Red Dust [Paperback]

I bought this book years ago, and only recently stumbled across it on Amazon - and I was a bit surprised at the pummeling it seems to be taking. I've always had a soft spot for this novel. So what if it's 'just a quest novel' (whatever that means)? It's pacy, and fun. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it can ruin stuff too; looking back, I recognize that the plot meanders, and the ending has a whiff of a deus ex machina about it, but at the time I really didn't notice. And the reason I didn't notice that the journey meandered was this: I was too busy looking out the window. I was drinking in the view of the book's real star: Mars like you've never seen it, where the human spirit stirs against the combined forces of a bitter struggle for survival, the corrupt vestiges of Chinese communism, and the smothering statism imposed by humanity's children. Don't get me wrong - there are novels where the backdrop is everything, and the characters and plot waft in the breeze, so flimsy are they. But this is not that novel. This is more like a Hollywood blockbuster - the characters are a bit over the top, the plot is kinda crazy, but you can really see where they blew the budget.

This is a novel which differentiates itself from the crop of Martian sci-fi that pervaded the 1990's. Different could been seen as a good or a bad thing depending on your point of view; if you are expecting a detailed chronicle of Man's colonization of the Red Planet in the vein of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, then you might be disappointed. This has always been a book which divides opinion: some readers find it inaccessible, others too experimental, a fair few people say its just to slow in getting anywhere. I disagree. McCauley does a fine job here conveying the complexities of his imagined future Mars, but as usual he doesn't coddle the reader, this is a book you have to tough out! A book that will both punish and reward you at the same time, with dense detail and a playful hybrid style, seeming to fuse both fantasy and science fiction.

Red Dust is set on a far future Mars dominated predominantly by the Han Chinese, the Tibetans are an underclass who labored for generations to make Mars more like Earth, while the "Yankees" have developed into a nomadic people who sail across seas of dust; the "Sky Roaders" want to see the Mars terraforming project finished and are outlawed for their beliefs. Earth is depopulated and its environment is gradually reverting back to its pre-human condition, all under the supervision of The Consensus, who posses high technology which they use to parley favor with the rulers of Mars. "The Ten Thousand Years" as they are know, have halted the planets terraformation under the demand of missionaries from The Consensus, called "Conchie's".

The asteroids are anarchist regimes filled with rebels and dissenters from all over the system; one such rebel known as Miriam Makepeace Mbele makes planet fall, only to be found by a Han technician named Wei Lee, who is also a descendent of one of The Ten Thousand Years.

Wei Lee is infected by his new friend with a nano-virus which imparts him with great powers: they then set off on a great journey, with the aim of breaking the domination of The Ten Thousand Years and allowing the Martians to complete the transformation of their world. This quest forms the bulk of McCauley's book. Wei Lee is a strange yet likable protagonist, his love of Old Earth styles and Elvis Presley, make his a superb point of view through which the reader can enjoy the diverse and weird characters he encounters. Wei Lee and Miriam eventually, with the help of a young girl, inspire open rebellion against the Mars Government and their Consensus allies.

Red Dust is a rambunctious read, full of surprises and brimming with ideas. McAuley doesn't always hold the readers attention, but here in one of his earlier books, he shows he is willing to take big risks in an effort to produce something unique. One of the best Mars books of the 90's.

Despite the science fiction setting Red Dust is basically a quest, with hero Wei Lee seeking to achieve his destiny and discover what happened to his long-lost parents. The story takes place on a Mars colonised by the Chinese, and McAuley depicts this transplanted oriental milieu with style and considerable gusto. There are some striking scenes (Matrix-like fights and Yankee whalers hunting on seas of dust) yet there is not much depth to this imagined world, and Wei Lee is rather too passive to be a convincing hero. Faults notwithstanding, I enjoyed Red Dust and found it an entertaining read.