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This thread is to discuss January 2015 Group Read - Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.

I really loved this when I first read it many years ago so i'm hesitant to read it again in case i'm disappointed second time round. It's more hard sci-fi than some of the books we have read recently and the whole series covers what would happen if you colonised Mars. It covers politics and science, so for me a good combination. I do remember that it took a while to get into but after that I really loved it.

I'm having trouble getting into this book. My fourth evening of reading and I haven't reached page 100 yet. An hour and a half before I usually go to bed and I'm having my second mug of coffee because I keep drifting off. So far at least, it's not very fast paced. This is the first Robinson I've read; I hope it picks up.

I read this book last year, it was one of my fav, gosh is so well written, and it's so visionary, it's actually a thing that could happen...this year I'll continue reading the ones that are hugo awards, green mars and blue mars

I am about 40% of the way through the book. I've read the Red-Green-Blue Mars trilogy a couple of times before. For the first time I am trying it in German, which is making my reading a bit slower. :)

If you are looking for a fast paced book, you are not going to get it with KSR, though there are lots of interesting moments and ideas.

I find the whole Red-Green debate fascinating. Within contemporary philosophy most ethical positions derive from the rights of people - even animal rights come from considering them as "persons" in some sense. So there is nothing intrinsically unethical in burning down the Louvre or chopping down the Amazon forest - it only becomes unethical (according to analytic philosophy) in so far as it affects people now (or perhaps in the future). For instance, because people won't be able to enjoy the Mona Lisa or because the rainforest is the home of indigenous peoples. I have always found this dissatisfying. Robinson has taken this debate to a whole new level with the Ann-Sax debate, where the ethics of destroying a dead/lifeless world are brought to the fore.

If people enjoy Red Mars, I'd recommend working through the trilogy. The last time I read it I found the epic scope and the way things were tied up in the end very satisfying.

I am curious if anyone has a favorite character. Sax (and Arkady) were definitely mine by the end of the trilogy - though I don't know if Sax really starts to shine until books 2 and 3.

Radiantflux wrote: "I am curious if anyone has a favorite character. Sax (and Arkady) were definitely mine by the end of the trilogy - though I don't know if Sax really starts to shine until books 2 and 3."

Definitely Arkady (and Nadia)

Radiantflux wrote: "For the first time I am trying it in German, which is making my reading a bit slower...."

What's motivating you to read it in German? Translations don't make books much better :) BTW, if you want to read good SF in German, go for "Die Haarteppichknüpfer" - The Carpet Makers.

Back to Red Mars, I read it in 2013 (my chapterwise review, and loved the dry, all-embracing style. Characters like Sax even became more interesting in the sequel. It seems that I'm attuned to Robinson - loved 2312 (my review) also.

Why German? I live in Berlin and need to learn the language. So if possible I read German, not English versions of books.

Thanks, for the suggestion: I've wanted to read Andreas Eschbach for a while.

I also read 2312 in German last year, but found it pretty hard going. I am finding Red Mars much easier, and am only reading it essentially without a dictionary (and then only the German Duden) so it's either a much easier read, or my German skills have got a lot better in the last six months. Despite the difficulty for 2312 I really liked it; it had a somewhat different feel than the Mars trilogy - though it's set in essentially the same universe.

Robinson just has these interesting ideas - like the playing of the Satyagraha opera as people ascend the Earth space elevator - that either people will like or hate depending on where you are coming from.

I am only about half way through Red Mars at the moment, so I am holding off discussing it, as I might say some spoilers for the latter books accidentally.

Nine days and I'm almost halfway through. It such slow going, I'm getting impatient. It just drags on and on and on. Is Robinson building a plot? It's not bad reading, but it's not great, either.

There are a few things that struck me. The beginning of the book is near the end, in time. Frank, one of the leaders of The First Hundred, in some sort of Mardi Gras style celebration or festival, starts throwing rocks, trying to break windows. It seems such strange behavior.

(view spoiler)[We travel with the colonists to Mars and watch them build their habitat and explore and start their terraforming. Then Michel, the psychologist, is taken to a strange dream-state naked ritual ceremony with Hiroko and her farming technicians. Then suddenly its years later and the main characters are getting old and there are then thousand colonists on Mars. (hide spoiler)] I don't think I really need to hide that as a spoiler, but just in case...

This is not a page turner, and there are lots and lots of pages. I think I just don't get it.

Frank, one of the leaders of The First Hundred, in some sort of Mardi Gras style celebration or festival, starts throwing rocks, trying to break windows. It seems such strange behavior.

The behavior is not so strange is it? He's trying to create some smoke-and-mirrors to cover involvement with his John's murder.

I am not sure when the murder happens, but I don't remember it being near the end of the book (perhaps more in the middle) - though I've read the other two books so perhaps I confused.

