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A review by eishe
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
5.0
Red Mars has gained it's place between my favorite science-fiction books, sharing the self with masterpieces by A.C.Clarke and as a fan of the genre I'm more than happy to give it five stars.
Firstly the book has an emphasis the science part, while leaving the fiction in regular level. I read somewhere that K.S. Robinson gathered the materials for the book for more than ten years and the job he has done is admirable. And the science doesn't just end with Mathematics of Physics (which, if present, are always explained) but also includes engineering, geography, psychology, chemistry in the levels of alchemy and many more. And every time when something new is added a thought on the lines "This is the best invention" pops into your mind, but then something new catches your attention over and over again.
Even though it belongs to the science-fiction genre, the book is surprisingly realistic. Perhaps it is because if anything can go wrong, it most probably will. Experiments fail, people are cheating bastards, people die, reactors suffer breakdowns and the airship almost crashed in the middle of a red desert. And those are just a small proportion of things that go wrong when they can. They don't live in an utopia, but it is not a dystopia also, well not in all parts of the book anyhow. To gain something the characters have to work hard, noticing the always present threat of solar radiation and the trans-national corporations are taking over the solar system (because the world isn't enough for those greedy things).
The parts of the book are all told strictly from the point of view of a different observer, eight parts in total and eight different main characters in them. Just as with science the characters are made likable and unlikable as the story progresses and they can be seen from the points of view of others or themselves.
The scale of the world is always emphasized (perhaps overly emphasized) in the book and it is visible through all the adventures, because come to think of it - Mars is only a bit smaller than Earth.
What I enjoyed immensely (except for the elaborate science descriptions of course) was the complex political and religious system created on both Mars and Earth. Only several years into the future Earth has been put under the rule of trans-national corporations, even if the countries are still standing, if in name only. How it played out with relation to the Mars project was amazing. Also the man-made religion, the mars religion, which is a pleasant strain of paganism, is surprisingly enticing and I found myself learning the name of Mars in plenty of languages, just because it sounds nice.
If this book was ever remade into a film, the moment I would like to see is Hiroko's arrival in the celebration.
Firstly the book has an emphasis the science part, while leaving the fiction in regular level. I read somewhere that K.S. Robinson gathered the materials for the book for more than ten years and the job he has done is admirable. And the science doesn't just end with Mathematics of Physics (which, if present, are always explained) but also includes engineering, geography, psychology, chemistry in the levels of alchemy and many more. And every time when something new is added a thought on the lines "This is the best invention" pops into your mind, but then something new catches your attention over and over again.
Even though it belongs to the science-fiction genre, the book is surprisingly realistic. Perhaps it is because if anything can go wrong, it most probably will. Experiments fail, people are cheating bastards, people die, reactors suffer breakdowns and the airship almost crashed in the middle of a red desert. And those are just a small proportion of things that go wrong when they can. They don't live in an utopia, but it is not a dystopia also, well not in all parts of the book anyhow. To gain something the characters have to work hard, noticing the always present threat of solar radiation and the trans-national corporations are taking over the solar system (because the world isn't enough for those greedy things).
The parts of the book are all told strictly from the point of view of a different observer, eight parts in total and eight different main characters in them. Just as with science the characters are made likable and unlikable as the story progresses and they can be seen from the points of view of others or themselves.
The scale of the world is always emphasized (perhaps overly emphasized) in the book and it is visible through all the adventures, because come to think of it - Mars is only a bit smaller than Earth.
What I enjoyed immensely (except for the elaborate science descriptions of course) was the complex political and religious system created on both Mars and Earth. Only several years into the future Earth has been put under the rule of trans-national corporations, even if the countries are still standing, if in name only. How it played out with relation to the Mars project was amazing. Also the man-made religion, the mars religion, which is a pleasant strain of paganism, is surprisingly enticing and I found myself learning the name of Mars in plenty of languages, just because it sounds nice.
If this book was ever remade into a film, the moment I would like to see is Hiroko's arrival in the celebration.