Meet the Cast
John Boone
John Boone is the Neil Armstrong of the 21st century. He was an American astronaut and the first man to walk on Mars. His popularity and blond good looks allowed him to jump aboard Ares for a...
Frank Chalmers
We first meet Frank Chalmers while he's plotting the murder of his best friend, John Boone. And we think to ourselves, ah, he's an Iago-style villain. Jolly good. We're so glad we got that sorted o...
Nadezhda Francine Chernyshevski, a.k.a. Nadia
Not to be jerks, but we’re going to stick with calling this character by her nickname of Nadia—our Russian just isn't that good. That said, say hello to Nadia, a Russian engineer and a member o...
Maya Toitovna
Maya, Maya, Maya… what can we say about Maya? She's Maya. That about nails it. Okay, we guess we can go a little deeper, but it's difficult since Maya seems like a different person to so many peo...
Arkady Bogdanov
Arkady Bogdanov is a character. Not a character as in a character in the novel—that's a given—we mean a character in the eccentric-but-still-lovable-and-interesting-person kind of way. A Russia...
Saxifrage Russel, a.k.a. Sax
Every space exploration needs its clichéd scientist. You know, the guy who walks around in a lab coat and can only comprehend the world and its people through scientific motives and terminology. A...
Ann Clayborne
In Sax's character analysis, we said he was Ann's foil. So, it's probably a safe bet that she is his foil as well. Funny how that math works.Lady in RedAnn is a geologist and the ideological founde...
Hiroko Ai
We can best sum up Hiroko Ai as an enigma—which is really just a fancy way of saying we know next to nothing about her. It sounds better, though, right? Plus, we didn't even come up with this lab...
Michel Duval
Michel Duval is the psychiatrist for Mars's first one hundred colonists, and while on Mars, he undergoes a bit of a personal trauma. Luckily, his clients are literally millions of miles away from a...
Phyllis Boyle
Phyllis is another geologist among the First Hundred, and also a Christian. When we first really get to know her, she's arguing with John on the merits of Christianity in the modern age. She tells...
Minor Characters
Vladimir Taneev, Ursula Kohl, and Marina TokarevaAll three are members of the First Hundred who become researchers at Acheron. Although these guys might not be knee-deep in the political scene, the...