I thought it was a good way to start the book. It's very much a Cain/Abel start. Paradise on Mars. Original Sin. The death of the original naive/half-baked ideas for a better society. Then the real work needs to begin.

Well that was a bit of a spoiler. The rock throwing in the festival part happened so long ago I can hardly remember it, and we didn't know the characters then. I was thinking of abandoning the book. Maybe I'll stick with it, especially if the murder comes well before the end. I was wondering if anything would ever happen. Even when the sabotaged dump truck almost fell on John, it didn't get the juices flowing. Hmm, could Frank be behind the sabotage incidents? If so, I'm sure it'll take Robinson a couple of hundred pages to fill us in on his motivation.

I've wondered about some of the science. The atmospheric pressure on Mars, according to Robinson, is less than one percent of the pressure on earth. Is that air dense enough to support zeppelins and long range gliders?

I also wonder about the economics. When governments on Earth established colonies in Africa, India, and the new world it was for the purpose of sending wealth back home. The mission is sponsored by the UN, but what is the return? They send 10,000 people to Mars, people like Swiss road-building gypsies, not just scientific investigators, so there may be some scientific return, but this truly is a colonization mission. They've discovered rich deposits of precious metals, but its costs more than they're worth to send them back to earth.

Buck wrote: "Well that was a bit of a spoiler. The rock throwing in the festival part happened so long ago I can hardly remember it, and we didn't know the characters then. "

Sorry I thought this was a thread to discuss the book?!?

Radiantflux wrote: "Buck wrote: "Well that was a bit of a spoiler. The rock throwing in the festival part happened so long ago I can hardly remember it, and we didn't know the characters then.

Sorry I thought this was a thread to discuss the book?!? ""

So it is. I had just hidden a spoiler following your lead. Radiantflux wrote: "I am only about half way through Red Mars at the moment, so I am holding off discussing it, as I might say some spoilers for the latter books accidentally. "

Didn't mean to sound critical I don't object to spoilers.

Sadly I don't think i'm going to have time to reread Red Mars this month. I remember it being slow when I first read it but at a certain point I just became hooked and then had to read the other two books pretty soon after.

I do want to read 2312, I was thinking of nominating it this month but it gets quite mixed reviews on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. Funnily enough those that mentioned it here both liked it. Maybe it's only for those who enjoyed Kim Stanley Robinson's other books.

It took me 19 days to read Red Mars' 566 pages, including two days when I found an excuse not to read. Most of it was a dull, dry, slog. Kim Stanley Robinson is longwinded, using a lot of words to tell his story. This novel has an ensemble cast. There is no protagonist. We think maybe John Boone is it. He was the first man to set foot on Mars and has the prestige of John Glenn or Neil Armstrong. He is a charismatic leader among the one hundred scientists and engineers who go to Mars as its first colonists. They have a long long voyage, arrive, explore, build a community, and eventually are joined by more colonists, thousands more. Years pass. There are political factions and political friction. More years pass. On page 380, a chapter begins with the revelation that John Boone has been assassinated. That's the last we ever hear about John. We never even learn the circumstances of the assassination, not an iota. John's friend Frank Chalmers thinks to himself "I killed John" a couple times. but we never know if that is just feelings of guilt for not being there when john needed him, or if he actually murdered him.

There is unrest and war on overcrowded earth and there is unrest on Mars that leads to a revolt that becomes a nasty devastating war. It's easy to destroy a tent domed city - just blow a hole in the tent. The book reaches it's calamitous climax at about page 500. Suddenly things are happening, it's no longer the drudgery we've been dragging ourselves through, page after page after page. So, despite its long long slow start, it does have a strong finish.

This is the first Kim Stanly Robinson I've read. I've no inclination to read more. For anyone starting to read Red Mars, my advice is start on page 380. The back story isn't worth the effort.

Buck: Did you skip the first part of the book? John B. dies in the prologue at Frank's instigation. There is no ambiguity about what happened. There is some ambiguity about why Frank did it, but not that he was responsible for John's death.

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Red Mars, is the first in a trilogy by KSR, which tells the story of the colonisation of Mars, from the arrival of the first 100 settlers, to it's final independence as an independent society within a commonwealth of independent societies within the solar system.

The first book starts with the initial colonisation by the first 100 and ends with surviving members of the first 100 retreating to a refugee under the ice cap of Mars after having been systematically hunted by corporate forces wanting to exploit the Martian resources for profit. The remaining two books tell of the second revolution and the evolution of a true Martian society.

