Terraforming Mars: Dream or Nightmare? Lessons from My WIP, Seven Planets

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Imagine staring up at a rusty red sky, the thin air whipping dust devils across a barren plain, and knowing that humanity’s boldest experiment—turning this alien world into a second home—could take place someday. That’s the Mars I’m currently refining as part of my novel-in-progress, Seven Planets.

As I finish the second draft and begin the third, smoothing out the arcs of Elias Vorn and his ragtag team, I’m constantly struck by the central tension of the story: humanity’s reach versus its grasp.

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Behind the Scenes: Mapping the Solar System from Earth

Writing a space opera requires a lot of imagination and research, of course. But inadvertently, along the way, I’ve found that grounding the “alien” in real-world extremes gives me some sense of how to write about Mars, the Moon, Titan, and so on. This manuscript has taken shape while I travel through some diverse landscapes:

• The Baja Coast (On the Yacht): I spent stormy nights on the coast, the boat rocking as I wrote the scenes of Elias’s isolation. The sound of waves hitting the hull became the rhythmic thrum of a spacecraft’s life support.
• The Mojave Desert: Last summer, I stayed near Phoenix and out in the high desert, editing drafts under a sky so vast it felt a bit like a reddish Martian landscape might feel. When you’re staring at sun-bleached rocks in $120° F, it’s easier to imagine a planet that wants to kill you.
• San Diego: Between the desert heat and the sea, I often retreat to San Diego to cross-reference my “science” with reality, poring over NASA reports in local cafes and finalizing the mechanics and effects of the 7.12 Hz anomaly, a central part of my story.

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The Evolution of a Martian Vision

In Seven Planets, Mars isn’t just a backdrop—it’s a living, breathing (or gasping) character that appears in a significant chapter, and informs from the background in the rest. In this current draft, I’m focusing on the colony’s unrest. Elias arrives to find a world on the brink, where a mysterious signal from the Kuiper Belt is exploiting the planet’s very efforts to become habitable.

One of my favorite elements to polish in this third pass is the “Deep Earth Core” project. It’s a fictional nod to real-world proposals like tapping geothermal heat from the Martian mantle to create unlimited energy. In the book, the signal hijacks this tech, turning terraforming machines into amplifiers for destruction.

The Messy Reality of Human Ambition

Writing the action scenes for this draft has been a balancing act. Picture Elias in the Mars command center, sweat beading as the signal spikes, twisting terraforming drills into seismic weapons. I’ve woven in real science—like bolstering the thin Martian atmosphere (currently just 1% of Earth’s) with perfluorocarbons—but amplified the risks for the story. The story is about characters facing chaos (a favorite themes of mine) and humanity’s future, but I do my best to ensure that science lies underneath if all. I found it fascinating to explore some of the scientific theories for how we might terraform Mars someday., and these led to plot points for me.

Terraforming Method	Real-World Concept	Seven Planets Twist
Atmospheric Thickening	Using PFCs or CO2 release	Becomes a conduit for the Signal’s interference
Core Energy Taps	Geothermal/Nuclear heating	Hijacked into planetary-scale seismic weapons
Orbital Mirrors	Redirecting sunlight to poles	Used as high-intensity focal points for conflict

The Finish Line and More to Come

The scope of the book is massive, spanning from Venus’s solar mirrors to Ganymede’s subsurface oceans. But Mars is perhaps the ethical heart of the story: a symbol of hope twisted by oversight. Humans struggling against the environment, culture, and governments.

I’m working hard to get this third draft into its final, polished form. We’re currently on track for a release later this year, and I can’t wait to finally put the finished saga in your hands, and begin work in the next volume in the trilogy, Two Dragons.

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