I was expecting more out of this, I think. It still came across at Ya-ey and while the beginning was interesting, I'm sick of the trope that this followed. Felt like they took the Expanse and made it have a baby with Ender's Game. Not bad just...eh.

Lakes of Mars by Merritt Graves is a sci-fi book, that upon reading the synopsis reminded me of Ernest Cline's Armada or Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game (Which I have not had the pleasure of reading, only watched the movie), so I was intrigued!

Aaron Sheridan signs up for Fleet expecting to be deployed to The Rim wars, but is sent to the most prestigious command school instead - Corinth Station. Right from the start, he does not get along with the other students, expect for Sebastian, and he has trouble keeping up with the course load and all the training. But when he discovers what the stations true purpose is used for, he must gather the help of some people he may not fully trust to help safe themselves and a nearby planet.

I struggled with this one a little bit. I felt a bit like the main character in thinking "what is going on" and "what does that mean". I felt like the author just expected the reader to know what certain terms meant, or what certain things were called. Once I got past that, the story was pretty good and very in-depth. Merritt Graves takes his time painting a picture of the surroundings or explaining the reasoning behind the main characters thinking.

I felt very attached to some of the side characters. Sebastian and Eve were by far my favourite characters, however if I had any complaint about them.. I'd have to say that Sebastian felt like a push over and I didn't really get the romantic relationship between Eve and Aaron. It felt a little superficial to me. I think you'd get what I mean if you read the book - I don't want to give too much away.

I also liked that it had a soundtrack link with the book, however all the songs felt slower to me and I was definitely thinking there should have been some more fast-paced/action-y songs included.

And lastly, it definitely ends on a cliff hanger, so we know there will be more in the series to come! Rated: 3/5 stars

This book is so well done! Although side note to author stop playing George R.R. Martin and quit killing the ones i root for lol. I found the main character compelling and wanting to see more plot with him. I was so heartbroken for him, having to live with being the driver in the crash that killed his family. I would like a little more world building and explanations but overall i would still reread this book or read the next in a series.

Really great read. It takes you on a really great journey of different emotions. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

DNF at 53%

I enjoyed the beginning. And I really tried to finish it, even if the story became confusing and unclear after the first 30%.

It was probably a mistake to put this book aside for a while. When I picked it up again later, I realized that I simply lost my interest in the story completely. After struggling to get into it, I decided to give up.


I like the idea of the soundtrack to the book, very creative. I wish I could finish it.

“When your world’s small, everything that moves in it matters; but when it’s larger, you get to pick out the important parts.”

Aaron’s small world has been obliterated, he’s lost everything, and rather than end up on the front line of suicidal war mission, he is transferred to a prestigious military school and discovers that the world is much larger, and more sinister, than he originally thought.

I’m a big fan of space related science fiction and Lakes of Mars did not disappoint! It started well; you’re immediately thrown into the story, and it sets up a list of questions and a lot of intrigue. I quite enjoyed Aaron’s narration and the cast of characters were well-developed. The writing was easy to read and very engaging.

The story slows and deviates just a little during the middle, but the ship rights itself in the end. And what an ending! Fast-paced, intense, eyes-glued-to-the-page and do-not-disturb!

Good science fiction lies within the realm of possibility, Lakes of Mars is science fiction done well, and has a little of everything thrown into the mix. I loved this book and I cannot wait to see how the events unfold in this series!

Many thanks to Merritt Graves and NetGalley for an ARC of this exciting book in exchange for an honest review.

i found the book slow in starting the narrative. Once I got into it the story became interesting The story had several twist and turns that left you wondering what was going on

Lakes of mars by Merritt Graves

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing an E-ARC in exchange for a review. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

We start off the novel with a 17 year old young man named Aaron Sheridan. He’s haunted daily about the horrible shuttle accident that killed his parents and younger sister...he feels responsible for the crash because he was the pilot at the time.

The guilt overflows through him to where he signs up for a fleet expecting to be sent to the Rim where the conflict between humans and the verex is the heaviest on the planet but instead gets sent to Corinth Station; a command school he never expected to be assigned too. He learns quickly that the students are extremely ruthless but that’s not all that he fears is wrong within the command school.

