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This book is really too much to absorb in a single reading: much like the characters in the story found, there is simply too much going on at once to be understood. At best, you can only sweep through the main storyline and try to pick up bits and pieces as you go.
Calling this "a story about the colonization of Mars" would be like calling Death Valley hot and dry. Robinson describes, in detail, the first part of the process, from the initial wave of scientists to the first big change in the planet ... it's difficult to say much more without taking away some of the suspense in the book.
The first section of the book, 20-some pages, is actually the middle of the story. You won't get most of it on the first reading because it's told as if it appeared in the middle of the book, but it gives you an idea of what's to come ... except there's so much more than you can imagine from that first chapter. It's really an interesting way to approach the story, and it's a refreshing change from something like "When we first touched down on Mars in such-and-such year ...." (It may, however, make it difficult for people with e-books who are not accustomed to making notes or flipping back and forth to specific locations.)
As Robinson takes you through the full story, starting with Chapter 2, you get a much better idea of what's happening, but he does it through different characters, so your perspective is always changing. There are parts of the story where time flies by fairly rapidly, but always in places where it doesn't seem to make a big difference, and in this way Robinson is able to gather up this long tale and hold the main points close enough together that it is possible to understand, in some way, what has happened through the first book.
It's not a book that I would recommend for the average science-fiction reader, mostly because of the depth and the details (you can learn quite a bit about science, given that some characters go into great detail - this is touted as one of the best hard-science novels in recent times), but if this type of story interests you, I definitely recommend that you pick up the series and read it. It'll be worth your time.
Calling this "a story about the colonization of Mars" would be like calling Death Valley hot and dry. Robinson describes, in detail, the first part of the process, from the initial wave of scientists to the first big change in the planet ... it's difficult to say much more without taking away some of the suspense in the book.
The first section of the book, 20-some pages, is actually the middle of the story. You won't get most of it on the first reading because it's told as if it appeared in the middle of the book, but it gives you an idea of what's to come ... except there's so much more than you can imagine from that first chapter. It's really an interesting way to approach the story, and it's a refreshing change from something like "When we first touched down on Mars in such-and-such year ...." (It may, however, make it difficult for people with e-books who are not accustomed to making notes or flipping back and forth to specific locations.)
As Robinson takes you through the full story, starting with Chapter 2, you get a much better idea of what's happening, but he does it through different characters, so your perspective is always changing. There are parts of the story where time flies by fairly rapidly, but always in places where it doesn't seem to make a big difference, and in this way Robinson is able to gather up this long tale and hold the main points close enough together that it is possible to understand, in some way, what has happened through the first book.
It's not a book that I would recommend for the average science-fiction reader, mostly because of the depth and the details (you can learn quite a bit about science, given that some characters go into great detail - this is touted as one of the best hard-science novels in recent times), but if this type of story interests you, I definitely recommend that you pick up the series and read it. It'll be worth your time.