- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Gollancz; New edition edition (22 May 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0575602139
- ISBN-13: 978-0575602137
- Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 11.1 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,470,708 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Red Dust
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Red Dust is a Science Fiction adventure story set on a terraformed Mars in the far future.
About the Author
Paul J. McAuley won the Philip K. Dick Award for his first novel and has gone on to win the Arthur C. Clarke, British Fantasy, Sidewise and John W. Campbell Awards. He gave up his position as a research biologist to write full-time. He lives in london.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format: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.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Putting the shared universe of his first 3 novels behind him, Paul McAuley's first standalone novel unfortunately turns out to be a badly structured mess. It's a tale of revolution on a partially terraformed Mars, seen through the eyes of itinerant worker Wei Lee. There are plenty of interesting ideas and moments in this book, but they completely fail to come together into a satisfactory whole. The book flies past virtual reality afterlife, Elvis rescued by aliens, Western pastiche, sand ray hunting and plenty more without ever exploring in depth what this world of Mars is like. It becomes impossible to have any feeling for the lead character or interest in his story - as with the lowest form of fantasy quest tales it becomes clear that Wei is the 'Chosen One' who can bring about revolution on Mars. Wei is never in charge of his own destiny; he's always journeying at the behest of shadowy characters that never quite reveal their intentions. A series of encounters with a mysterious assassin seems to be trying to add some energy to the proceedings, but as it soon becomes clear that these encounters will all fizzle out until a final showdown these set pieces quickly become boring.
A total lack of focus here makes Red Dust McAuley's weakest novel to date - a novel with a plot difficult to understand and characters impossible to like.
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