The Colonisation of Mars, a free e-novel by Canadian writer Larry W. Richardson

Here’s a hefty science fiction novel you can download from the self-publishing website Lulu.com at no charge: The Colonisation of Mars (2009), by Canadian writer Larry W. Richardson. The description:

The Race to Be the First is long over and Mars is littered with the dead remains of seventy years of missions. It is unexpected when a consortium of world governments sponsored by trans-national business sends a group of senior scientists on a one way trip. They move into an underground facility where they conduct dangerous research into fusion, human genetics and AI. But in the 2040’s, there are few things capable of astonishing a world freed of ethical and moral constraints. Sam Aiken rejects life in the ‘Tube’. With his quirky AI companions he traverses the plains of Mars, explores the polar caps, Valles Marineris, and climbs ‘The Face’ and Olympus Mons. But his successes serve only to make him an enemy of the Colony leadership, for little is what it seems to be. When disaster strikes, Sam is forced to determine the fate of the Colony.

In the acknowledgments, Larry Richardson notes that the novel draws upon many of his favorite SF works, including The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Red Planet Mars by Robert A. Heinlein, “Enchanted Village” by A.E. van Vogt, “A Martian Odyssey” by Stanley G. Weinbaum, and “The Difficulties of Photographing Nix Olympica” by Brian W. Aldiss.