Entertaining crash course in the practical side of planetary colonization
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One of the most entertaining tours of physics, biology, sociology, and politics imaginable if you want to learn something from a novel as well as entertain yourself. Makes Asimov/Heinlein (I forget but one of them wrote something about colonizing the Moon...) look amateurish.
The thing that really struck me at the end was my usual puzzlement as to why there is no real political will these days for space colonization projects. Surely most of the voters out there would rather see governments pumping money into these kind of projects, that are highly unlikely to be privately financed, than the military when it is clear that eventually we will need a bolt hole somewhere. It was the government of the day that financed Columbus in his expedition not a corporation.
Is it just that NASA is rubbish ...?
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It actually rates 6 stars!!!
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Perhaps THE finest science fiction book I have ever read, and believe me I have read a lot of them. I am an avid sci-fi reader, having read anything from Star Trek & Star Wars to classics like Asimov, Clark & Herbert, to Philip K. Dick, Iain Banks, Ursula Le Guin, Orson Scott Card, William Gibson etc etc etc... In all of these books I have found something to thrill my imagination. However, all of these authors usually emphasise one aspect of sci-fi, be it science, technology, philosophy, ethics, or simply genuine space opera with grand battles & laser guns. Nowhere have I found all of the above elements equally balanced. Robinson manages to create an account of a future Martian exploration that is simply breath-taking, both in conception and in execution.
Red Mars explores all posible aspects of a full-blown attempt to colonise Mars. Based on a solid, detailed & completely realistic account of the science and technology necessary for humans to colonise & terraform a new hostile world, Robinson goes on to explore the ethical, business, political, economical, religious and of course personal aspects of such an effort. What is amazing is that he manages to mesh everything into a coherent, albeit complicated, total, so much like real life itself that one cannot help but believe that once we decide to travel to Mars, that's how we are going to do it.
And he manages to do that without losing the human aspect! There are people among the First Hundred that we feel could live next door. Yes, they are brilliant scientists & cosmonauts, especially gifted and carefully selected, but they are also human like you & me, they have weaknesses, feelings, allegiances, preferences, agendas both obvious & hidden.... My personal favorites were Arkady, Nadia and Hiroko, but I loved the portrayal of each and every one of the characters, both good & evil.
I could go on writing pages, but I actually need only one word. The book is simply A MASTERPIECE. Read it, and then read it again (as I did). Because every time you read it, you will find something new to make you think, to make you laugh, to make you dream. Just read it.
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One of the finest and best books on Mars
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Incredible...after discovering this trilogy 10 years ago...I still feel the need to read and reread it.
The characters are well thought and beautifully constructed, the science incredibly plausible, the story complexe and fascinating and the hero of it all...MARS is impressive...this book just makes you want to jump in the first spaceship available to go and live on the red planet...
Great read, great story...5 stars for one of the best SF writter of all times!
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Epic novel of colonisation
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`Red Mars' is the first in Kim Stanley Robinson's massive trilogy of Martian colonisation, with this novel taking the story from the first one hundred colonists as they travel to Mars and begin to make the planet habitable, to the ultimate violent revolution of the colonists against the transnational corporations who want to exploit the planet for Earth. This is a novel based firmly on current scientific knowledge, so those expecting a more exotic science fiction outing will best look elsewhere, but despite its occasionally slow pace this is an intriguing speculation on how the colonisation of Mars could occur. Probably the most impressive aspect of Red Mars is that despite its obvious hard-sf nature Robinson works hard to put the characters at the forefront of the story. Occasionally heavy-going, but for those who appreciate serious science fiction this is an intelligent and interesting examination of the clash between preservation and terraforming, capitalist exploitation and colonisation. Good stuff - just don't expect any bug-eyed aliens!
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Slow and dissappointing
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I know that a large number of people think this is a great book but I didn't see it myself. I prefer something with more energy but this rarely got above walking pace. Although there was (I'm assured) a lot of scientific research put into this, just how many times can you read "they went around rock A, down canyon B, across plain C, over hill D, etc" before it becomes mind-numbingly tedious!? The whole thing could have been condensed by at least 200 pages. The first half of the book was like a near future speculative documentary paper - hardly sci-fi at all. The second half had more go, with some excellent ideas to compensate. The characters were good in places but I never really cared about any of them and the two most interesting ones got killed off!! Some books I can hardly put down. This one I could hardly pick up. I only finished it because I hate to abandon a book once I've started it.
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