Science Fiction
![Kim Stanley Robinson - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B000APVJXC.jpg)
Green Mars (Mars Trilogy)
Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel • Kim Stanley Robinson's classic trilogy depicting the colonization of Mars continues in a thrilling and timeless novel that pits the settlers against their greatest foes: themselves.
"One of the major sagas of the [latest] generation in science fiction."-Chicago Sun-Times
Nearly a generation has passed since the first pioneers landed on Mars, and its transformation to an Earthlike planet is under way. But not everyone wants to see the process through. The methods are opposed by those determined to preserve their home planet's hostile, barren beauty. Led by the first generation of children born on Mars, these rebels are soon joined by a handful of the original settlers. Against this cosmic backdrop, passions, partnerships, and rivalries explode in a story as spectacular as the planet itself.
"One of the major sagas of the [latest] generation in science fiction."-Chicago Sun-Times
Nearly a generation has passed since the first pioneers landed on Mars, and its transformation to an Earthlike planet is under way. But not everyone wants to see the process through. The methods are opposed by those determined to preserve their home planet's hostile, barren beauty. Led by the first generation of children born on Mars, these rebels are soon joined by a handful of the original settlers. Against this cosmic backdrop, passions, partnerships, and rivalries explode in a story as spectacular as the planet itself.
Editorial Reviews
"Dense as a diamond and as sharp; it makes even most good novels seem pale and insignificant by comparison."-The Washington Post Book World
"Grand in scope, meticulous in detail."-The New York Times Book Review
"Grand in scope, meticulous in detail."-The New York Times Book Review
Readers Top Reviews
Happy customerNigel
Having read the other two books in the Mars trilogy I was looking forward to reading Green Mars. Unfortunately I found Green Mars almost impossible to read, there seemed to be a vague storyline but most of the book (as far as I got anyway, about halfway) seemed to be the authors initial ideas for the storyline written down and then published. The book has a rambling, jump from one characters thought to another, quality about it with no real cohesion between at times whole paragraphs. Unfortunately the stories format just didn't work for me this time
N. Harpur
Having now read all three in the trilogy I would say that they are a worthy effort, firmly in the tradition of Azimov and Clarke (in their more epic modes) - but for me slightly let down by a lack of editing. Rather too much geology and geography, both repeated in lengthy chunks throughout the storyline. The plot and characters are excellent, truly well thought out and developed; witness the fact that I did read all three books, but I did have to skim read a bit too much for my liking. I don't mind at all to read beautiful and imaginative descriptive passages, but in all three books I really felt there was just too much of it... and it did disrupt the flow of the story in a way you would never find in the likes of classic Azimov (Foundation trilogy for example). Nevertheless, this quality of 'serious' science fiction is rare these days and this Mars trilogy still well deserving of the four stars.
BuboBuboAndrew Lawfo
Poor quality book cover ‘printed by Amazon’ I’ve been wondering why some of the books I get from Amazon (such as this one), that appear from the description to be regular printed books, have such poor quality covers — the covers peel and become tatty and they are not editions that you would ever want to keep. I have experienced that with ‘print-on-demand’ books of course ... that is what you get, and may be appropriate for low print runs of that nature. Even in this case, I wouldn’t so much mind, if Amazon made it clear when you purchase this that it is ‘printed by Amazon’, but there is nothing to indicate that. This is making me very wary of buying books on Amazon. Surely they should describe the item correctly when they sell it?
Mrgrumpypants
Kim Stanley Robinson may be a new prophet. His exquisitely detailed view of Martian exploration and colonization and the future of technology and humanity is told through the eyes of a pantheon of complex, and at the same time very human and believable characters. Members of the “first hundred” - the people selected to establish a colony on Mars and their descendants, they struggle, grow and eventually thrive on the surface of a transformed Mars. At the same time the Earth, struggling with overpopulation and scarce resources and the writhing of powerful nations and company-states sees Mars as a new frontier to exploit and colonize. This second book details the struggle and success of the people of Mars to become self-determined. The author’s modeling of the revolutionary process and all the competing voices in such a movement is masterful. Very inspiring.
