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This final instalment of the Mars trilogy was published in 1996, which makes it all the more audacious and impressive that Kim Stanley Robinson thoroughly dismisses globalised capitalism as unstable and archaic. In ‘Blue Mars�, he evokes a postcapitalist Martian economy consisting of co-ops, universal basic income, and gifting. By this point in the trilogy, the reader know what to expect: a narrative focused not on big dramatic events, but on environmental change, scientific discovery, and political minutiae. A detailed tapestry of world-building, rather than a plot-led thriller. If Green Mars meanders slowly around the planet, displaying its beauties to the reader, so does this finale. As I knew what to expect, and what not to, I found ‘Blue Mars� a magnificent conclusion and a truly involving vision of the future. The characters served predominantly as viewpoints, although they also had distinctive individual voices. They were drowned out by Mars itself, however, and that was more to my taste than perhaps it would be to some. I was blown away by the sheer intellectual rigor of the book. It swept me into a hopeful, convincing future. At the present moment of climate crisis, political breakdown, and cultural conflict, that felt like a wonderful gift. Notably, in the 22nd century evoked here Earth remains in the Holocene and sea level rise is not explicitly linked to global warming.

Kim Stanley Robinson fills nearly 800 pages without very much plot by closely exploring a series of themes, without coming to any simple conclusions. I got the impression of plot being something that occurs in the background while you’re living your life � even if you’re among the First Hundred, the famous initial settlers on Mars. Through their eyes, the reader considers mythology (little red men; Hiroko), political power (hard; soft; interplanetary; inherited), memory (as identity; mutability; danger), science (string theory; interplanetary travel; longevity; terraforming), and constitutional law (democratic accountability; ensuring participation; role of the legislature).

The contrasts between generations are particularly vivid, and these shed light on a particularly big question: once humanity has ended the struggle for subsistence, expanded our lifespan, and gained unprecedented freedom, how then do we occupy ourselves? The remaining First Hundred, mostly scientists, continue to pursue knowledge and concern themselves with the future of Mars. They find it hard to escape the past, especially Ann. The generation below them, however, has inherited little of their anxiety. Nirgal and Zo throw themselves into intense experiences, such as orgies and extreme sports. They are sensualists, pushing their bodies to find better pleasures. Nirgal’s ultramarathon around the entirety of Mars and Zo’s flying are thrilling sequences to read. For once in my life, I even found a scene of organised sports compelling. The Martian equivalent of the Olympics did not separate competitors by gender and, thanks to lower gravity, the long jump and pole vault reached spectacular distances. Most importantly, the whole thing was suffused with joy, rather than sheer competitiveness. As the book proceeds, the First Hundred find paths through life beyond their sense of duty to Mars. Members of both generations, and subsequent immigrants, try going back to the land. Mars could be flippantly described as having Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism, as industry does not require humans to do anything except instruct AIs. Food cultivation, however, is tied into terraforming and therefore takes on great importance. The chapter in which Nirgal finds a little corner to cultivate illustrates the highs and lows of this especially well.

Further illumination is cast on Mars by comparisons with other planets. As technology facilitates travel and colonisation within the solar system, Martians visit their neighbours. An extended visit to Earth features casual racism on the bedraggled Norfolk coast (which rang true � I grew up not far away from there). Earth’s population pressure creates demands for Mars to take more immigrants, a debate that continues throughout the book. As ever, there are no easy answers. A meaningful proportion of Earth’s 15 billion cannot be accommodated on Mars, as it still lacks a full atmosphere. Yet the concept of carrying capacity is a fraught one. As you might expect, the political argument on Mars is less about physical resources and more about cultural assimilation. (view spoiler)[The ending makes it clear that the successful approach is radical, peaceful acceptance; to welcome the newcomers and what they bring to Mars. Again, this is a wonderfully hopeful thing to read in 2019. (hide spoiler)]

