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Mars #2
Where the Golden Apples Grow
Growing up anywhere is hard, but it may be hardest of all on Mars. Bill is twelve Earth years old. He was the third boy born on the red planet. Ford is six Mars years old. He was the second.
Alternate ways of tracking time are just one of the differences between their family lives. Bill lives with his dad in the cab of a Hauler, making endless runs between the colonies at Olympus Mons and the polar ice caps, bringing back desperately needed water. Ford spends his days mucking out stalls on his family’s farm allotment beneath the tented red sky. Though they’ve never met, the boys envy each other’s lives. Bill longs for stability. Ford wants adventure.
Neither gets exactly what they’re looking for when an unexpected turn of events finds Ford taking refuge with Bill and his dad on one of their long-distance trips. When tragedy strikes, the boys must find a way to work together, thousands of miles from help and challenged by faulty equipment, savage storms, and untrustworthy adults. Even if they survive, they still have the biggest challenge of all ahead of the future.
This novella from the pen of the late Nebula-award winning, master storyteller Kage Baker, author of the beloved Company series, offers a rousing and poignant exploration of work and family. Where the Golden Apples Grow creates a futuristic backdrop impossible not to believe in.
Alternate ways of tracking time are just one of the differences between their family lives. Bill lives with his dad in the cab of a Hauler, making endless runs between the colonies at Olympus Mons and the polar ice caps, bringing back desperately needed water. Ford spends his days mucking out stalls on his family’s farm allotment beneath the tented red sky. Though they’ve never met, the boys envy each other’s lives. Bill longs for stability. Ford wants adventure.
Neither gets exactly what they’re looking for when an unexpected turn of events finds Ford taking refuge with Bill and his dad on one of their long-distance trips. When tragedy strikes, the boys must find a way to work together, thousands of miles from help and challenged by faulty equipment, savage storms, and untrustworthy adults. Even if they survive, they still have the biggest challenge of all ahead of the future.
This novella from the pen of the late Nebula-award winning, master storyteller Kage Baker, author of the beloved Company series, offers a rousing and poignant exploration of work and family. Where the Golden Apples Grow creates a futuristic backdrop impossible not to believe in.
73 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2006
5 people are currently reading
54 people want to read
About the author
Kage Baker
162 books357 followersBorn June 10, 1952, in Hollywood, California, and grew up there and in Pismo Beach, present home. Spent 12 years in assorted navy blue uniforms obtaining a good parochial school education and numerous emotional scars. Rapier wit developed as defense mechanism to deflect rage of larger and more powerful children who took offense at abrasive, condescending and arrogant personality in a sickly eight-year-old. Family: 2 parents, 6 siblings, 4 nieces, 2 nephews. Husbands: 0. Children: 0.
Prior occupations: graphic artist and mural painter, several lower clerical positions which could in no way be construed as a career, and (over a period of years for the Living History Centre) playwright, bit player, director, teacher of Elizabethan English for the stage, stage manager and educational program assistant coordinator. Presently reengaged in the above-listed capacities for the LHC's triumphant reincarnation, AS YOU LIKE IT PRODUCTIONS.
20 years of total immersion research in Elizabethan as well as other historical periods has paid off handsomely in a working knowledge of period speech and details.
In spare time (ha) reads: any old sea stories by Marryat, the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brien, the Hornblower books, ANYTHING by Robert Louis Stevenson, Raymond Chandler, Thorne Smith, Herman Melville (except Pierre, or the Ambiguities, which stinks) Somerset Maugham, George MacDonald Frasier.
Now happily settled in beautiful Pismo Beach, Clam Capital of the World, in charming seaside flat which is unfortunately not haunted by ghost of dashing sea captain. Avid gardener, birdwatcher, spinster aunt and Jethro Tull fan.
http://www.sfwa.org/2010/01/rip-kage-...
Prior occupations: graphic artist and mural painter, several lower clerical positions which could in no way be construed as a career, and (over a period of years for the Living History Centre) playwright, bit player, director, teacher of Elizabethan English for the stage, stage manager and educational program assistant coordinator. Presently reengaged in the above-listed capacities for the LHC's triumphant reincarnation, AS YOU LIKE IT PRODUCTIONS.
20 years of total immersion research in Elizabethan as well as other historical periods has paid off handsomely in a working knowledge of period speech and details.
In spare time (ha) reads: any old sea stories by Marryat, the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brien, the Hornblower books, ANYTHING by Robert Louis Stevenson, Raymond Chandler, Thorne Smith, Herman Melville (except Pierre, or the Ambiguities, which stinks) Somerset Maugham, George MacDonald Frasier.
Now happily settled in beautiful Pismo Beach, Clam Capital of the World, in charming seaside flat which is unfortunately not haunted by ghost of dashing sea captain. Avid gardener, birdwatcher, spinster aunt and Jethro Tull fan.
http://www.sfwa.org/2010/01/rip-kage-...
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 18, 2024
3.75 stars Read from The Very Best of the very Best Anthology, by Gardner Dozois.
Baker made the world of living on a not yet terraformed Mars quite real feeling. Also what 2 boys born in Mars might feel about their circumstances and lack of prospects.
Baker made the world of living on a not yet terraformed Mars quite real feeling. Also what 2 boys born in Mars might feel about their circumstances and lack of prospects.
December 22, 2014
This a beautiful novella set on Kage Baker's Mars, as in The Empress of Mars and with crossover with the Company series.
Really incredible little gem of a piece that, with all the best science fiction, use the medium to tell us something profound and eternal about ourselves. Loved this.
Good quick piece for people checking out Kage Baker too.
Really incredible little gem of a piece that, with all the best science fiction, use the medium to tell us something profound and eternal about ourselves. Loved this.
Good quick piece for people checking out Kage Baker too.
May 27, 2019
Two boys adventure on Mars.
October 25, 2019
A lovely novella in Kage Baker's Mars. Worth finding. I found it in the SF Book Club's "Best Short Novels 2007".
November 29, 2024
3.5 stars, another short story and another sci fi
November 7, 2013
As always, Baker tells a good tale, but perhaps simply because of personal taste, I much prefered her Company series.
February 9, 2016
A very good novella from Baker. Definitely worth a read.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews