Rating: 
Summary: Detailed and tedious (I laughed, I cried - mostly cringed)
Review: Red Mars was one of the tougher reading tasks I have had since my college textbook days. While the technical and socio-political problems are rather interesting in combination with the nostalgic pioneering dream of settling our next-door planet, the long and weary descriptions of the Martian landscape were rather taxing. The author created a cast of mentally unstable characters that seemed to lack differentiation other than the environment and tasks surrounding them. I felt one could have easily interchanged several of the main characters without adversely affecting the story. A lot of research seems to have been done by the author on the geological features of Mars. A Martian map can be found in the beginning of the book. The map, unfortunately, was inadequate in understanding where things took place much of the time. Many of the areas described in such painful detail were not even on the map! As such, without some point of reference, many of the events lost their relation to each other in location and time. The book might have been 30% shorter (and less tedious) without much of the extraneous descriptions that had little to do with the actual story. The question arises as to why this book received the prestigious Nebula award in '93. Maybe the judges were disillusioned by the blurred socio-political antics of the Clinton regime and were seeking some hard in-your-face realism - or perhaps there simply weren't any better choices that year.
Rating:
Summary: Slow-moving political fiction disguised as SciFi
Review: PROS: Realism, distinct characters. CONS: Slow-moving, too political, unlikable characters, repetitive descriptions. BOTTOM LINE: I was looking for a "Sense of Wonder" and was left with a "Sense of What For?" How was I to know that it was a book about politics, economics and sociology disguised as Science Fiction? I had hope for the book in the beginning. I really enjoyed "The Voyage Out" and the character development (even though, for me, the characters were not very likable). When they got to Mars, the book seemed to slow way down. The same features of Mars are explained over and over again. The author only has to tell me once that the sand/cliff/mountain/sky/terrain is red/rust/orange/crimson/brown/tan...I get it already! I do agree with other reviewers who say that 150-200 pages of describing Mars could have been left out to make a much more enjoyable book. The parts about the colonization were technically interesting, but overpowered with political issues (not a favorite SciFi topic of mine). While I think the events were a realistic expectation for people under such a situation, it just makes for very dry reading. And after all, I'm reading fiction for its entertainment value, not for it's educational value.
Rating: 
Summary: I now know Martian terrain features better than Earth's
Review: Let me start by saying that I respect Mr. Robinson for tackling the huge task of describing the colonization of Mars in such exquisite detail, and from so many different angles. We haven't discussed the book in my reading group yet, but I think that the book raises a lot of good points for discussion (i.e. "would we have done X this way? Would there be alternatives?"). My biggest complaint with the book was his rambling ad infinitum about the Martian land features. I honestly believe that the book could have been 150 pages shorter, and equally enjoyable to me if he'd have left out most of this. In fact, it appeared to me that characters made often seemingly pointless treks around Mars just so the author would have a reason to describe each area. I think I may have been so put off simply because I have absolutely no interest in geology, but the other people in my reading group felt pretty much the same way. This was my only real complaint with the book, but it was such a complaint that I docked it two stars. Overall, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have given the book a Nebula award, but barring the complaint above, I found it to be very thought provoking, and I look forward to discussing it with my reading group. However, I did not like the book well enough to read Green or Blue.
Rating: 
Summary: Sometimes long-winded but enjoyable
Review: Reading Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars" sometimes feels like you're finishing a reading assignment in school. There were times I found myself wondering why I was still reading it. But overall, it is very enjoyable and worth taking the time to read, even if it may seem like more of a chore than it should. The book tackles the story of starting to colonize Mars and make it more hospitable to humans. Robinson has assembled an array of different characters from different countries on this voyage. It may even be too many characters to keep track of, but the story focuses on around eight main characters. And of those you only get to know about four of them really well and understand their behavior. Robinson can also describe a foreign planet with such detail you think he was with Mariner when it first landed many years ago. At times you can visualize yourself right there on the planet with the characters. Other times he can get too detailed. It's almost as if he likes to hear himself write. This bogs down the story at times, particularly when it seems nothing is happening so he has a character traveling around the planet so he can describe more of the scenery. As for his ideas on colonization, he never really flaunts them like some SF writers. Sometimes it seems an entire book is centered around some writer's "great idea" and they try to build a story (usually a weak one) around it. Robinson has many interesting ideas on colonization. None of them seem too far from reality. And of course he can describe his ideas very well. One problem he had to tackle was the length of time colonization would take. If this were a true-to-science story (which it is for the most part), colonization and terra-forming would take hundreds of years. So what do you do in the meantime? How long can you read about the character's day-to-day life without anything happening? Robinson tackles this from two fronts. One is he gets more involved in the political side of colonizing the planet. It actually is the main part of the story. Some have complained that it's too much of the story. But this is truer to life than some might like to think. Everything we do in life is framed in our beliefs. And by bringing different factions together that have different perspectives, you're bound to get conflict. This is what the book is primarily focused on, not just people performing different tasks to achieve colonization. If this was the case, it would be a rather short and boring book. The other way Robinson keeps you involved in the long process of colonization is to keep the same characters throughout the story. This wouldn't be possible without some "poetic license." So what he does is invent a drug that makes people live longer. There no sure just how much longer, but having seventy and eighty year olds performing tasks like thirty and forty year olds allows him to keep us focused on the same people. So he doesn't have to keep introducing new characters to us and having us adjust to their philosophies. We can stay focused on the core people and not get confused with more and more people coming into the story. This leads to my other complaint about the story. Because time isn't as much of a factor you lose track of it sometimes in the story. Years and decades may have went by and you might not have noticed. This makes it a little difficult to visualize what's happening on the planet. You still feel it's in the initial stages of colonization when it's actually been decades later and much has changed. Robinson needed to stress that point a little more to the reader. Overall it's an enjoyable story but it finishes with a second (and third) story in mind. I suppose you could read the first, enjoy it and not bother reading the next two books. I will continue reading because Robinson is very talented and can make you feel you're right there with the characters on a foreign planet. And his human-interest stories, while not very complex, can be compelling at times. This is definitely not a summer-easy-reading type book, but one that is very enjoyable no less.
Rating: 
Summary: Left wing propaganda
Review: The author spends 100's of pages trying to hide his left wing views, then half way through the second book in the trilogy he cuts loose with outright socialism and takes several nasty hacks at anyone who believes in freedom. His version of socialism of the future is so sponge brained I had to put the book down.
Rating: 
Summary: Life changing
Review: I could easily write a book on why I love Kim Stanley Robinson, and especially why I love his Mars series. But briefly: Robinson's writing style is very tight, very beautiful prose in the "hard sf" tradition. His science is amazingly realistic and painstakingly researched (not that I'm familiar with every detail he mentions, but he presents his fiction based on fact, in a way that is comfortingly convincing). These novels don't stop at science, however. The near-future he describes includes political and social environments that have visible roots in our world. His is a future that we could all belong to, and build ourselves. It is by no means a perfect world, which of course makes it all the more believable, but it is one that I would want to experience. Although I don't think I'll personally make it to Mars, I certainly believe in the Mars Robinson has created. I also love Robinson for his philosophies of life. His portrayal of the ways in which humans can and should live as part of their environment have made me take stock of the way I live, down to the very house I should live in. The communities he describes are full of interesting, intelligent people that often don't get along, but would never, ever be boring. And the parties are just fantastic. I also love how thought-provoking the series is, not just in terms of one central idea, but on every level. I have found a synthesis of ideas on everything from personal relationships to government to religion in these books, all of which apply directly to my life. The bottom line: As I read this series, especially RED MARS, I built Mars alongside the First Hundred. I invested my life and emotion into this new planet and new chance for humanity, at least in my mind, and it changed my way of thinking about how I am living this life on this planet. I don't think this is a book for everyone, but if you're susceptible to daydreaming and are interested in a worldview that has nothing and everything to do with this world, read this series.
Rating:
Summary: The planet is the only beleivable character
Review: The Mars trilogy has become a modern SF classic, so I decided to finally read it. Let's start with the good things. On the epic scale, the treatment of the planet Mars and how it is affected by colonization and terraforming is really well done, and gives the book the level of interest that made me manage to get through it. On the individual and political level it is just awful. The characters are at best one dimensional. They have at most one property each, and everything they do and say is based on that one property. They are also often idiots who do not realize obvious things until someone points it out to them after 25 years. Politically society works according to a very naive version of current leftist thinking. I don't mind a book based on other views than mine, as long as it's done intelligently, but this... The book takes place in a strange 50s-ish universe. There are no cell phones or email. The US and a strangely Sovietlike Russia dominates the world. The nation state is as strong as ever, and every nation and ethnic group live up to every stereotype you have ever heard of. Bedouins landing on Mars immediately form caravans roaming the planet. Etc...
Rating:
Summary: Textures and Slow Music
Review: I read Red Mars with immense pleasure, as it achieved two aspects of brilliant science fiction writing that are rarely entwined in a single novel: imaginative character development along with imaginative use of well-researched science. Coming from a background of reading mostly Phillip K. Dick, Octavia Butler and Frank Herbert, I must commend Robinson for doing thorough research so that the story sheds any vestiges of comic-book caricatures and breeds a spectrum of believable emotions among his heroes and villains. Although some may complain about the novel's "slow" pace, I had no such problem. His style came off as possessing an artful patience, a willingness to develop small details with expansive narrative, as Dostoevsky did in Brothers Karamozov. The textures Robinson builds by out-of-sequence suspense (like beginning with a murder and tastefully arcing backward across time)changes the scale of beauty; one can find life amid the subtle descriptions of the landscape and its rare but prized hints at what truths they could reveal. I recommend this novel to anyone with a penchant for getting to know characters over a long span of time, like in a 19th Century British or Russian novel, and especially to sci-fi fans who might be somewhat weary of cartoonesque psycho-sexual fireworks popular in a lot of speculative fiction.
Rating:
Summary: may have the science, but it misses everything else
Review: This book is a classic example of what's wrong in science fiction. It's all science and no fiction. I felt quite let down after all the hype. The character development especially could use some work. In example: Maya Toitovna. She is as original as a Bond girl. A tough, ball beaking sexy Russian scientist?? The people are narrow and the plot is hackneyed to the point that the interesting subject of (terraforming) is rendered uninteresting. I really tried to enjoy this novel (and green and blue..) but was unable. If it helps you use the review: favorite authors/books include: Card (enders et al) Cherryh (cyteen, hellburner) n.lee wood (faraday's orphans) le guin (left hand darkness)and stephanson (snow crash) All of these authors have exellent charachters, innovative plot and include sometimes wildly speculative fiction. All in all, I hope you enjoy this series more than I.
Rating:
Summary: More science than fiction - but still terrific!
Review: Robinson's novel is great, particularly if you're interested in how a colony on Mars might actually start. On the other hand, if you are not quite as excited about knowing the science in detail, you may want to consider reading something else. I was reminded a bit of Moby Dick in some spots: those chapters describing 19th centry whale processing technology in excruciating detail were never my favorites. You'll get a bit of that here, too. But Robinson usually stops short of the nauseating level of detail. The characters were interesting and multi-faceted. The shifting narrator perspectives were especially enjoyable. I'm looking forward to reading Green and Blue.
| 