Later in the book, Martians also visit Uranus and Mercury, both of which are much more challenging to occupy than Mars. Uranus has very low gravity and little heat. Mercury is more hostile still and I love the ingenious solution Kim Stanley Robinson comes up with. As the planet rotates, the side facing the sun is uninhabitably hot and the sun facing away from it uninhabitably cold. So Mercury has a city on tracks, which moves constantly so as to stay in the narrow liveable strip at the edge, constantly chasing sunset. There’s a wonderful scene in which Zo convinces a drunk friend to venture out onto the city's tracks with her. As with many other scenes, the reader observes characters with very little risk in their lives deliberately putting themselves in physical peril just for kicks. Or in some cases, simply not thinking through risks despite their undoubted intelligence. The scene in which Ann gets chased by a polar bear stands out in this respect. Not only is it lovely to imagine polar bears roaming the icy Martian wastes, the sequence also shows how humans can profoundly change their environment without controlling it or making it safe. The many beautiful descriptions of Martian landscapes display a great respect for wildness. While some characters deplore the interference of terraforming (another debate that continues throughout), it is clear that ecopoesis need not be anthropocentric as such. While the aim is to create an atmosphere that humans can breathe, there are many ways this be done. The choices made on Mars prioritise biodiversity, rather than a sterile environment manufactured just for humans.

Each volume of the Mars trilogy features a revolution on Mars and each successive book ostensibly gives it less space in the narrative. The way I saw it, Kim Stanley Robinson was showing the exponential increase in social complexity as a human population rises. In Red Mars, the planet has hundreds of inhabitants, in Green Mars thousands, and in ‘Blue Mars� millions. Thus the mechanisms of social change in a decentralised world become harder to personify and isolate in a few leaders. ‘Blue Mars� depicts the conditions that create the final revolution, rather than centring it on a small cast of revolutionaries. Moreover, each revolution is less violent and convulsive than the last, another deeply hopeful perspective. Much as I love the content of the Mars trilogy, though, two thousand pages would definitely drag were Kim Stanley Robinson not such a skilful writer. These two quotes demonstrate the distinctive perspectives he gives to his characters. First, Sax:

He wandered over tundra moss and samphire, kedge and grass. Life on Mars. An odd business. Life anywhere, really. Not at all obvious that it should appear. This was something Sax had been thinking about recently. Why was there increasing order in any part of the cosmos, when one might expect nothing but entropy everywhere? This puzzled him greatly. He had been intrigued when Spencer had offered an offhand explanation, over beer one night on the Odessa corniche � in an expanding universe, Spencer had said, order was not really order, but merely the difference between the actual entropy exhibited and the maximum entropy possible. This difference was what humans perceived as order. Sax had been surprised to hear such an interesting cosmological notion from Spencer, but Spencer was a surprising man. Although he drank too much alcohol.

Lying on the grass looking at tundra flowers, one couldn’t help thinking about life. In the sunlight the little flowers stood on their stems glowing with their anthracyins, dense with colour. Ideograms of order. They did not look like a mere difference in entropic levels. Such a fine texture to a flower petal; drenched in light; it was almost as if it were visible molecule by molecule: there a white molecule, there a lavender, there clematis blue. These pointillist dots were not molecules, of course, which were way below visible resolution. And even if molecules had been visible, the ultimate building blocks of the petal were so much smaller that they were hard to imagine � finer than one’s conceptual resolution, one might say.

Second, Maya:

And then the feeling came over her again, the pre-epileptic aura of the presque vu, the sea glittering, a vast significance suffusing everything, immanent everywhere but just beyond reach, pressing in on things � and with a little pop she got it � that that very aspect of the phenomenon was itself the meaning � that the significance of everything always lay just out of reach, in the future, tugging them forward � that in special moments one felt this tidal tug of becoming as a sensation of sharp, happy anticipation, as she had when looking down at Mars from the Ares, the unconscious mind filled not with the detritus of a dead past but with the unforeseeable possibilities of the live future, ah, yes � anything could happen, anything, anything. And so as the presque vu washed slowly away from her, unseen and yet somehow this time comprehended, she sat back on the bench, full and glowing; here she was, after all, and the potential for happiness would always be in her.