While a few robots have gone ahead to prepare the space, the first three permanent human inhabitants of the new Mars colony are finally on their way. But when they arrive, they find half the base destroyed and one of the three robots missing. Following protocols, the three astronauts must interrogate the remaining two robots, who have developed identities and personalities in the absence of human input, and determine what happened, and if the humans are safe to stay — not that they have a way to get home, but at least if they solve the mystery, they can be reasonably assured that they're not going to have a rogue robot kill them in their sleep.
This is an odd mix of locked-room mystery and space horror, all tied up in a fairly short but insanely creepy book. I wish the author had taken a couple more pages to flesh out some of the backstory. The "logic" of the robots didn't always make sense, and I feel like the author may have used robotic logic only when it was convenient to the story. Still, if you'd like a good Mars-based scare, give this one a whirl. It's a quick read.
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