If you’re listening to this, I’m dead.’ That’s the dramatic message Lizzie Choi receives on a chip from her brother Shiv on Mars and the start to her exciting adventure.

Ms Choi works as an administrator for Mister Lau at Everlight, a large Chinese corporation, and she’s good at her job. Her personal life is a mess because she’s getting divorced and currently living in a tiny flat with almost no possessions. She likes meaningless sex with fit young men, picked at random for one-night stands, which probably explains the divorce.

After the message from her brother, who’s a dodgy dealer on Mars, her mother calls from Luna Authority Correctional Facility Six to talk to her about it. Then she is suspended from her job with no pay because Everlight doesn’t like criminal family connections.

Her brother’s death made Lizzie her mother’s next of kin and that relationship, not acknowledged previously, has put up a red flag on her record. With no job, no husband and no prospects, there’s not much else to do but go to Mars and find out what happened to her brother. She ends up taking on the job that got him killed, stealing the biggest jewel in the Solar System from Everlight.

One of the more common futures SF writers use and perhaps the one most likely to come true given our present condition is a world dominated by ruthless corporations. That’s the case here. Everlight is big on Earth but top dog on Mars, though not unchallenged. Some of the early settlers founded wealthy families and the Demos Collective is definitely a player.

Mars in this story is the one we know today, not the red world of planetary romances. Everlight’s biggest scheme is Project Rainfall, putting a water-rich proto-comet into orbit around Mars to give it much needed moisture for a hefty fee. Meanwhile, they’re celebrating the new year by putting the Eye of Heaven on public display. Lizzie’s job is to steal it.

All these traditional SF plot elements are stirred together into a good heist story which is perfectly enjoyable. For me, the novella was improved from good to excellent by the conclusion which, like all the best endings was logical but unexpected. Coincidentally, it touched on themes I was aware of this week due to re-reading ‘Science Fiction And A World In Crisis’, an interesting essay by Frank Herbert. It also ties in well with the current east versus west political situation where China is taking over from the USA as top nation.

I liked it as it went along and I loved it by the end. ‘The Martian Job’ could have appeared in ‘Astounding’ or ‘Galaxy’ or one of those other great Science Fiction magazines of the 1950s and it would have made the cover. It’s readable and entertaining with food for thought as well. Isn’t that what we want from Science Fiction? ( )

The title is a deliberate nod to the famous British 1960s movie, and the story even uses its own variant of Michael Caine’s famous line. But the plots don’t map precisely, nor the set pieces, and Fenn’s novella certainly ends in a completely different fashion. The famous car chase through the streets of Turin in Minis becomes a race through the tunnels of old Martian colonies in “tunnelbuggies”, and, yes, there’s a heist which kicks it all off… Lizzie Choi is a corporate administrator for one of the most powerful companies on Earth, the Moon and Mars, in a future doiminated by the Chinese. She has a criminal background, but walked away from it. Unfortunately, when her brother dies on Mars, she’s named as next of kin by her mother, currently in prison on the Moon, and so the company find out about her chequered past. Which results in her travelling to Mars to finish off the job her brother had begun: stealing the Eye of Heaven, the largest opal ever found and the property of her ex-employers. It’s all first person, and Choi is an engaging narrator and very much at the centre of the action. The Martian Job does a lot of things well, which mostly means deploys its tropes with assurance – not that any of the tropes are especially original. The references to The Italian Job are fun, but little more than easter eggs. The ending isn’t much if a surprise – it’s optimistic and well primed. This is solid feel-good sf, which might well be about a crime and feature criminals, but is not gratuitously brutal or right-wing. It’s a pleasure to read. ( )

I did like this one. Short, sharp, and the action didn't falter at all once the story took off.

Deception within deception, twist after twist, and nicely resolved within the constraints of the novella(?) length.

I'll have to check out more by this author. ( )

An entertaining heist story and worth the read. Even though it was fairly short, there was decent character development, and the story didn't feel too rushed. The end did take a bit of an odd turn but didn't ruin the story. ( )

Lizzie was a corporate drone begging for an increase in her pittance of a salary to an uncaring boss and less caring corporation. Meanwhile, she discovers her brother was killed and now her mother, imprisoned on the moon, is trying to get a hold of her. Yes, Lizzie is having a bad day.

When her boss comes back and lets her know that not only will she not be getting a raise, she is suspended indefinitely. Seems the company suddenly became aware of her nefarious familial connections. So Lizzie goes to Mars to find out just what it was that got her brother killed. Her brother was working a big heist -- huge. Biggest heist ever. And he couldn't lose, because his plan was so perfect. Lizzie digs deeper and lo, she is offered her brother's contract. While Lizzie didn't pursue the family trade, her upbringing still left her with some skills.

What follows is a whirlwind of action and betrayal. Never keeping her eye off the prize...the prize itself changes in nature. Several times. I've not read any of the other tales in this author's series and I don't know if any make for a serial story, but I'd kind of like to know what happens next. For a novella, her characters are well developed and the action flows naturally from a well-crafted story. ( )