Rating: 
Summary: A treat for Robinson fans
Review: A great companion to the mars colonization and terraforming series by Kim Stanley RobinsonThe man has a rare talent for taking a topic and setting which has been beaten like a rented mule for decades and somehow making it fresh and mesmerizing Another favorite author of mine, Steven Edward Rustad, in 'The Triumph and the Glory' accomplished the same thing for the Second World War Fresh perspectives. Uplifting themes. Rare these days, huh ? We need more writers like those guys, any volunteers out there ?
Rating: 
Summary: Hither and Thither on Mars
Review: As an avid reader of the Mars Trilogy, I picked this one up as soon as it hit the shelves. Alas, I was quite disappointed. It reads like a series of "liner notes," or as stuff that was left out (perhaps, properly) of other books. There is poetry here relating to Robinson himself rather than the story of the trilogy. There is one story that I read before ("Green Mars") which is rather good, and he makes some attempt at using the characters from that episode as a frame story. However, a lot of the chapters are disjointed, lacking focus or a clear narrator. The points of view shift from third- to first-person quite often. One of the "nuggets" in the book is Robinson's Martian Constitution, which was not explicitly laid out in Blue Mars. While his politics are not mine, his idea of a world constitution is thought-provoking, and would provide excellent topic for a political science class. The last chapter is directly about Robinson himself, as he prepares to deliver his manuscript. Did I feel cheated? Unfortunately, yes. I began to wonder, somehow, if this book was the author's or the publisher's idea to simply cash in on a very well-written and popular series. The gimmick worked on me (obviously), but the book itself only serves as a companion volume to the Mars trilogy. It is not, by my lights, a novel.
Rating:
Summary: Hither and Thither on Mars
Review: As an avid reader of the Mars Trilogy, I picked this one up as soon as it hit the shelves. Alas, I was quite disappointed. It reads like a series of "liner notes," or as stuff that was left out (perhaps, properly) of other books. There is poetry here relating to Robinson himself rather than the story of the trilogy. There is one story that I read before ("Green Mars") which is rather good, and he makes some attempt at using the characters from that episode as a frame story. However, a lot of the chapters are disjointed, lacking focus or a clear narrator. The points of view shift from third- to first-person quite often. One of the "nuggets" in the book is Robinson's Martian Constitution, which was not explicitly laid out in Blue Mars. While his politics are not mine, his idea of a world constitution is thought-provoking, and would provide excellent topic for a political science class. The last chapter is directly about Robinson himself, as he prepares to deliver his manuscript. Did I feel cheated? Unfortunately, yes. I began to wonder, somehow, if this book was the author's or the publisher's idea to simply cash in on a very well-written and popular series. The gimmick worked on me (obviously), but the book itself only serves as a companion volume to the Mars trilogy. It is not, by my lights, a novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Should never have been published
Review: I absolutely loved the Mars trilogy, but this book is a bunch of annoying out-takes. All kinds of things happen that contradict the trilogy, so you're never clear which storylines in this book "really" did happen in the world of the trilogy, and which were the plotlines that KSR decided to change before publishing. There is no warning of this on the cover, so The Martians is a very confusing read indeed, until you work it out. In the end I felt cheated and so annoyed that I stopped reading halfway through and gave the book to charity.
Rating: 
Summary: what is left
Review: i don't like the idea of colonizing other worlds- see what happens if one is unaware of lifeforms around (almost part of every sci-fi tale; the more philosophical let man create the strange life themself) sure, his short stories and poems raise literary average of a commonly mistreated genre; but still, i must say, the impression being firmly wrapped dates back when reading seafarer's classics as a 10-y-old or planet of death (lem on venus) @ 13
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful companion to the trilogy
Review: I found this collection of short stories and poetry added a lot of depth not only to the Martian Trilogy, but also to the readers understanding of Kim Stanley Robinson. It seemed to me that this book was a way of showing the readers what Robinson was feeling as he wrote and lived the Mars Trilogy. It was as if he added to his stories by saying "this is me, reader. Understand where I am coming from." Being a huge fan of the trilogy, I was very pleased by the stories in this collection, as well as the insights into Robinson's personal character. Overall a perfect ending to the Mars story line.
Rating:
Summary: An unnecessary book
Review: I have read six or seven of Mr. Robinson's other books (I haven't read Antarctica, "Escape" or the last of the "Three Californias") and greatly enjoyed them all. I was therefore upset at having wasted my money during a quick stock up on SF books in Johannesburg Airport. This was mostly silly and detracts from the Mars Trilogy. The poems are especially silly. Read the Mars Trilogy instead....and any of his other books except this one.
Rating: 
Summary: A sad-but-sweet denoument
Review: I hesitated over buying this one, after reading some of the reviews here, but I'm glad I bought it. It's true that it is uneven, a bit dull in parts, but I found many of the stories touching. The "alternate universe" stories were a little confusing at first, but I found them perhaps the most interesting parts of the book, providing a contrast to the main Mars books, showing what might have happened if the space program had lost its nerve and hesitated in its quest to go to Mars. And I enjoyed the looks into the author's life, into the process of writing.
Rating:
Summary: The Martians: A Disappointing Landing
Review: I purchased this book based upon the excellence of the first three. I was expecting another well structured story about the Martians. Instead what I experienced was mostly a set of what felt like "out takes" from the prior books. There were some very good chapters but they were not further developed into good characters. The book reads very disjointed and ends with snippets about the author's life while writing the book. If you want some insight into the writing process the book is all right. However, if you are wanting a good science fiction story this book is not it. In the end I felt ripped off.
Rating:
Summary: The Martians=tediousRehash
Review: I read all three of "Red Mars," "Green Mars," and "Blue Mars," and, though a tad slow here and there, I liked them a lot, and use words like "exceptional" and "great" to desrcribe them to fellow sci-fi junkies. Recently while on a book-a-week sci-fi binge, I went shopping and saw "The Martians" and got all excited; bought it straight away. It took me longer than normal to get through this book, and I came close to tossing it in the recycling bin several times (except that I have this thing about never leaving a book unfinished). Anyway, the book is essentially a clip show of the other three, only worse: rather than repeat the best moments from the other books, they ... actually seem to have published a compilation of all the outtakes from the other books. Each story hit me with the same general impression: "this seems like something culled from one of the other Mars books, scraps from the edit room floor." And as one of the other reviewers mentioned, that thing at the end, "Purple Mars," was the biggest bunch of self-indulgent twaddle I've ever read. It might have even been interesting to read in New Yorker magazine or something, but it has no place in a sci-fi book (collection or otherwise). So, where I was slightly miffed by Greg Bear's "Eon" series and some of its amazing similarities to Clarke's "Rama" (superficially anyway), at least those books were interesting, enjoyable, and brisk. With "The Martians," Robinson is far dirtier. He seems to have focused on making *more* money off the success of his trilogy, and has completely thumbed his nose at his Mars series fans in the process by tricking us into buying and reading painfully slow, horribly disconnected drivel. ... To make matters worse, Kirkus and other reviewers actually praised the thing (on the back cover), which leads me to believe that respectable review sources cut established authors too much slack. If it were possible to revoke an author's earlier writing awards, I'd say "The Martians" would provide justifiable cause of action. I tried for zero stars, but the review form forces me to pick something between 1 and 5.
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