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ARRIVES BEFORE CHRISTMAS!

Kipton Glendaur is a high school student in the city of New Athens, the first city built on Mars. While she and her friends are busy dealing with daily life in the fledgling city, Kip’s uncle and mentor returns from an expedition exploring the surface. He brings with him a ground-breaking discovery: a stromatolite—a rare fossil that could change the trajectory of the colony’s future.

But the discovery of a stromatolite is as valuable as it is dangerous, and Kip finds herself swept up in the deadly consequences. Skeptical that the colony’s authorities are up to the task, she enlists the help of her reluctant bodyguard, a Marsrambler pilot named Jack, to investigate who among them might be capable of murder—and what that person did with the now-missing discovery of a lifetime.

This graphic novel blends science fiction with real science, reading for fun with reading comprehension practice, a comic book style with serious young adult literature, all wrapped up in a planet-wide murder mystery investigated by a teenage sleuth with a difficult past and a personal stake in the colony’s future. The book includes reading comprehension questions at the end of each section that act as checkpoints to keep readers engaged and learning, as well as an extensive range of discussion questions at the end of the story that ask readers to consider, in depth, both the possibilities and the consequences of colonizing another world.

Author Christopher Tice‘s world-building in this novel involved extensive research into not just the planet Mars (some of the more interesting facts are listed in the “More about Mars” section at the end of the book) but also what would be involved in establishing a habitable, functioning colony there. As part of that, he has created an alternate timeline of events that would have to have occurred in order for humans to live on Mars today. This isn’t some future escapade; the adventure takes place now, inviting readers into the action in a real and relatable way.

Behind the Scenes: Watch the video below to hear author and illustrator Christopher Tice discuss the creative process behind the graphic novel!