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Megan Baxter's Reviews > Red Mars
Red Mars (Mars Trilogy, #1)
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Red Mars looks at the first waves of emigration to Mars, through the eyes of certain members of the First Hundred, the original settlers. The world Kim Stanley Robinson paints is complex, filtered through the perceptions of different people, the politics intense and contentious, even the debate over terraforming itself is depicted with lively wrangling.
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the recent changes in Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the recent changes in Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at
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Red Mars.
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Reading Progress
May 16, 2012
– Shelved
June 3, 2012
–
Started Reading
June 12, 2012
–
Finished Reading
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s.penkevich
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Jun 12, 2012 07:32AM
Oh, nice, I totally forgot about these books!
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Sounds interesting, but I think I am likely to skip it. Do you really think it's a four-star book? Sounds like the issues it has rate a three.
It's hovering around the border between the two. I thought I might read it again at some point in the future, so that nudged it into the four-star range. On the other hand, I don't think you're missing tons if you give it a skip. I prefer Ben Bova's take to Kim Stanley Robinson.
I am often conflicted about hard sf. One the one hand I am growing to like a bit of crunch in my sci-fi (though I still love the "soft" space-opera-y stuff too) and it can add some real depth/complexity to the story, but when the author just goes off the rails to give me a science lecture at the expense of the story and characters I just don't care. (I had the latter experience with The Quiet War...I just got so bored with soil science taking up so much text space that I dropped it.)Does Bova manage to tread that line successfully?
Also: I didn't mean to come across as a prig in questioning your rating of the book...just seemed like you had more issues with the book (that weren't inconsequential) than you had love for it.
No, that was a fair question! I certainly waffled on how to rate it - but "might read it again" tends to be my personal marker for a low 4. Bova does, certainly. The science is there, but much less overt. Kim Stanley Robinson tends to go on and on for pages to describe things that add nothing to the story, but Bova seems to always use the science at the service of the story.
That is to say, he does in Mars. I haven't read the later ones in the series, but I'd like to.
Good review, I think you picked up exactly why I couldn't finish this book when I tried to read it several years ago.Perhaps I will give it another go one day.
