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Review
‘Red Mars is the ultimate in future history’
Daily Mail
'One of the undisputed leaders of the field in contemporary science fiction' Guardian
'If I had to choose one writer whose work will set the standard for science fiction in the future, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson…' New York Times
‘One of the finest works of American sf’
Times Literary Supplement
‘Absorbing, impressive, fascinating… Utterly plausible’
Financial Times
'A mighty trilogy… forecasting every detail and facet, triumph and tragedy, crucial breakthroughs and trivialities of humanity's colonization of another world'
Daily Mail
‘A staggering book. The best novel on the colonization of Mars that has ever been written.’
Arthur C. Clarke
Product Description
In his most ambitious project to date, award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson utilizes years of research and cutting-edge science in the first of three novels that will chronicle the colonization of Mars.
For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny.
John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic "alchemists, " Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life...and death.
The colonists place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light to the planets surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces--for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.
Brilliantly imagined, breathtaking in scope and ingenuity, Red Mars is an epic scientific saga, chronicling the next step in human evolution and creating a world in its entirety. Red Mars shows us a future, with both glory and tarnish, that awes with complexity and inspires with vision. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny.
John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic "alchemists, " Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life...and death.
The colonists place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light to the planets surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces--for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.
Brilliantly imagined, breathtaking in scope and ingenuity, Red Mars is an epic scientific saga, chronicling the next step in human evolution and creating a world in its entirety. Red Mars shows us a future, with both glory and tarnish, that awes with complexity and inspires with vision. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"Red Mars" in particular, and the remainder of the trilogy as a whole are quite simply the best novels I have ever read. Ever. And I have read quite a few, s/f or otherwise. I recommend this to everybody, whether they like science-fiction or not.
It starts out, as an epic soap-opera - for want of a better description - about a group of 100 carefully chosen scientists, sent on their way to establish the first permanent colony on another planet, and all their curious personal interactions. Halfway there, they decide - as one might expect to happen - if they are to start a completely new civilisation, why should they be controlled from another planet, and do everything in accordance with NASA protocol. There begins the rebellion, which - a couple of tens of thousands of new colonists later - develops into a guerilla war for the control and sovereignty of our second home.
Kim Stanley Robinson likes to set up interesting little philosophical arguments between the main characters (as in "The Years of Rice & Salt", also an excellent book), and thus we see the continual disagreement between those who believe we have a duty as intelligent space-faring beings to spread life wherever there is none, and those who believe there is intrinsic value in a barren but untouched landscape, and that it should be left well alone.
All the characters are very well thought-out and developed (Sax being my favourite), and with a few notably exceptions, all of the technology the author proposes is very "near-future".
I have no idea what was going through the minds of the people who gave this book "1 Star". They should probably tackle something less challenging first, like one of Enid Blyton's epics. This book is unashamedly big and long, but it is so, because it covers an important and epic story.
Some day we will do this for real, assuming we haven't already killed ourselves off - which is a distinct possibility.
Read it, and take it for what it is: an incredibly well-constructed epic story about the human condition, transplanted to another planet. I find this book truly inspiring, and it is one of the only few I re-read at least once every two years.
The second book is about 85% as good as the first one, and strongly recommended also. The third one mainly really ties up loose ends, and is definitely worth a read if you liked the other two, but is certainly nowhere near as groundbreaking.
READ IT. READ IT. READ IT. (Then read the other two).
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The first volume of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy is absolutely magnificent. This is a book for non-SciFi readers, as well as SciFi fans: the subject matter is wide-ranging and the book kept my interest throughout.
In some ways it struck me as a 21st Century version of what it must have been like for the early colonisers in the United States.
The book is beautifully written, a pleasure to read, and manages to get inside the heads of the main characters without falling into the Dickensian trap of too much description and not enough action.
I read it cover to cover in under a week and had to buy the second book the day I finished the first one.
I would put this in my list of all-time best reads, and for me that is saying something!
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is one of the classics of modern SF. Strangely, though, there's very little literal science fiction in there. Apart from one gimmick later on, almost all of the science in this book we could do today. And therefore the story ends up being much more about the people and the politics. When I put it down, I was struck by two thoughts. Firstly that it's very easy to forget that Robinson has never actually been to Mars to research it, since the detail is so great. And second, that when we colonise Mars, this is exactly how we'll mess it up.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Would have been better without the plot
I'm some kind of fan of 'hard sci-fi' and this is, pretty much, hard sci-fi and deserves credit for being a pretty realisitic treatement of the colonisation of Mars. Read more
Published 4 days ago by doctor_jeep
Red Mars
Red Mars is divided into 8 parts, each lived through a different primary character. We vicariously experience the colonization and expansion of Mars through Frank, Maya, Nadia, and... Read more
Published 3 months ago by CallumP
Best Mars Novel of the 20th Century
Authors occasionally surprise you. More rarely they creep up behind you and hit you over the head with a work so impressive that a coma is sure to follow. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Rod Williams
Poor!
I am a fan of sci-fi but must agree with the others who rate this novel badly. The characters are wooden, lifeless and create no attachment or emotion in the reader. Read more
Published 8 months ago by D Lambert
THOUGHT PROVOKING
The science is utterly compelling and plausible, it still holds up today and is well-informed. I can see this happening, but not not for a few more decades yet. Read more
Published 8 months ago by R. P. Griffiths
'Firm' Sci-Fi
A plausible scenario for the colonisation of Mars; this book is mostly about the interpersonal relationships between the 100 colonists sent to Mars. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Tuomas
Personal affairs in spades, very little science fiction
This novel was recommended to me as the ultimate 'hard' science fiction, which I now find very amusing, because it shows how obfuscated this genre has become. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Christian Wendt
The Mars Trilogy is brilliant
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy is quite simply breath taking. Quite brilliant. Read them all.
But beware Mr Robionosn is a bit unpredicatable. Read more
But beware Mr Robionosn is a bit unpredicatable. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Mr. N. J. Keighley
Initially very interesting, then slowing down to an amlost boring...
I bought Red Mars because I had a hankering for a science fiction novel (maybe I wanted to return to my youth). Read more
Published 22 months ago by Ransen Owen
An important hard SF novel on the settling of Mars
Kim Stanley Robinson's epic Mars Trilogy chronicles humanity's colonisation of Mars, beginning in the early 21st Century and extending over a period of some two centuries. Read more
Published 23 months ago by A. Whitehead
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