Read in The Year’s Best Science Fiction Thirty Fifth Annual Collection (Dozois, 2018).
Published by Newcon Press 2017.
I liked the opening pages of this longer story, introducing an intriguing female protagonist with a back story and dodgy family to match. However the story moved into a relatively routine heist story, of the ‘procedural’ type – lots of detail about things like interviewing the team members for the job in question. I rather lost interest and baled out, finding out afterwards that indeed The Martian Job had a strong nod to the classic The Italian Job film, and I missed out on the ‘you were only supposed to blow the bloody outer airlock open’ line.
I liked it, too, and had similar reactions to yours:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2466219110
{review for the entire 35th)
I gave this one 3.5 stars = good, not great.
As always, enjoy seeing your short-SF reviews. Which I’ve been reading for about as long as you’ve been publishing them…..
OK, I liked it more than you did. Maybe you should try again?