A pa­le­on­tol­o­gist finds a 65-million-year-old alien fossil. A few years later, some of her NASA engineer friends send a probe to the Martian moon Phobos and find the mummies of more of those aliens in an ancient station. They all form part of the crew on the first manned mission to Mars, to in­ves­ti­gate the alien artifacts.

This is a moderately en­ter­tain­ing hard science fiction novel, with an in­ter­est­ing premise and moderately plausible characters. I was irritated by the vast amounts of exposition. The book has a bad case of as you know, Bob. The authors are bound and determined to explain all the cool stuff they brain­stormed.