- Published: 2000
- Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, 2001 —
- Nebula Award for Best Novel, 2002 —
Geoffrey A. Landis had been a major figure in hard SF for over a decade before delivering this a novel-length work of SF - an epic of human tenacity and survival in the early days of manned Mars exploration. After a treacherous failed landing, one crew's only hope of survival lies in trekking halfway across the surface of Mars itself... a journey to the limits of human endurance. And in the process, what was unknown about each of them will be revealed and only the truth will save them from a terrible death far from home.