Over 300 years ago, terraforming began on Mars. Now, the planet is colonized, but it seems that plenty of the same problems that have long plagued Earth are raising their ugly heads on the red planet too.

Inequality and division are being stoked by an opportunistic politician who’s doing her best to appeal to the baser instincts of the townspeople, and her relentless, populist style puts her own daughter in danger.

Meanwhile, other families do their best to survive amidst frequent attacks by ruthless pirates. When the youngest member of the Storm family is kidnapped, his half brother Charlie sets off to retrieve him from the intimidating raiders.

There’s a lot going on in Luther Mosher’s excellent Mars Lightning, which begins with an action-packed hoverboard chase. This allows lead character Charlie to introduce himself to the reader, and give us a good look at his sense of justice too.

That said, one of the strengths of Mosher’s script is that even the good guys make mistakes; Charlie may be a morally decent kid, but he’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. His resentment of his little half-brother illustrates that perfectly, and adds to the feeling that these characters, not just Charlie, are properly three dimensional, and not just lazy cyphers.

Away from the teen drama and the action, both of which are handled really well, the political angle is genuinely intriguing too; the parallels with a certain Western populist are undeniable, making Mars Lightning feel very current in terms of its political commentary. Though those parallels with the most recent and glaring American example do stand out, it’s sadly not uncommon for this type of populist politician to rapidly gain support these days; a fact that doesn’t seem to have escaped Mosher’s notice.

Mars Lightning is a brilliantly fast paced read, packed with great details, plenty of drama and excellent action sequences too. The art (also by Mosher) is vibrant, colourful and also impressively well done, from a storytelling standpoint.

Though the cover may make Mars Lightning seem like an old-fashioned pulp sci-fi (not that there’s anything wrong with that), it’s a much more densely layered, dramatic and politically astute story than I was expecting. They do say not to judge a book by its cover, don’t they?

Mars Lightning is currently in the midst of its Kickstarter campaign. You can pledge for your copy (it’s already almost 200% funded at the time of writing) here.

Many thanks to Luther Mosher, for sending me a copy of Mars Lightning for review purposes.

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