Book Review: Area 51: The Reply, by Bob Mayer

This is the second book in the original Area 51 series by Bob Mayer.  There are also two spin-off series (Nightstalkers and Time Patrol) - I'm not sure how interconnected the stories are, so I'm staying away from the spin-off books until I make it further into this series.

Unfortunately, I've been delinquent in getting this review written - it has been over a month since I read this book - so I'm going based on what I can remember (having read a few other books after this one).

The story picks up almost immediately after the first book one ended.  Mike Turcotte and Lisa Duncan have their plates full as they scramble to understand what the mysterious reply to the Guardian's message at the end of the previous books means, and what the mysterious organization STAAR is all about (is it US government, is it the aliens, some combination of the two, or something else entirely).  Very quickly we start to learn that things are not as they appear.  The characters are operating on limited information and there is a lot of speculation and assumptions based on that information.  Some questions left open at the end of the first book are resolved, while new questions are raised.

I liked how real-world mysteries are involved in the story.  For example, photos of the Cydonia

region on Mars taken by NASA's Viking 1 and 2 seemed to reveal a face (see inset picture), and nearby what appeared to be a pyramid, and a ruined city.  These photographs sparked speculation of aliens and visitations to Earth.  Photographs by later NASA probes, with better camera technologies, showed the original photos contained data flaws.  These elements are brought into the story in the guise of the original photos - there are aliens on Mars!  I understand that this kind of thing is frequent in Mr. Mayer's books, where it becomes difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.  Bravo!

As the story progresses, the characters are faced with multiple concerns, including the aliens and their agenda, the contents of the tomb in China, and the organization STAAR itself, which noone seems to know much about.  Although the members of STAAR seem to have the highest security clearance - so high, that many government and military officials are not even aware of its existence!

Once again, as in the first book, the story resolves some of the open questions, raises others, and leaves things open to continuation in the next book, and it shows what a feisty lot we humans can be when our back is against a wall.  The part of the story where old satellites in Mars orbit are put back into use reminded me very much of the films Apollo 13 (the creative ways that problems with the Command Module and Lunar Module were solved), and The Martian (where the main character had to find a creative way of communicating with Earth) - if you haven't seen this movies, I highly recommend you do so (the book version of The Martian contains even more details, so I recommend that as well).

I did like this story, but I didn't find it quite as gripping as the first book, which I could hardly put down.  But, I am interested in what will be happening next.  At some point, after I get through some other books (such as the next book in The Expanse series - Caliban's War - which I need to finish before the second season starts in a few months), I will likely check out book 3:  The Mission.