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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
I love space, but this book was too slow, and any plot was sprinkled in too sporadically. The first 250 pages seemed interesting enough, but the next 250 had me on the verge of putting it down for good. I didn't feel particularly attached to any of the characters, despite spending a lot of time with some, and a lot of geological description. The last 100 pages the story ramped up considerably and now I plan on picking up the 2nd one soon. Low score because the last 100 pages doesn't make up for the rest.
adventurous
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
adventurous
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Loved it but it also made me a bit depressed .. knowing deep down that this is the most likely scenario to happen should human kind actually reach Mars...
adventurous
challenging
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
challenging
emotional
informative
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
There are a lot of technical terms in this book relating to planet features which I had to Google since I didn't know them. There are also several typos (at least in my copy), including some of the technical terms. Some of the writing of the women, their relationships, and views, is dated and can come across as patronising or juvenile. There were also moments in the book when I felt the author really told on themselves with regards to how they felt about relationships between men and women, marriage, and sex. The book is still interesting. Just be prepared for some challenging parts.
Best book I've read in years. Robinson writes the most compelling characters I have ever encountered in hard sci-fi. It sets up different perspectives on the mars-us dialectic early on (each changes the other through interaction) in a rich cast of characters and then lets them and their ideas breathe in increasingly urgent chapters. The science mainly used in this analysis is geology (or aerology as its called on Mars) and the depth of understanding you gain as a reader paired with the philosophical questions introduced by each POV character has you reading the landscape for clues that seem to lead to something tremendous (and the payoff is spectacular). The characters' differentiation includes a well-developed politics for each of them, which also evolves through the changing planet and their interpersonal stories. Frank's arc in particular is incredibly compelling, his cunning and adaptivity moving like an ice floe into the gaps created by the destructive forces in the narrative - including himself - until his character is unrecognisable from who he is in the first chapter, which occurs in the middle of the story! The journey that the first 100 make seems to lead to the author's complex but persistent moral message. It's never explicitly stated. Like Ann, Robinson witholds data. But neverthless the conclusions the books sweeps you towards are intensely compelling. For a book with so many godlike figures who make very calculated choices, yet when the end comes the conclusion feels like both a direct result of all their actions crashing together and completely inevitable at the same time. I can't imagine how a sequel will build on this but I'm excited to find out!
Red Mars defied my expectations, quickly shifting from a psychological portrait of the high-intensity group sent to build a scientific colony on Mars to a political thriller. It dwells on the transformation of the Martian landscape by human activity, mass immigration, technological advances, and relentless political machinations. Clocking in at over 500 pages, I spent so much time with Red Mars that I doubt I'll immediately rush to the sequel, but I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys a well-constructed thought experiment.