It has been a long time since I read Science Fiction! after reading this book, I wonder why? I really enjoyed the story, an easy and fun read I finished the book in two evenings. The story and plot are not are not hard to follow-how long can a stowaway on a ship to Mars remain hidden. But the author makes the story interesting and believable. It reads a bit like a juvenile novel, though the language is not the language typical of juveniles. Still it was entertaining and passed the time in a fun way. If you like Science Fiction (or are willing to try it) I can heartily recommend. And yes I will look for more of this author's books. ( )

Elizabeth Braun’s Return to Outpost focuses on Jack Morledge, retired Mars colonist who, at the story’s beginning, currently lives in Florida. Prior to a new Mars mission, Jack switches places with one of the astronauts and takes his place on Mars. The astronauts, Jack, Helene, Claudia, Max, and Josh, work for a private company contracted with NASA. These characters all represent different groups currently in spaceflight as well. The older Jack stands in as the representative of NASA, an organization with a long history while Helene and Claudia both represent the ESA, a newer, though just as successful, government space agency. Max and Josh both represent the newer private space companies, like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. The story largely resembles that of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy with a group of astronauts going about the day-to-day maintenance of a Mars colony while taking trips to sites of geologic significance. The story suffers at times do to characters’ awkward descriptions of previous space missions or other bits of trivia, which derails the conversational flow of their dialogue. Additionally, there are numerous grammatical and punctuation errors. The author, Braun, lives in Germany so these may be the result of a translation error. Finally, despite an admirable attention to detail, there is one glaring factual inaccuracy: the astronauts have live videoconferences with Earth with minimal or no delay. At Mars’ closest approach to Earth, the one-way travel distance for a radio signal is about 4 minutes, while at the farthest it can take about 21 minutes, meaning any two-way communication would have an 8 to 42 minute delay between one person speaking and receiving a response. This is a minor error, though, and most readers will not realize it. Overall, the book is a fun read and will delight fans of science fiction. ( )

Return to Outpost by Elizabeth Braun is a comical tale that is enjoyable to read and guaranteed to make you laugh out loud.
Watching the preparations for the next space launch, Jack longs to return to Mars and the adventures of his youth. But he is retired now and has been put out to pasture in Texas. That is until fate intervenes and he stows away on a rocket headed towards Mars. Of course, he does not receive a warm welcome on board, but rather than scrubbing the mission; the crew decides to continue their journey to Mars.
The new base is set up near the North Pole and the crew begins the work that they were sent to Mars to do. However, not everything goes as planned and Jack encounters more adventure than he bargained for. All the while, trying not to divulge his presence on Mars.
Return to Outpost is the second book in a series about Jack living on Mars. The first book is titled Jack’s Outpost. Both novels are full of factual information about Mars and touch on some of the issues of colonization.
I would recommend the book to those looking for a light read, even if they are not science fiction advocates and even if they have not read the first book. ( )