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178 of 186 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great book - but only for the hardcore, March 14, 2001
I really enjoyed this trilogy, but readers considering it should probably at least consider the following up front: * You're gonna be subjected to miles of dialog-free prose, more than I've ever seen in any book that proports to be a novel. If you're into the science, and into visualizing what you read, you'll have no problem. But if you're used to Crichton, forget it. The pace will kill you. * If you don't already know geology, keep a dictionary handy. He uses 150 geological terms I'd never heard of. * The book has two main topics: Mars and Politics. Don't expect a thriller. * There are gaps in the science that you'll have to overlook. He's weak on the biological, but strong on the astrophysical. * The characters are pretty archetypal, so you'll probably relate to at least one of them. But also, some are, well, pretty darn annoying. But they add to the story anyway if you can stand them. So given that, if you're not scared off, read it. Read all three. You'll like them, and in the end you'll feel like you know a lot about Mars. It's an epic, and a great one despite its occasional shortcomings.
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158 of 189 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A beautiful portrayal of a giant lifeless rock, April 3, 2002
Nominally a future-history of Martian colonization, Red Mars covers the initial 100 Martian colonists, the influx of workers as corporations attempt to exploit the planet's resources, and the consequences as conditions worsen. The book is divided into eight parts, each telling the story from the point of view of one of six characters. Each character is interesting and three dimensional. The first, Frank Chalmers, is a stunning example - a machiavellian sociopath who arranges the murder of his best friend. The book suggests early on that the characters are dysfunctional, but most are not, and Robinson describes each personality in a way that's easy to relate to. Most readers will see some of themselves in every character, and will be moved when many disappear from the story as events unfurl. Robinson's prose is easy to read and descriptive. He lovingly describes the Martian landscape, and the events that change the planet. He explains the processes and technologies being used to make the planet more habitable. Mars and its future is viewed through different cultures and ideologies. And Robinson describes political and social systems evolving, growing, and collapsing - the only challenges the colonists seem unable to solve are those that cannot be fixed technologically. The ending is dramatic and, cheesy last line notwithstanding, overwhelming. A word about the politics: Several reviewers have trouble understanding the concept of sympathetic characters not representing the author. Nobody argues that, through Chalmers, Robinson is advocating murder, so why assume that characters portrayed as idealistic hot-heads advocating an enlightened Utopia (not communism) are attempts to convert readers to Marxism? Robinson's prediction of a near future where a handful of democratically unaccountable transnational corporations wield more power than governments is neither unreasonable nor extremist propaganda nor unique; nor is it that people sick of these conditions might reject them for something Utopian, and might make up a sizable proportion of those wanting to leave Earth. Robinson is describing what might happen and why, rather than pushing a particular ideology. It is notable that the consequences of the actions of most of the first 100 are hardly positive: why would an author promote a vision of an enlightened Utopia by having for it such divided, belligerent, builders? If Red Mars has faults, they are that it is fairly humourless, and some of the science (nothing, fortunately, important to the principle of convincing the reader that colonization is possible) is somewhat stretched. There are no ray-guns or bug-eyed aliens: there is much to think about. If you're looking for an airport novel, go read L. Ron Hubbard. If you can watch CNN talking 23 hours a day about scandals effecting minor Democrats, and still grumble "Darned liberal bias", you may be too right-wing to cope with fictional characters disagreeing with you; go read some "Doc" Smith or something instead. Otherwise the reader needs patience and a willingness to get inside a whole range of radically different characters. Most of the book is interesting, but the climax is especially so. Posing more problems than answers, Red Mars leaves the reader uneasy about humanity's progress, with a mix of optimism about what we can do, and pessimism for what we are likely to do; it portrays characters the reader can feel for, and a planet to fall in love with. What a wonderful book.
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27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Arguably the greatest work of Sci-fi of the past two decades, August 16, 2007
I am just aghast at the number of non-five-star ratings this book has received. The answer probably likes in the sophistication of the particular reviewers who are underrating this masterpiece. I don't want to make this sound arrogant or patronizing, but the great thing about the Internet (and Amazon reviewing) is that anyone can review, while the awful thing about the Internet is that anyone can review. I'm not sure what else one could want out of a Sci-fi novel than what you find here. My guess is that those who dislike it tend to prefer space opera or pure adventure books. But if you have any capacity to read good literature this novel will almost undoubtedly knock your socks off. RED MARS has been almost universally praised by Sci-fi writers and academics as one of the finest hard science Sci-fi novels in recent decades. Partly as a result of the influence of Philip K. Dick (my favorite Sci-fi writer, but someone who was almost completely uninterested in the "science" in Sci-fi but instead focused on metaphysical dilemmas), STAR TREK, and STAR WARS, Sci-fi has been less and less focused on science in the past few decades and instead has been more concerned with exploring questions like "what is real?" or adventure stories. Time was when the most denigrated form of Sci-fi was the space opera. Robinson's Mars Trilogy is the triumphant return of hard science in novelistic form. But RED MARS is far more than that. It is as political as it is scientific. I can imagine that a few of the people giving the novel low marks are troubled by Robinson's politics, which are further to the left than any prominent politician in America today. It isn't an accident that many Marxist writers, including Fredric Jameson, who Robinson thanks in the Acknowledgments, love Robinson's dystopian take on role of capitalism in forming the world we live in, either on earth (as in his Pacific trilogy) or on new worlds (as here in the Mars books). If you are a big fan of an unbridled free market capitalism (which by its very nature is utopian, in that it continually describes a world that doesn't exist, but insists could if only we would free the market from all political and social restraint) then this isn't a novel that will warm the laissez-faire cockles of your heart. This is capitalism as rapacious, inhuman, and imperialistic. I find the epic sweep of Robinson's vision to be almost overwhelming. He balances almost perfectly scientific, political, social, and narrative concerns. His characters are both many and richly drawn. His Mars exists in a way that only rarely do Sci-fi writers make possible. I can't point to many writers who have made their imaginary world so tangible and believable. I don't have the scientific expertise to address the plausibility of the many terraforming and climate altering techniques and tactics addressed in the novels, but I never found anything in the book to be absurd or silly. I loved the various components making up this book. And the characters are more developed and vivid than in most Sci-fi novels. While John Boone never really emerged for me as a believable character, many of the others like Frank, Maya, Nadia, the irrepressible Arkady, Ann, Sax, and many others did. Thanks to gene therapy that helps extend life by renewing the genetic structure of the body, many, though not all, of these characters make it into GREEN MARS or even into BLUE MARS. The trilogy itself extends over several decades. I can recommend few works of fiction as highly as I recommend this. But if you are looking for a great yarn rather than a great novel, look elsewhere. This probably isn't for you. But if you are instead looking for a truly great novel, for a trilogy that might represent the apex of Sci-fi writing of the past twenty years, do yourself a favor and read not just RED MARS, but the two other novels in the trilogy as well.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Way, way, way, way, way too long
This trilogy was way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way,...
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Published 5 months ago by Kevin B. Solway
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