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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
Red Mars is a hugely ambitious and long account of the first 100 people to settle on Mars and what happened. The scope, science and detail is very impressive, although almost too detailed at the expense of the storytelling. Nevertheless, I listened to it as an audiobook and thoroughly enjoyed it. anyone with an interest in Mars and its potential colonisation should definitely read/listen to it.
Essentially a non-fiction book on colonising Mars with paper-thin characters thrown in. I'd prefer the non-fiction version
I liked this book more than other readers here-- it's not so much a space opera as an examination of colonies and unintended consequences. The book follows the exploration of Mars from the initial colonization to the beginnings of an autonomous government. At the center is a struggle over terraforming Mars and the conflicts that arise.
The epic scope could get bogged down in a tedious litany of technical stairsteps, but the book does a great job of following a few key agitators and leaves the background technology to grow like yeast. The focus on relationships over gadgets may be frustrating for some. I found the themes of disconnected communication, group dynamic, and unintended consequences riveting. It was to rich and complex to be a page turner, which might be the core of most gripes.
The epic scope could get bogged down in a tedious litany of technical stairsteps, but the book does a great job of following a few key agitators and leaves the background technology to grow like yeast. The focus on relationships over gadgets may be frustrating for some. I found the themes of disconnected communication, group dynamic, and unintended consequences riveting. It was to rich and complex to be a page turner, which might be the core of most gripes.
(minor spoilers)
A dense book with a plodding, deliberate pace, but the persistent reader is rewarded with something truly exceptional.
Every character is spectacularly well defined, and they only become more complex as time passes. The later POVs are stronger than the earlier; traveling with John Boone especially is mesmerizing.
Robinson illustrates the colonization of Mars with exquisite detail. He even packs in quite a lot of (so far, disturbingly accurate) speculation on the future of Earth. Occasionally he gets lost in the minutiae of a geological feature or engineering feat, and it ends up padding the book a bit, but he loses the habit eventually.
It's hard to nail down any one theme - at times relationships are front and center, then terraforming, then politics, then war. But I think how Robinson chooses to end the novel reveals the truth. The most powerful scenes are all set in confined spaces - rovers, dirigibles - as the cast boldly traverses the unforgiving landscape. And the final sequence, as the weary survivors try to outrun a frozen flood, perfectly encapsulates the book that came before.
It's not perfect. Hiroko and her merry band might as well be wizards, with the bizarrely detailed knowledge they have of both world events and individual's mental states. And Robinson tends to lean on stereotype when depicting other cultures, even when he does an admirable job of diving into their unique worldview.
It took me 4 months to get through, but I'm leaving Red Mars feeling like I've finished a journey of my own. I'm happy with the ending, and don't plan to continue the series.
A dense book with a plodding, deliberate pace, but the persistent reader is rewarded with something truly exceptional.
Every character is spectacularly well defined, and they only become more complex as time passes. The later POVs are stronger than the earlier; traveling with John Boone especially is mesmerizing.
Robinson illustrates the colonization of Mars with exquisite detail. He even packs in quite a lot of (so far, disturbingly accurate) speculation on the future of Earth. Occasionally he gets lost in the minutiae of a geological feature or engineering feat, and it ends up padding the book a bit, but he loses the habit eventually.
It's hard to nail down any one theme - at times relationships are front and center, then terraforming, then politics, then war. But I think how Robinson chooses to end the novel reveals the truth. The most powerful scenes are all set in confined spaces - rovers, dirigibles - as the cast boldly traverses the unforgiving landscape. And the final sequence, as the weary survivors try to outrun a frozen flood, perfectly encapsulates the book that came before.
It's not perfect. Hiroko and her merry band might as well be wizards, with the bizarrely detailed knowledge they have of both world events and individual's mental states. And Robinson tends to lean on stereotype when depicting other cultures, even when he does an admirable job of diving into their unique worldview.
It took me 4 months to get through, but I'm leaving Red Mars feeling like I've finished a journey of my own. I'm happy with the ending, and don't plan to continue the series.
Wow. Just wow.
It's a slow, meandering novel about the terraforming of Mars and the political difficulties and implications of doing so. It moves at the pace of a documentary, but is well worth the read. Many of the characters spend their entire sections traveling and traveling and traveling to various places on Mars, exploring the people, and very little actually happens--but that's ok, in this case. It's an incredibly detailed and fascinating read.
It's a slow, meandering novel about the terraforming of Mars and the political difficulties and implications of doing so. It moves at the pace of a documentary, but is well worth the read. Many of the characters spend their entire sections traveling and traveling and traveling to various places on Mars, exploring the people, and very little actually happens--but that's ok, in this case. It's an incredibly detailed and fascinating read.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This sprawling epic of Mars colonization was interesting for its ecology & terraforming thought exercises. The rest of the speculative science was not very detailed and the culture and characters inhabiting Mars just weren't compelling for me. The idea of a joint USA/Russian Mars mission composed of an anarchic bunch of individualists is a very silly foundation for a book like this. The author's writing style seems to bridge a gap between types of classic and modern scifi, which given it's publication date of 1993 is probably about right.
This book is sci-fi AF. Hard science with some fascinating ideas. But the problem, for me, was that the fiction element of this sci-fi is really weak. All of the sciency cool stuff is stitched together with this high-school romance plot. It reads like a soap opera. A love triangle? Really? I just couldn't do it. And I acknowledge that the soap opera qualities might be part of a larger point that Mr. Robinson was trying to make in this book. Like maybe about the way closed-off insular societies behave. But it's just not enjoyable enough to keep going. Sorry.
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
What are the politics of building a world? What does a new world owe the one it came from? What is the relationship between geography and the politics that shape it?