Lakes of mars is written in the first person perspective so we understand Aaron a lot more than some of the other characters in the story. I personally think there was some pacing issues throughout the book; it took me close to a month to finally read through it completely. Although I did enjoy it, I had to keep putting it down because I would lose interest but regain it rather quickly. If you like the book Enders game this book is definitely for you! I’m excited to see where the next book goes with this story.

Unfortunately, I could not finish this book and ended up DNF'ing this at only 17%

I couldn't connect with the characters at all and a lot of the descriptions are quite confusing. I requested this because it sounded quite promising, and I've been more into sci fi books as of late. However, I was left disappointed with this, I don't know if it was the writing style or just me, but I really struggled to get through this. It is a shame because a majority of reviews I've seen are 4 or 5 stars, I believe this is the first of a series, but by the fact that I didn't even finish this one, I won't be reading the rest.

How far would you go to do the right thing?
How far would you go to do the right thing when you don’t even know what that is anymore?

This is what Aaron and his friends must decide after they detect part of a distress call bouncing around inside the nebula which is the home of Corinth, an elite military school.
After a shuttle crash which claimed the lives of his family, Aaron joins the military hoping to be put on the front lines of the war against the alien Verex expecting the rest of his life to be short. Instead he ends up at Corinth. A military school where everyone is pitted against everyone else and he soon finds he cant even believe anything he thinks is true.

With hints of Starship Troopers brutal military training scenes from the 90’s movie. With psychic glimpses of a brutal insectoid alien spreading from planet to planet massacring the human troops sent against them.
This book has layer after layer of plot and counterplot, lies mixed with half truths and an action packed finale which leads directly into the second book which is already being written and I hope I get a copy of that to review when that is available as having finished this first book I NEED to know what happens next and I'm sure it wont disappoint if its half as good as this first book.

Lakes of Mars by Merritt Graves will be released on October 4th 2018 and if you enjoy sci-fi thrillers then I recommend this so much.

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley for the purpose of providing a review.

"Lakes of Mars" eBook was published in 2018 and was written by Merritt Graves. Mr. Graves has published two novels. 

I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence and Mature Language. The story is set in the future. Mars and other locations in the Solar System have been colonized. The primary character is 17-year-old Aaron Sheridan. 

Sheridan has joined the Fleet after a crash killed his family while he was piloting their shuttle. He had hoped to be assigned to the war out on the Rim and die. Unexpectedly he is assigned to Corinth Station, the premier Fleet academy run by the United Fleet of Mars.  The academy is nothing like he had expected. Life there is brutal and cutthroat. The young officers in training learn more through survival than from their instructors. 

The cadets are broken into different groups and there is a battle going on between groups. Sheridan gets drawn into this and finds that it is not clear which side he should be on. Sheridan just tries to survive, then he meets the brilliant Eve. He dedicates most of his time to help her research a cure for her brother. 

Before long though he and some of the other students begin to suspect that the United Fleet of Mars is hiding something at Corinth Station. The more they investigate, the stronger they feel that they have to do something. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the 13.5 hours I spent reading this young adult science fiction novel. There is action and a touch of romance in the book. There is action and a touch of romance in the book. I liked the overall plot, but I am not a fan of the Sheridan character. I understand having a flawed hero, but to me, he has a few too many flaws. The cover art is OK, though I think something closer to the plot line would have been better. I give this novel a 4 out of 5.

Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/. 

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

Absolutely compelling. A gripping story. A new threat to mankind. A cadet training academy in deep space. Humankind has populated the Solar System and political intrigue remains unfettered. Subterfuge, deceit, No-one and nothing is as it appears. Complex characters. Skilfully managed plot and a gripping finale. Wonderful read. Can’t wait for the next one.

Omg, first off thank you so much for providing me with an arc to read review.

This books was amazing, I don't even know where to begin. Firstly I'm just starting to delve into sci-fi and this book was one to hook me. I loved everything about it.

The characters were amazing, they were all so different. They clashed but yet still managed to make things work.

The school was a complete mind blown situation. I was trying the whole way through to guess what was going to happen, not once was I right. This book had so many twists and turns which made it even more entertaining.

This book is in my top 10 2018 reads and anticipated releases. I will be purchasing it on release.

5/5 and I can't wait for the next book! My review will be up on my blog courtney2028.wordpress.com in the next couple weeks. Keep an eye out for it!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Merritt Graves for providing an ARC in exchange for a review. All opinions are 100% my own and independent of receiving and advanced copy.
Rating 3.5 stars.


