Red Mars

Didn't enjoy this as much as 2312. The future history of Mars is interesting, but the characters just weren't for me, and I need both plot and character to really enjoy a story. I also felt this could have been way more tightly edited. Of course, this is a hugely popular trilogy, so most likely it's a great book that just isn't my cup of tea!

A very deep dive into what it would be like to colonize Mars - the science, the engineering, the environmental politics (to terraform or not, and if so, what are the limits), the economics, and the interpersonal relationships. This book was fascinating, and at times very moving, but also very... long. Each section of this book is told from a different colonist's perspective. Some of those colonists I loved spending time with, and others I had a hard time tolerating. Overall a fascinating book, with depressing commentary on our own condition on Earth.

3.5/5.0 ~ I really liked how they portrayed the development of the Mars Colony, with all the science information and some of the problems involved. My problem was with connecting with the characters, specially because there were so many, all of them were likeable enough but I didn't feel they were realistic.

Ordinary situations taking place in an extraordinary setting. Put a group of one hundred brilliant scientists in a spaceship heading to colonize a new planet, and what do they do? They fuck like rabbits, they squander and gossip among themselves and they immediately aim to ignore everything they were ordered to do in their mission. The “founding fathers” of this new world are portrayed as teenagers going to college, anxious to rebel against their parents and the norms of society to do as they please.

There is some discussions about Americans trying to impose they're freedom to everybody and the Russians favoring the communism way of living. Also some hints of atheism scientists vs religious fundamentalists.

The scenes are devoid of emotion and these social conflicts are too prosaic or paltry described to bear any interest. They just weren't enough to constitute a meaningful reading experience, unlike 1984 or Brave New World which brought up social conflicts and integrated them into a good novel.

Read 3:22 / 23:05 15%

Mars is definitely “Hard Sci-fi” and maybe isn't for everyone. I LOVED the detailed and imaginative story of the planet, however I had a really hard time caring about the characters. They would pop into the narrative and become the focus of the story only to be unceremoniously removed once their part of the book was over.

I'll probably forget about the characters soon after finishing the book, however it sparked my imagination and I'll probably dream about Mars for a long time.

Giving it three stars because I consider that to still be a good rating, but I really can't recommend this book to everyone.

I just finished reading Red Mars and was so disappointed. This book had so much potential going into it, but in short the characters suck. The main characters in Red Mars are all part of the first 100 people to colonize Mars. You don't get to meet all 100 of them (thank god), but out of the ones you do meet there is not one of them that is likeable. This lack of any characters to get attached to or even like a little makes reading Red Mars a painful experience. There are some good ideas about Mars, the technology to live there, and ways to terraform it all presented from characters that are just not enjoyable.

This was an interesting book to read, for several reasons. First was the position that it occupied historically; published in 1993, it represents the state of where science fiction was prior to the WWW. It also obviously predates the popularity of cyberpunk within science fiction; throughout the entire text, there is minimal use of computer networking, and nary a leather jacket or jaded hacked is in sight.[return]As far as the book itself is concerned, it's definitely an interesting read. It's hard SF, which I'm usually rather ambivalent about; I find that a lot of hard SF authors have a tendency to place the science as the most important part of their work, which means that the fiction, the story, ends up suffering as a result. Robinson manages to avoid that, however, by creating characters that are believable and sympathetic. While it's obvious that he's done his research with this book, at the same time you don't get the feeling that he's dumping his research into the book in order to show how much research was done, if that makes any sense. [return]Telling the story of a group of one hundred scientists, chosen to create the first human colony on Mars, the book follows them through space travel, settlement, and the inevitable terraforming of the planet to make it livable for human occupation. A lot of the book is made up of philosophical debates between the characters: do we have a right to change the ecology of this planet , what's the best way for us to organize our society , how much control should we allow corporations to have over our future, and that sort of thing. Basically, conversations that we have here and now on Earth, but given a Martian twist in order to allow for a discussion free of the momentum of tradition. It will be interesting to see how Robinson can maintain the momentum of this story over the next two portions of the Mars trilogy.

I love reading science fiction...first book i have read by this author. Although I enjoyed it not sure i will continue with the trilogy. An interesting to think what the process and experience would be for earth colonists to move to a new planet. Many of the issues and experiences encountered seemed like they could be prophetic.

Hmm. This did not age well. I originally read this in the 90's, probably not long after it came out, and thought it was great. I subsequently read the rest of the trilogy with equal happiness. Now though, 25 years later, this is beginning to show its age.