Each section of the book is told through the eyes of one of the protagonists, which allows for multiple perspectives on events to be seen. Characters actions that often seem simplistic and unsympathetic from one viewpoint, become much more understandable when taken from the perspective of another character (e.g., Frank seen from John's eyes is a cold Machiavellian; John from Frank's eyes is a hopeless dreamer; but within both of their own stories seen a reasonable/rational actors). In latter books other characters stories are told, so Sax, for instance, becomes a much more nuanced character once we see the world through his eyes. My only regret is that one of my favorite characters, Arkady, dies before a more detailed section can be devoted to him - so all we ever see of him is the revolutionary hero/fool (the view of others) not the inter-workings of the world from his own perspective.

KSR also spends a lot of time describing Mars, making it a real and separate world - we are not in Kansas anymore! This also importantly makes Mars the one constant character within the books, serving as a thread to connect all the differing perspectives of the characters.

The Mars trilogy are books of ideas, centered around how a more-democratic/more-equitable society might be created on a new planet, and how the realities of this new world and the forces of the old would shape its formation.

While there is certainly action within the books - falling space elevators anyone? - those looking for more traditional space opera are going to be sorely disappointed. If on the other hand you are interested in watching a global society develop literally from the ground up the Mars trilogy is a rare treat.

I dunno. I read this and actually rather enjoyed it. I see what some of your are saying about the tangential lines of thinking the various characters were wrapped up in. The book could have been two-thirds as long had the author chosen a narrative style that simply expressed 'we when here and did this,' and then 'we went there and did that,' and 'oh, by the way, it was bloody cold because Mars,' but I don't it would've been half the a read. There were many of those tangents I found highly entertaining. I was particularly captivated by the one about the Four Humors. It had no definitive influence on the plot, it only marginally related to the characters, except for the one who was sharing it, but damn it was a neat way of looking at the subject. The book was just full of those sorts of nuggets that served character development. I gave it four stars and don't feel like padded my rating in the least. It was well done.

Valyssia: If you enjoyed the first book, I'd recommend reading the the full trilogy. The books tie together very well, and remember being very satisfied by the ending.

I really like the 'humors' section too - also the discussion of eco-economics, which comes more to the fore in later books.

Radiantflux wrote: "Valyssia: If you enjoyed the first book, I'd recommend reading the the full trilogy. The books tie together very well, and remember being very satisfied by the ending.

I really like the 'humors' s..."

Yeah, both tangents were very good. And do plan to pick the other volumes up in the future. I had a good month. I read this and Hyperion for the first time. They were both excellent and they're both the first parts of series I plan to look into later. Right now my T.B.R. couldn't be fuller. I'm going to keep going with path I'm on.

As an incidental: Existence by David Brin gathers twice the wind Red Mars did and does half as much with it. If you're up for a fairly meaningless slog, I'd totally recommend it.

I loved Hyperion, but found the following books less-and-less interesting. :(

Dan Simmons seems very uneven as a writer to me. Ilium was really great, but he threw it all away in Olympos. The quality difference in the Hyperion books are not so great, but I still remember being disappointed by the way the series ended.

If you like Brin, I can strongly recommend Kiln People.

Radiantflux wrote: "I loved Hyperion, but found the following books less-and-less interesting. :(

Dan Simmons seems very uneven as a writer to me. Ilium was really great, but he threw it all away in [boo..."

I'll take your advice on Simmons. My experience is very limited. I'm the sort who goes through 'best of' list, GoodReads book clubs and award winners for reading material. I could probably stick with that pattern for the rest of my life and never run out of entertaining things to read, but it's always nice to have a personal head's up.

I'm not really impressed with Brin so far, but I recognize that I started at the wrong end and plan to double back. Some of the material in Existence was topical to a personal project so I'm reading it. *sigh* I'm not one to read half a book and put it down. I finish what I start.

Just finished the trilogy.. kinda read like one book per month.
the best thing about it is it's written in meters and kelvin! :)

"I really like the 'humors' section too "

Wow, two people liked that part? It was the only thing in the whole book I didn't like. I thought it undermined the believability of the psychologist.

My favorite character was probably Nadia, although I have a soft spot for Frank Chalmers. It was great to see an arrogant jerk depicted with some degree of depth.

I realize I'm way late for this discussion, but I did just read it recently and thought I'd add a comment or two. To me, this typifies Robinson's books. They are all stories that on the surface I think I should like, but when I actually get into them I find them totally unenjoyably. For me, this story dragged and the characters were uninteresting and not especially likeable.

I think this really comes down to personal preference rather than any fault of the author. I just find long, convoluted political/sociological storylines boring. His stories (like Red Mars) have too much of that, and (for me) not enough exciting action or unique world building.

I've sampled one or two other books by Kim Stanley Robinson but this will probably be my last. Talented and popular as he may be, he's just not an author who writes stories I want to read.

I agree. KSR has a very particular style. You either like it or not. I think it's a good call though: If you didn't like Red Mars you are unlikely to like his other books.