Aaron, a seventeen year old kid, carries a lot of guilt for a shuttlecraft accident that killed his family. He was driving. He decides to enlist and figures he will get sent to the Rim to fight, which he knows almost means certain death. But he instead makes it onto the Corinth Station which houses the most elite military training school. Aaron quickly discovers that this school’s philosophy of survival of the fittest has bred cruel students and Aaron doesn’t know who to trust. Aaron quickly stands up for Sebastian, when becomes his best friend, and joins a unit who seems to want to protect him from a cruel leader, Caelus. But when Caelus reaches out to Aaron, telling him how he has been portrayed as a cruel leader for the benefit of others, Aaron is no longer sure whom to trust. Aaron learns of a sinister plot that may cause destruction to the planet below and all the people that inhabit the planet, unless he and a small group of friend can put a stop to what’s happening.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story. I loved Aaron as the conflicted hero and there were lots of memorable characters that I was rooting for like Sebastian and Eve, just to name a few. Not all the characters survive which is always refreshing because it keeps the reader on their toes. One of the tricks that the great George R.R. Martin uses (which he learned from the even greater J.R.R. Tolkien), is to kill favourite characters and kill them often. I enjoyed the world that was created, especially the school with all the military fighting, being in “The Box”, all of that was very cool and exciting. The story moved along at a good pace and I was interested to get to the end and see what would happen. The tension was well maintained, with nicely planned lulls where the author could build back stories, a budding romance and other good stuff.

My only issue that kept if from being 4 stars or higher was that I personally needed more world building and more explanation, especially at the beginning. I was really confused for a long time because I just didn’t know what was going on. I go the basic story, but I didn’t understand the construct of the world they were living in. I wanted to know more about how Aaron got there. It took me a while before I understood “The Box” and other aspects of the story. I still maintained my interest and never felt like not finishing the book. It, honestly, could just be me, that I couldn’t grasp what was happening, I mean, I didn’t really know if the Verex were aliens, or created by man for quite a while. I was well over 50% and still confused about certain things and I would have appreciated more detail about the construct of the world they were living in. The italicized parts were also never consistent. Sometime it was memories and sometimes it was dreams, so that didn’t help either. It didn’t detract from the story and like I said, I still was interested, wanted to keep reading and was invested in finding out what was going on.

For those that are interested, there is a soundtrack that goes along with the story. There are 12 tracks and it is worth having a listen to. Now, I am invested in the characters and storyline and can’t wait to see what happens next, now that they have landed down on the planet.

"Lakes of Mars" is an action packed book filled with emotional distress, drug addiction, and an over packed military school. When Aaron accidentally crashes the ship containing his family, killing them, he's overcome with grief. He thinks that the only thing he can do, is sign up for the army, leave his beautiful home on mars and his friends he's had most of his life, and hopefully be sent to The Rim, a place where a suicidal alien war is taking place. What he doesn't think of, though, is if he's sent somewhere else.

He's sent to a prestigious military academy, and forced blindly into their routine. Though most of the classes don't make sense, everything is important, and he needs to succeed to stay alive. Falling behind isn't an option, or something you can just work your way out of once you get into it. Training and going to classes all day, doing homework, and dodging the vicious attacks from other students take more effort than he has to give, eventually forcing him and most other students on the space station to take stims to stay away, and then zeroes to mellow them out enough to sleep. What he never expects from though, are all of the governmental secrets that are kept just out of reach from the students. Hidden camera's that aren't mentioned by the teachers and leaders of the school, but the students know all about them.

When accidents start happening, Aaron and his friends are convinced that they're not accidents, but murders. He hasn't made the best impression on people in the school, and has been not only brutally attacked, but they've also tried to kill him in his sleep. Will he survive in this place long enough to become the military pilot they want him to be?

Although this book is exciting, and the characters are realistic, I just couldn't get into it. Things switched so quickly and so many times between gruesome action and intensely slow down time, that I couldn't stay focused. Though in theory this should have been a book I loved, it just wasn't for me. I did however love the mentions of the aliens that they're fighting, and even though I know that the book wasn't solely about aliens, I wish I could have seen more of them in the story.