You can't really fault an author for not predicting the future, but the politics of this novel are beginning to feel very dated. Despite being set in the late 21st century, the geo-politics still feel very founded in the 90's (China is a bit player in this, as opposed to a country that could conceivably send people to Mars in the foreseeable future). There also appears to be a lot of fall-back on ethnic stereotypes to explain behaviour, which I don't think would play well in a book released today.

With regard to the story itself, very few of the characters are sympathetic, which admittedly is not a pre-requisite for a good book, but it does make life a lot easier when the book is this size. Speaking of which, I certainly didn't recall, from my first reading, how much of this involves a character driving from point A to point B. If you edited out all of the driving sequences, which are pretty much endless descriptions of the Martian surface, this book would almost certainly be half the length, with little or no difference to the plot. There is also little real peril; people die, but it feels more like reading a news report rather than an visceral experience. There is also one frankly egregious case of someone being rescued from imminent death that beggars belief, and serves no real purpose except to provide a moment of relief for another character.

On the plus side, if you are looking for a hard science prediction of what a colonization of Mars might look like, this is indeed a classic, and it is easy to see why it has proven popular over the years. Granted there is a an occasional reliance on unobtainium and apparently bottomless financing, but I can forgive that for its stab at a reasonably realistic guess. It is just a pity that so much of the science is buried in such a long drawn-out plot.

So, after looking forward to re-reading this, I am now disappointed and in two minds whether to continue to the rest of the trilogy. On the one hand I did enjoy this hugely when I was younger, but now life feels too short to spend it driving through endless descriptions of red, dusty landscapes.

This is quite possibly the best book I've read in 10 years. It's been on my list for a long time but I had put it off mostly because I thought it was going to be a technically dense book. It really wasn't at all or at least not more than many other books I've read.



If you are at all on the fence about this book, please stop putting it off. Its just fantastic. I took my time with the book, reading only 10 or 20 pages a day, mostly on my short lunch breaks. Its not action packed, definitely not a page turner. It's more measured. Slowly allowing the world to seep in.



Spoilers ahead*

I knew I was going to like the book from the opening few chapters. But I really fell in love with it starting with Nadia and Arkady's trip on the dirigible. Just this vast, open, unexplored land rolling away beneath them.

Michel's floating through each day in a deep depression. Ann's anguish at the taking of Mar's purity. John's rover trips with the Muslim workers. John's speech as the asteroid is brought down into the atmosphere. Frank, Nadia, Michel and Ann's harrowing ride next to the massive flooding canyon. And Frank! Taken by the raging flood as he saves the rest of them.

It's like this vast epic set piece. The planet itself is a character in this book in a way I've never felt in any other book. I've never read anything like it. The blurb on the back of the book by Arthur C. Clarke says, “A staggering book.” I couldn't have said it better myself.

Damn, Kim Stanley Robinson writes long books. But even though they are always meticulously researched stories of scifi nature, they mostly seem to be grounded in the human experiment. The struggles and politics of human progress, the passions and grand visions, the many ways we strive and fail, collaborate and disagree, in the constant cycle of creation and destruction.

At one point in the Martian adventure, scientists come up with a gene therapy that extends human life. If you're potentially living longer, do you have different opinions on environmental decisions with long-term effects? How many generations are you planing ahead for? We could use some of that right now.

Frank's bitterness and constant anger at everyone's stupidity .. I felt that in my bones.

This book is one of those books you don't know what to think of. It received all sorts of awards but I'm not sure why. I kept on thinking why I'm I continuing to read this book, it isn't very interesting. I'm not usually a sci-fi person, the story kind of drags along but I wanted to find out what happened to those characters I had been following. I say this but I've also just bought the 2nd book and I plan on reading it as well. So I guess the development of Mars isn't really that interesting to me but where the characters go and why is enough to hold my interest and to continue on.

I can't read any more. I can't spend every page hating every character. I just can't! I love sci-fi. I love space sci-fi. I freaking love sci-fi where a freaking planet is conquered. I don't care how much I want to read about Mars. I refuse to sit around gnashing my teeth constantly hoping it'll get better. Love triangles can take a hike; I hate them. Maybe this just isn't for me, which is why I don't really want to put a rating. Either way, from what I did read Chalmers is like the homicidal Holden Caulfield of Mars. Fuck them both.