[cross-posted from GoodReads]
The cover lies; readers who specifically pick this up because they liked The Martian aren’t going to be happy. Rather than a straightforward, hard SF problem-solving story, this is an epoch-spanning saga told in nonlinear episodes, from the near future of the first Martian colonies to so many hundreds of thousands of years further that even the immortal AIs who run Mars’ virtual world can’t remember. It’s a strong and poetic tale of reborn entities encountering each other throughout their existence — it’s not terribly accurate to call it “Martian Cloud Atlas,” but it tickles my funnybone, so I’ll call it that regardless.