of the book got lost in focusing on Ankhenaten and his role in the climax.

The characters in the book are created in detail and I liked how a proper introduction of each character has been provided. I liked the character of David and the manner in which his story evolved right till the end. Another character that I liked was that of Dr. Daniel and how he brought a perspective to the entire story and acted as a reader to explain the things in the story. The character of Noel Minj seems to be inspired from a famous personality and was an easy one to guess.

Overall, this is a book with an interesting concept that could have been better executed to focus on the core story. The book scores a 4/5 for me.

Get a copy of the book from your nearest bookstore or on Amazon India.