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This review of Blue Mars is in fact a review of the entire trilogy, since it's one continuous story -- one that altogether weighs in at something around 2,300 pages. I've been living on Mars for the last 3 months and wish that, if it were possible, I could actually live there, at least the Mars portrayed in these books. It's certainly not a series for everybody -- all those lots of pages are filled with lots of science, lots of politics and political theory, and lots of philosophy.

However, for such a long work, the story line is fairly straightforward. 100 super-scientists journey to Mars, establish a colony, and while they gradually terraform it, other "Terrans" settle it, fleeing an over-populated and rapidly declining Earth. The books describe the struggle of the "Martians" (Robinson's clever inversion -- those humans living on Mars become Martians) to transform Mars into a habitable world, a struggle that takes place in two dimensions: the scientific problem of turning barren, cold Mars into a new Earth, and the human problem of creating a workable society freed from the toxic ways of life still found on Earth. In this way, Robinson weaves together the old utopian impulses of science fiction with a kind of "hard science" style of sci fi that I've not seen in quite a while.

Utopian fiction: Robinson knows his sci fi, and this trilogy in many places reminded me of a massively inflated version of LeGuin's classic The Dispossessed. The two worlds of Urras and Anarres are replaced by Mars and Earth, respectively. Just as Urras was cold and relatively desolate, compared to the superabundance of life on Anarres, Mars begins as a totally uninhabitable place, while Earth (to which the narrative moves twice) remains, even in its decadent state, almost inhospitably alive. LeGuin's novel famously created the genre of the "ambiguous" or "critical" utopia, and the Mars Trilogy follows out this idea. In passing from Earth to Mars, the first hundred decide that they are not beholden to their original mission, and that they have the opportunity finally to create a better form of human living, but like LeGuin's anarchist utopia, even a better form of human living is subject to the human frailties of fractured relationships, power, conformity, and xenophobia, so that the reader is treated to multiple revolutions as the colonists struggle to realize a new form of living. The first of these revolutions, in Red Mars (book 1) is a stunning page turner, the lengthy description of the fall of the elevator cable being one of the best moments in that book. Without spoiling too much, the second revolution in Green Mars (book 2) is almost as gripping, and more philosophically interesting, and sets the stage for the slower and more meditative Blue Mars (book 3), in which Robinson takes delight in exploring numerous post-revolutionary forms life: communal, neo-tribal, etc. The trilogy leans unapologetically to the left and toward environmentalism, although Robinson shares the old-school Marxist faith in technology as a solution to many problems.

Science: Robinson is fairly obsessed with Mars, and any of my friends who decide to read this should use the specially constructed Google Maps for this trilogy (thanks, Dennis, Boccippio!) to follow the narrative -- there are many long travelogues in the narrative. Geology (technically, areology), biology, astronomy, psychology, physics, all get long discussions. If you're not a scientist, or don't find science interesting, you might zone out, but Robinson manages two remarkable feats: first, he folds the science into the narrative well, so that it becomes a part of the actual story, and he frequently uses the science as a metaphor for what's happening politically or personally with the characters. Second, he's about the best popular science writer around: he explains even the most technical scientific ideas with clarity and verve. Having just finished the book, I think know the geography (areology) of Mars better than that of Earth.

Philosophy: Robinson wrote a doctoral thesis on Philip K. Dick. Although his style reflects little of that great writer, he certainly includes the philosophy in a way that echoes Dick. As a philosopher, I typically hate writers who explicitly discuss philosophical ideas in books. It takes something special to pull it off: Dick certainly had it, and Robinson has it. For one thing, he seems to actually understand the philosophical issues he raises, for another, just as with the science, the philosophy reflects events occurring in the novel and with the characters. Whole sections of the book are actually examinations of particular philosophical ideas folded into narrative. One is devoted to Kuhn's notion of the paradigm, a late chapter on the character Zo is lifted straight out of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, even Deleuze gets a chapter. I don't know that it would be possible to identify each section with a philosophical idea, but it would be worth trying.

So, lots of ideas, obviously. But fundamentally, it's stories and characters that sell narratives, and Robinson manages to provide those as well. A convenient plot device, the "gerontology treatments," greatly extends the lives of the characters, so that we are able to follow the first hundred through the entire 150-year span of the trilogy. In fact, many of these characters are killed off, lending a genuine sense of danger to the narrative and also providing a kind of woven structure to the narrative that's quite lovely. As some characters die, their story is taken by other members of the first hundred, or by new, "native born" Martians. If nothing else, the long story of Saxifrage Russell (not a subtle symbol, that name, as he is the main advocate of terraforming) and the hardcore "Red" Ann provides a remarkable continuity and also a terrific character development arc. I must say I was completely in love with Sax by the time the story was over: crazy, brilliant, compassionate, a sort of "good" mad scientist, he has become one of the my favorite characters in all of sci fi.

Panoramic, epic, and yet intimate, filled with science and ideas and politics, it's really a remarkable read. I'll agree with the criticisms that Blue Mars is a bit slow, and that the travelogues can be a bit overlong (although having a good map makes it much easier), but if you want to really go to Mars, this is how you get there.