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thetome 's review for:
Green Mars
by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Short Answer
A thoroughly well researched and planned book that matches the exacting standards of the first while also failing to generate any real sense of wonder or character. It seems most people who loved the first book still love this one, but the formula failed to work for me a second time.
The Long Answer
I read the first book about a year and a half ago, and I remember really enjoying it. There were times when it was too detailed, or dragged on, but mostly I was engaged the whole time. Part of what made that work was the opening. Starting after settling had occurred and giving us an immediate murder between friends created immediate mystery and tension. There was also the mysterious passenger of the Ares and the slow reveal of everyone's true motivations and desires.
Unfortunately this book has none of that. This would have been fine if the characters were interesting, but they were all insanely flat. None of them have anything resembling a character arc, or even a personality. I constantly had to reread sections to figure out who was saying what which made it hard to care about anyone, leaving the story and the world building to shoulder all the burden.
The world building is impressive in its detail, but tedious in its execution. I got tired of having to remember all the various scientific terms for geological features on Mars, especially since so much of it was just detail for the sake of it. The author bothered to figure out that someone drove around a crater counter clockwise so they could see specific features that haven't been mentioned before (and won't be again), but he never found a way to make it interesting.
It doesn't help that Mars is no longer the Mars we know. The first book allowed me to go on a trip to Mars and see the first steps of living there. Here the planet is far enough along on its terraforming journey that it felt like a whole new planet. The detail of his science got less interesting the further along we went because it all just felt like conjecture at a certain point.
All these problems are compounded by the fact that the passage of time is extremely hard to follow. He starts by teaching us the difference between Mars years and Earth years, but it's never completely clear which he's talking about when years are mentioned later. The story also loves to make big jumps in time and assumes a single casual mention of the date will keep the reader up to date. This might have worked if anything had ever changed, but it always felt like a jarring fast forward to get certain story elements into place. Need some missiles built? Sure, fast forward a few years, but don't worry, nothing else will have changed in that time.
A solid antagonist could have saved this book. There's one girl named Jackie who's constantly being placed in an antagonistic position to the main characters. But we learn very little about her other than she sleeps around a lot and has ideas. We don't know what those ideas are, we just know they are slightly different from the good ideas. She barely ever gets to actually speak and is mostly relegated to doing mystery deeds off page that may or may not get in everyone's way later. A military general from the first book is introduced who would be a perfect foil to all the Martians, but he only appears twice near the very end and ultimately serves no purpose.
This is a book full of grand ambition that never figures out to do with it. I only recommend it to diehard fans of the original and highly doubt I'll read the final book in the series. I hear you can read summaries off Wikipedia, that sounds more fun.
A thoroughly well researched and planned book that matches the exacting standards of the first while also failing to generate any real sense of wonder or character. It seems most people who loved the first book still love this one, but the formula failed to work for me a second time.
The Long Answer
I read the first book about a year and a half ago, and I remember really enjoying it. There were times when it was too detailed, or dragged on, but mostly I was engaged the whole time. Part of what made that work was the opening. Starting after settling had occurred and giving us an immediate murder between friends created immediate mystery and tension. There was also the mysterious passenger of the Ares and the slow reveal of everyone's true motivations and desires.
Unfortunately this book has none of that. This would have been fine if the characters were interesting, but they were all insanely flat. None of them have anything resembling a character arc, or even a personality. I constantly had to reread sections to figure out who was saying what which made it hard to care about anyone, leaving the story and the world building to shoulder all the burden.
The world building is impressive in its detail, but tedious in its execution. I got tired of having to remember all the various scientific terms for geological features on Mars, especially since so much of it was just detail for the sake of it. The author bothered to figure out that someone drove around a crater counter clockwise so they could see specific features that haven't been mentioned before (and won't be again), but he never found a way to make it interesting.
It doesn't help that Mars is no longer the Mars we know. The first book allowed me to go on a trip to Mars and see the first steps of living there. Here the planet is far enough along on its terraforming journey that it felt like a whole new planet. The detail of his science got less interesting the further along we went because it all just felt like conjecture at a certain point.
All these problems are compounded by the fact that the passage of time is extremely hard to follow. He starts by teaching us the difference between Mars years and Earth years, but it's never completely clear which he's talking about when years are mentioned later. The story also loves to make big jumps in time and assumes a single casual mention of the date will keep the reader up to date. This might have worked if anything had ever changed, but it always felt like a jarring fast forward to get certain story elements into place. Need some missiles built? Sure, fast forward a few years, but don't worry, nothing else will have changed in that time.
A solid antagonist could have saved this book. There's one girl named Jackie who's constantly being placed in an antagonistic position to the main characters. But we learn very little about her other than she sleeps around a lot and has ideas. We don't know what those ideas are, we just know they are slightly different from the good ideas. She barely ever gets to actually speak and is mostly relegated to doing mystery deeds off page that may or may not get in everyone's way later.
Spoiler
They don't. Her plans have no effect on anything, but we get to slut shame her a bunch.This is a book full of grand ambition that never figures out to do with it. I only recommend it to diehard fans of the original and highly doubt I'll read the final book in the series. I hear you can read summaries off Wikipedia, that sounds more fun.