The Martians Book

Robinson's Mars trilogy--Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars--was arguably the finest thing the SF field achieved during the 90s. Its account of the terraforming of Mars, revolts and repression and the creation of something approximating a Utopia has an impressive sweep but does not neglect the human dimension. The flawed but fascinating leaders of the original colony and their increasingly strange descendants interact and conspire down the decades; the discovery of longevity drugs at an early stage in the plot ensures that those characters who are not murdered, crushed, exploded or burned in warfare of the most inventively horrid kind just keep on going. The Martians is by way of a pendant--several of the longer stories fill in background to the trilogy by telling us about relationships that happened mostly offstage. Sometimes Robinson tells us what would have happened in other circumstances--in two stories the colony never starts. And much of the rest of the book consists of the epiphanic evocations of exotic landscape which is yet another of the trilogy's strengths. The Martians is not the place to start with Robinson's Mars trilogy, but it is a nice addition. --Roz KaveneyRead More