Real issues, like how to put your pieces back together after accidentally killing your family, drug addiction, back stabbing from trustworthy people as well as horrifying government secrets. Somehow, through it all, Aaron is able to keep himself together. Which is more than I can say for the rest of the characters. He's a strong person, and seems older than he should be. He was my favourite character, of course, and the story is told through him viewpoint.

Thanks for reading!
(Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)

Lakes of Mars is the first book in a new series. This is the first book I have read from this author (I understand it is his debut book?) so I wasn't sure what to expect. The story was okay and I liked it more the farther I read. But I wanted to like it more than I did. It took a while for me to get into the story. The characters are well written, and the author gave quite a bit of history of what is going on, but I felt that the overall wholeness of the story was lacking something to make it complete. There is violence. And the story does end on a cliffhanger for a future book. Will I read the next book? Probably because I am interested enough in the storyline to see what happens next.

Competant enough, but not particularly engaging. The characterizations aren't bad, but a lot of the descriptions are confusing.

I picked this up because I like military academy stories, but this one is off somehow. The school doesn't seem to be interested in teaching war or leadership; the powers that be leave the students alone to fight among themselves--and the fighting and maneuvering for position gets vicious.

It's the first of a series. I won't be reading the rest.

What an engrossing book! Highly recommend! It's the unique and inspiring story of a group of intelligent teens in deep outer space who slowly figure out what is going on in the adult world of military training school and attempt to 'do the right thing.' Aaron, the lead character, has had his share of misfortune - more than he can reasonably handle. But as he looks for a way out, he gets deeper and deeper into the trouble brewing until he finally finds a friend and a young lady that changes his mind about life in general. But those things certainly don't change his misfortune one little bit! Aaron is set up for failure and even an accidental shooting, but by whom? Smart kid, even with all the twists and turns, the reader included has a hard time figuring out who to trust. My only dislike: Didn't like how it ended. Maybe a sequel would fix that! Thank you Netgalley for allowing me to read this book!!

My opinion of this book fluctuated quite a bit as i progressed through the story.
At first I couldn't help but feel it was a little derivative of Ender's Game, but that feeling didn't last too long. As the book fleshed out a bit, it went in its own direction but just as it had started to come into its own, it became a brainless action book.

Certain elements, I thought were done quite well;
The protagonist had a traumatic backstory which resulted in him being a genuinely flawed person.
There was a greater battle happening on an impersonal scale and this added to the world building element and furthered the plot without detracting from the personal struggles of the characters.
Characters had similar goals and vastly different methods of achieving them and it resulted in some interesting conflict.

What I felt a little let down by was;
There wasn't depth to most of the characters. <spoiler> when they were being killed of fin the final chapters, I didn't feel invested enough in them to care</spoiler>
There were a lot of underutilised opportunities. <spoiler> the ability to place oneself inside another's mind could have been used for something more interesting than providing directions.</spoiler>
Finally, as mentioned above, while I felt a lot of thought went into the beginning of the novel, the ending read like something out of a B movie action flick. <spoiler> scores of reds were mowed down by inexperienced children, characters getting what should have been critically injured but kept fighting for hours afterwards (and piloting shuttles), etc </spoiler>.

Clearly some effort was put into making this an interesting world and I would consider reading the sequel if another is written, but I would love to see more thoughtful conflict resolution and stronger investment in the characters.

3/5

Aaron Sheridan lives in a future that closely resembles our own. Escalating tensions between superpowers, in this case not countries, but rather worlds, Earth and Mars.

Earth felt threatened by Athens, Mars' artificial superintelligence, so Earth began developing their own, called Socrates, which culminated in Athens forecasting that there was a 99.385% chance that humanity would destroy itself.

On the cusp of possible extinction, a de-tech agreement was concluded with Athens and Socrates being dismantled and each human being implanted with a Mylan chip that inhibits creative thought.

Enter Aaron Sheridan, finding himself in a maelstrom of danger and distrust after being deployed to Corinth Station.

Lakes of Mars is well written from a first-person perspective as we share the pain and confusion from Aaron's point of view.

There is definitely a strong Ender's Game influence in the Corinth Station setting, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

There are some pacing issues in the middle segment of Lakes of Mars, but it cranks up towards the end with white-knuckle, heart pumping action scenes leading up the an open-ended conclusion for the next novel in this series to follow.

A solid debut novel by a new author and I am looking forward to continuing the journey.