Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I don’t understand why everyone isn’t talking about this book. It’s insane. The last part drags a little but what a ride.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Racism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Grief, Suicide attempt, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
I thoroughly enjoyed this from start to finish. The story is very interesting and accessible, set in the near-distance future. Sure it seems likely that this is how humans get to and populate Mars. All the ideas and science behind terraforming or a space elevator, it was all interesting and presented in an enjoyable way. I really enjoyed each chapter/period of time/character POV brought a great dimension and freshness to the overall story of Red Mars. It was easy to get a grasp of the current situation and follow the next section. The final third of the book is such crazy drama and I could barely put it down. Can’t wait for book 2!
Like Michener in space… only the characters never felt compelling and several of the plot devices have not aged particularly well. A long slog, though ironically the most enjoyable bits were the long passages about the landscape and wonders of Mars; the human drama very much secondary to the scientific and geologic explanations.
The scope of the vision and the apparent expertise with which the author delves into extraordinarily different realms of science is amazing. I don't know enough to know whether or not the way the characters go about terraforming the Red Planet is plausible, but I believed it. Also, the transplanetary greedy capitalism and ineffectual politicians were all too familiar and made for an all too real picture of what humans would do to Mars if only we could. On the other hand, that level of detail and even a lot of the seemingly majestic descriptions of the planet, the cable, the habitats, etc were not engaging. It took me 3 weeks to read this book because I got so bored by the long descriptive or scientific passages, which is unusual for me. I wonder if I would have enjoyed those parts more if I'd listened to an audiobook version instead, where narrator inflection and emotion could make the subject matter more lively?
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Felt like terraforming mars the book for a lot of it! Mix of slow long sections with in depth passages about places and geology and scientific changes/terraforming on Mars, mixed with intense intense drama and politics. The big differences between the slow and fast paced sections made it feel disjointed, but I still overall enjoyed the book and would be interested to read the sequel.
What a wild ride, among my favorite stories and worlds, I suspect a fairly accurate prediction of things to come.
Just Reread and still incredible 2021
Just Reread and still incredible 2021
Compelling sci fi w/plenty of poly sci
Get ready to learn lots of science when you read a Robinson book. And brush up on your economics too. The book starts off with a shocking act, followed by a series of flashbacks. The book drags in the middle and then quickly becomes un-put-downable when all hell breaks loose. There's a bit of hand wavey stuff around things like food sources but I decided the book isn't intended as a How To manual for Mars colonization. It's main thrust is that the problems of capitalism and the haves/have nots will only be exaggerated if we manage to find another planet to stripmine and exploit.
Get ready to learn lots of science when you read a Robinson book. And brush up on your economics too. The book starts off with a shocking act, followed by a series of flashbacks. The book drags in the middle and then quickly becomes un-put-downable when all hell breaks loose. There's a bit of hand wavey stuff around things like food sources but I decided the book isn't intended as a How To manual for Mars colonization. It's main thrust is that the problems of capitalism and the haves/have nots will only be exaggerated if we manage to find another planet to stripmine and exploit.
There were a lot of interesting scenes in this book, but overall, I was more frustrated than entertained by it. If you're going to read it, have a martian atlas and a geological glossary handy. The travel descriptions are endless, peppered with geological and martian terms. I enjoyed some of the philosophy discussed, but it didn't go anywhere. Actually, the whole book didn't really go anywhere. It feels very much like the first third of a ridiculously long book, rather than a complete,if unnecessarily long standalone book. I think I'll put off Blue Mars for a few years.
Wow, what a disappointment this book was! I bought the whole trilogy thinking this would be guaranteed to be one of my favorites. But after about 3/4 of this book boring me to death, I'm wondering if I should even bother with book 2.
I read somewhere this book could be used as a blueprint for colonizing Mars. So, I figured it would be a deep, hard sci-fi book that covered all of the details for travelling to, taming, and terraforming the panet. But the book breezes thhrough immersion training in Antartica, whizzes to the travel (apparently the ships have already been developed and tested off page), spends all of that time talking about who is having sex with whom, then they land and all of the robots setup the habitats. All they have to do is make some vague reconfigurations. Next thing you know, 10,000 numans are living on Mars! To quote SvcreenRant, "actually it's super easy, barely an inconvenience." That was thw story I wanted over at least the entire first book. It's done in maybe half with most of teh page count dedicated to relationships. WTF? Not my cup of tea at all!
I finally gave up and read the summary. It guess there is a lot of action at the end. But honestly, I could not tell you who most of the characters were or what they motivations were. The character development wasn't very good either. Maybe if I recalibrated my expectations and started over that would click better and the ending would have a punch. But I can read a hundred books on the psychology of isolation and romance in space. I didn't buy this series for that stuff.
I;m not sure what to do now. I could forge ahead in hopes that Green and Blue do get to something I actually care about. But if they don't, and fast, I'll probably donate all three.
I read somewhere this book could be used as a blueprint for colonizing Mars. So, I figured it would be a deep, hard sci-fi book that covered all of the details for travelling to, taming, and terraforming the panet. But the book breezes thhrough immersion training in Antartica, whizzes to the travel (apparently the ships have already been developed and tested off page), spends all of that time talking about who is having sex with whom, then they land and all of the robots setup the habitats. All they have to do is make some vague reconfigurations. Next thing you know, 10,000 numans are living on Mars! To quote SvcreenRant, "actually it's super easy, barely an inconvenience." That was thw story I wanted over at least the entire first book. It's done in maybe half with most of teh page count dedicated to relationships. WTF? Not my cup of tea at all!
I finally gave up and read the summary. It guess there is a lot of action at the end. But honestly, I could not tell you who most of the characters were or what they motivations were. The character development wasn't very good either. Maybe if I recalibrated my expectations and started over that would click better and the ending would have a punch. But I can read a hundred books on the psychology of isolation and romance in space. I didn't buy this series for that stuff.
I;m not sure what to do now. I could forge ahead in hopes that Green and Blue do get to something I actually care about. But if they don't, and fast, I'll probably donate all three.
It was just okay. I liked the hard science around reaching, exploring, and colonizing Mars, but there was too much other stuff thrown in. The story was almost too epic for its own good. I enjoyed having different sections of the book written from different characters' perspective, but it didn't add enough to make me really care about any of them.
This is the first in a trilogy, but I don't have any plans to read the other two.
This is the first in a trilogy, but I don't have any plans to read the other two.