Honestly, this one just didn't hold my interest. The beginning felt tacked on, superfluous and more than a little cliche (characters meeting in a bar for whiskey and scotch? Just a tad overdone). Of course, we all knew the "chalkies" would rise up and visit terrible revenge upon the humans, so no surprise there. I was less disappointed by the lack of surprise as I was with the lack of allegory. This sort of "alien uprising" sci-fi is right up there with Zombie Horror as a great way to shed light on human beings - to make us ask, who are the real monsters? This is a lame example, but in The Jetson's Movie the aliens start as cruel little pests begging to be wiped out, but then as we delve deeper we learn it is us killing them - and that they are the righteous ones. I didn't feel any of that here. Just: (1) Man goes to mars (2) Man is devoured by martians.
Great reading by Ben, though.