I finished @MorlockP ‘s Red State Mars last week, and I thought the afterword offered a really interesting insight into the creative process behind the book. Travis is a tech guy (and state representative) that writes “Good Old Fashioned Science Fiction”, and I have enjoyed his work. If you are inclined that way, go ahead and read the book. If you are put off by the implied political bias, maybe read the afterword and see if the themes sound interesting. I wound up being briefly referenced in the context of zero-G combat, since Russ Blink and I did try a little bit of judo on a parabolic airplane flight long ago. Sixty seconds of experience puts us ahead of at least 99.999999% of the population, but I bet there are some Russian cosmonauts that have done some more serious and extended tussling, which would be fun to hear about in an interview sometime.