Rating: 
Summary: Promising...if it wasn't for the politics
Review: A very promising premise falls flat on its face, due to too much emphasis on the phsycology of the main characters. We see very little of the scientific and engineering problems associated with colonising a new planet. Instead, we are treated to pages full of personal vendettas, political infighting and finnaly ( of all things!) civil war. Sadly, this book has alot in it about politics, and very little about the colonisation of a new world. A shame really, considering the immense knowledge the author has on the subject.
Rating: 
Summary: daunting but rewarding
Review: Red Mars should be required reading for anyone who questions the validity of space exploration.
Although the science ranges from meticulously accurate (the geological and botanical passages) to very shaky (the space elevator), the author has clearly
made a herculean effort to address every possible factor that could come into play in the creation of a world.
Most books about colonization seem to emphasize either technology or sociology and very few do both.
Nobody has ever done either as well as this.This book has been criticized for everything; some people say it has one-dimensional characters and too many nature passages,
others say it emphasizes characters too much and ignores the plot. Obviously tastes vary widely; my personal feeling is
that the book veers from white-knuckle addictivity to uncomfortable inaction.
However, it is an extremely rewarding read if one has patience. My only criticism is that the book has an arbitrary ending;
I would have felt unsatisfied if the second book wasn't with me when I finished.
Rating:
Summary: Robinson is the Tom Clancy of SF
Review: The technical knowledge contained in this novel is simply outstanding. I have read many other non-fiction books on Mars, Robinson knows what he is talking about. The beginning of the novel is a bit confusing, just as you figure out what is happening, you are thrown into the beginning of the journey. The novel reads almost like a history book on Mars. The only reason I didn't give this book a 10, is because sometimes Robinson goes into too much detail. The were times in the story that seemed to drag, but not many. Overall, outstanding!
Rating:
Summary: An Epic Start to an Epic Trilogy
Review: The incredible depth of the plot, and the science are what make this book great. I wouldn't recomend it for the person who needs an explosion every other page to stay awake, but for those with the patience, it is a very rewarding book to read.
Rating:
Summary: incredible geographical, emotional, and physical detail
Review: I have to admit that when I picked up the book that the content seemed to leave wide open what an interpretation of colonization would be like; in this I wasn't disappointed. Simply because Kim Stanley Robinson has given us a major insight on how the human condition as well geographic change can affect us as human beings. I marvel at how the author can take such an international cast and weave a story of love, hatred, isolation and geographic differences in such a way that is seems the author was there for the whole trip. I am definately looking forward to completing the other two books in the series. I will then of course expect to add my voice to those as well.
Scott Olson
Rating: 
Summary: A science-fiction story - without the story
Review: I picked up this book on a whim, and it nearly became the first book in my life that I did not finish. It starts out well enough, with a sneakily planned murder...but then just when you're about to get hooked, the book turns out to be one big flashback leading up to the murder. Huh? Suspense is created and then pulled out from under the reader like a rug, leaving nothing but utter boredom reading about the colonists themselves being bored on a space voyage out to Mars. The book becomes all science and no story (and I'm an engineer, mind you), and the author tries to generate excitement by having characters engaging in inexpicable activities - just why is it that everyone starts wrecking the place? To make it a better world? THIS MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. Some colonists start hiding from other colonists...to do research on their own? What? The governments who funded the mission have essentially no say on how the place is run? Excuse me? The relationships between characters is apparently based on those that one has or had in the sixth grade. Whining characters, unexplained motivations, mass destruction just for the sake of mass destruction...this book is a mess.
Rating:
Summary: The Alluvial Fan of Narrative Flow : Mars as MOBY DICK?
