https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3069387.html

One of Ian Watson’s early books, with parallel narratives in which a virus in Martian soil causes spiritual transformation both among the inhabitants of the Bolivian village where a Soviet sample return mission crash lands, and among the crew of an American space mission to the planet. I felt that the message was rather heavily laid on; two decades later, KSR did a much better job of Mars as agent of spiritual transformation. I didn’t dislike it as much as Stanisław Lem, who wrote:

"It is a pity that even highly talented, well-read, and intelligent writers of the younger generation, such as Ian Watson, fail to recognize the difference between the delusion of mysticism and what is really the case. He has erroneously yoked his considerable erudition to the wrong purpose of passing off a shallow fairy-tale for the lost redemption of our civilization. His novel tells much more about the confusion that currently holds captive even the brightest young people than about the real state of things on Earth and in the heavens, from which Mars shines down upon us as a challenge. About the genuine mysteries of the universe that we have yet to solve in the years to come, Watson's novel tells us nothing." ( )