Birth of Fire
The choice was simple:  Earth and prison -- or Mars and slavery

For Garrett Pittson, wrongly convicted of murder, the choice was no choice.  The struggling Mars settlement needed miners.  At least there he wouldn't be behind bars.

As it turned out, he might as well have been:  the mining corporations were running a veritable penal colony.  Appalling conditions prevailed.  No work meant no food.  As an extreme punishment, even oxygen was withheld.

For Pittson -- and a determined group of his fellows -- the slavery was intolerable.  The only answer: revolution...
Science fiction, Fiction, Life on other planets, Extraterrestrial bases, American Science fiction
Jerry Pournelle