Review: "Information" is vital in the novel. Recall the vast quantities of whaling lore in MOBY DICK. The alluvial fan of information both guides the novel's narrative flow and is its residuum, one of its enabling and defining traits. (Thus fantasy, say, is heavily handicapped in the quest for true novelistic distinction.) RED MARS's narrative is marked by facts, factoids, and abstruse technical vocabulary; by disquisitions on Martian geology (or rather, Robinson insists, "areology"), climate, terrain, and what threatens to become a simple surfeit of Mars-as-planet detail (or faux detail). The threat, however, finally fails, because it is in writing about rheology, lichen, agriculture, weather, rocks, metallurgy, that Robinson shows, against all expectation, the capability to ascend into a lyric empyrean, lofted solely by the hot-air balloon of prose. Of course there are problems -- the degree of discursiveness and the extent of Martian "nature writing" (John Muir in a spacesuit), isn't everyone's idea of a good read. And the ending of RED MARS is not so much weak as provisional, a rabbet joint between RED MARS and its sequels GREEN MARS and BLUE MARS. But the characters are memorable: Quirky, obsessed, burdened with the agendas that typify and stigmatize highly intelligent persons. "The First Hundred" colonists, whose saga this nominally is, are characterized with a deftness that barely acknowledges the venerable (if still vigorous) "2-D" tradition of SciFi characterization. Robinson's POLITICS is -- well, certainly NOT conservative. In The Mars Trilogy, as well as in his short stories, AND in his wonderful California Trilogy (set in a near-future California just north of San Diego, after a "nuclear truck attack" has pitted its survivors against the ancient ways of land and sea for subsistence), Robinson explores THE LIMITS OF LIBERTARIANISM -- and there is a tinge of sorrow, I think, in his contemplation of the losses of renouncing it. The premise of a Soviet-style communism (the Russians are partners in Martian discovery and colonization) is now anachhronistic, of course -- but we should recall that "socialism," even "communism," is not, in fact, dead; and in any case Robinson NEEDS it to set up and enliven the novel's "meta-plot": The dilemmas of how to manage self-government in a setting without precedent in its harshness, while pursuing life, liberty, and happiness under the scrutiny of an Earth reminiscent of the England of George III. Remarkable in its minutiae, RED MARS, in its bigger themes, attains a sweep, grandeur, and meaning that are rare. It is "hard" SciFi with a "soft" heart and transcendent preoccupations. (And sequels!
Rating:
Summary: The Beginning of a Great Saga!
Review: Red Mars is a rich book full of fantastic science fiction. The amount of pages shouldn't be discouraging... That's all meat and potatoes there! Many people argue that too much has gone into the characters, and that some of them aren't very likeable. Whether a character is likeable or not shouldn't make a difference. Having characters with flaws are better than all characters being goody-two-shoes superheroes that all agree with each other's ideas.
Kim Stanley Robinson's background on science and technology is full and rich, and very believable. The terminology and details he uses for describing features on Mars puts this book far above others I've read about Mars. I feel like I'm reading good science fiction rather than an action-packed space story. His details in the psychy of the colonists, and the politics that splits the group apart, also adds more realism to this novel. Reading about two groups split on decisions of whether they should terraform Mars or not is much more interesting than reading about a Utopian group that agrees on everything, and live on a happy little planet for the rest of their lives.
Red Mars (and the rest of the Mars Trilogy books, for that matter) are a must read!
Rating:
Summary: The best book ever written about Mars
Review: As readers of science-fiction, we have been treated to many novels about our famous red neighbor over the years. Whether it be the invading conqueror of H.G. Wells' or the blood and thunder pulp of Burroughs, or even the more scienfitic approaches of Bova or Bear, Mars always seems to fascinate the human mind, holding on and never letting go.
With that said, Red Mars is the best novel written on the subject of colonization. Robinson must have spent years researching this novel, and it shows in every page, as every detail is correct and meticulous. His story of a hundred colonists selected to start our next frontier is riveting, and Robinson creates rounded characters with their own hopes, fears, and quirks. They orbit each other, loving, distrusting, hating, always moving back and forth as the years roll on. The planet changes them in ways they could never suspect. That's one aspect of this novel.
As always, Earth is never far behind, and Robinson also embroils us in the politics of our world, taking our pettiness and applying it to an entire planet, more interested in the bottom line than scientific research and human exploration. And yet, through all of this, Robinson is speaking, telling us how colonization could be done, how it should be done, in his writing that's second to none.
Everything in this book shuffles together to create a mosiac of the future. Red Mars is about Mars, it's about colonists, it's about humanity, about people, about hope, about dreams. I defy anyone to get past the engrossing beginning and not want to read the novel, or to avoid taking sides during the terraforming arguments. This novel is a classic work and remains among, if not the, best novel Kim Stanley Robinson has ever written
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding book, at least!
Review: The best sci-fi book that I have ever read! Some books are all technical or all political and this one is a very nice mix of the two. A must-read for all sci-fi fans
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