Blue Mars (Mars Trilogy) [Paperback]

The final volume of a trilogy that began with Red Mars and continued with Green Mars, Blue Mars completes the story of the "First Hundred", a pioneering group of explorers who have overseen a terraforming project that transformed Mars from a lifeless planet into a world habitable by humans. An anti-ageing breakthrough has kept the First Hundred alive for three centuries and in that time, their motives, desires and passions have evolved in ways that parallel the changes on Mars itself. Conceptually complex and daring, the publication of Blue Mars marks the completion of a modern science fiction masterpiece.

‘A beautiful book – to be lived in. Let most of it be true’
DAILY TELEGRAPH

‘Staggering… Required reading for the colonists of the next century’
ARTHUR C. CLARKE

‘The ultimate in future history’
DAILY MAIL

The final novel in the worldwide bestselling Mars trilogy.

Mars has grown up

It is fully terraformed – genetically engineered plants and animals live by newly built canals and young but stormy seas.

It is politically independent. A brave and buzzing new world. Most of the First Hundred have died. Those that remain are like walking myths to Martian youth.

Earth has grown too much

Chronic overpopulation, bitter nationalism, scarce resourses. For too many Terrans, Mars is a mocking utopia. A dream to live for, fight for… perhaps even die for.

THE FUTURE HISTORY OF MARS – PART THREE
FINALLY, MARS HAS GROWN UP. BUT EARTH HAS GROWN TOO MUCH.

Mars is a living, breathing planet, resplendent with genetically engineered plants and animals living by recently formed canals and stormy seas – an Eden to be envied. Earth is creaking under the weight of overdevelopment; too many people with too few resources: an object lesson in how to not run a planet.

The survivors of the First Hundred, among them Michel, Nadia, Maya, Sax, and Ann, have achieved their goal: political independence. They are like walking myths to a Martian youth determined to preserve their hard-won gains. But what to preserve and what to create? The original schisms in the First Hundred have hardened into polar opposites: Reds (to keep the planet in its original wilderness state) and Greens (to terraform for human use). Civil war looms. Worse, Earth looks on bitterly. For many Terrans, Mars is a mocking utopia. A dream to live for – perhaps even die for.

"One of the finest works of American SF"
TLS

"Stunning visualisation of the beauty of this hostile planet. By the end you can't help feeling you understand the place"
TIME OUT

WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD

Kim Stanley Robinson was born in 1952. After travelling and working around the world, he settled in his beloved California. He is widely regarded as the finest science fiction writer working today, noted as much for the verisimilitude of his characters as the meticulously researched hard science of his work. He has won just about every major sf award there is to win.