Kindle Autonomeus
Scientific jargon, usually impressive but often not understandable, was interwoven extensively and artfully throughout the story line of this second book in the series. But perhaps a bit overdone for most of us mortal Earthlings. I am no slouch when it comes to general knowledge and understanding. However the skills and knowledge base for me and most other Earth mortals tend to be clustered in more discrete areas. This book was written with highly technical language and terms in multiple areas that tended to overwhelm me at times. I do not find it pleasurable to read for pages not really understand what is being said. That being said and assuming the author used the likely theoretical information as fact appropriately (an assumption because I have no clue about some of his content), the author wove what appeared to be scientific chaos into a piece of artful story telling. It told a story about multiple systems at all levels coming together in what appeared to be little better than random ways to create a world and its population adapted to its specific expression of a whole. He also appeared to reflect some of the more negative impacts one might theoretically expect from artificially extended lives (complete with extended time for learning and experiencing) for a select few in the population.
Short Excerpt Teaser
The point is not to make another Earth. Not another Alaska or Tibet, not a Vermont nor a Venice, not even an Antarctica. The point is to make something new and strange, something Martian.
In a sense our intentions don't even matter. Even if we try to make another Siberia or Sahara, it won't work. Evolution won't allow it, and at its heart this is an evolutionary process, an endeavor driven at a level below intention, as when life made its first miracle leap out of matter, or when it crawled out of sea onto land.
Again we struggle in the matrix of a new world, this time truly alien. Despite the great long glaciers left by the giant floods of 2061, it is a very arid world; despite the beginnings of atmosphere creation, the air is still very thin; despite all the applications of heat, the average temperature is still well below freezing. All these conditions make survival for living things difficult in the extreme. But life is tough and adaptable, it is the green force viriditas, pushing into the universe. In the decade following the catastrophes of 2061, people struggled in the cracked domes and torn tents, patching things up and getting by; and in our hidden refuges, the work of building a new society went on. And out on the cold surface new plants spread over the flanks of the glaciers, and down into the warm low basins, in a slow inexorable surge.
Of course all the genetic templates for our new biota are Terran; the minds designing them are Terran; but the terrain is Martian. And terrain is a powerful genetic engineer, determining what flourishes and what doesn't, pushing along progressive differentiation, and thus the evolution of new species. And as the generations pass, all the members of a biosphere evolve together, adapting to their terrain in a complex communal response, a creative self-designing. ability. This process, no matter how much we intervene in it, is essentially out of our control. Genes mutate, creatures evolve: a new biosphere emerges, and with it anew noosphere. And eventually the designers' minds, along with everything else, have been forever changed.
This is the process of areoformation.
One day the sky fell. Plates of ice crashed into the lake, and then started thumping on the beach. The children scattered like frightened sandpipers. Nirgal tan over the dunes to the village and burst into the greenhouse, shouting, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" Peter sprinted out the doors and across the dunes faster than Nirgal could follow.
Back on the beach great panes of ice stabbed the sand, and some chunks of dry ice fizzed in the water of the lake. When the children were all clumped around him Peter stood with his head craned back, staring at the dome so far above. "Back to the village," he said in his no-nonsense tone. On the way there he laughed. "The sky is falling!" he squeaked, tousling Nirgal's hair. Nirgal blush and Dao and Jackie laughed, their frosted breath shooting out in quick white plumes.
Peter was one of those who climbed the side of the dome to repair it. He and Kasei and Michel spidered over the village in sight of all, over the beach and then the lake until they were smaller than children, hanging in slings from ropes attached to icehooks. They sprayed the flaw in the dome with water until it froze into a new clear layer, coating the white dry ice. When they came down they talked of the warming world outside. Hiroko had come out of her little bamboo stand by the lake to watch, and Nirgal said to her,
"Will we have to leave?"
"We will always have to leave," Hiroko said. "Nothing on Mars will last."
But Nirgal liked it under the dome. In the morning he woke in his own round bamboo room, high in Creche Crescent, and ran down to the frosty dunes with Jackie and Rachel and Frantz and the other early risers. He saw Hiroko on the far shore, walking the beach like a dancer, floating over her own wet reflection. He wanted to go to her but it was time for school.
They went back to the village and crowded into the schoolhouse coatroom, hanging up their down jackets and standing with their blue hands stretched over the heating grate, waiting for the day's teacher. It could be Dr. Robot and they would be bored senseless, counting his blinks like the seconds on the clock. It could be the Good Witch, old and ugly, and then they would be back outside building all day, exuberant with the joy of tools. Or it could be the Bad Witch, old and beautiful, and they would be stuck before their lecterns all morning trying to think in Russian, in danger of a rap on the hand if they giggled or fell asleep. The Bad Witch had silver hair and a fierce glare and a hooked nose, like the ospreys that lived in the pines by the lake. Nir...
In a sense our intentions don't even matter. Even if we try to make another Siberia or Sahara, it won't work. Evolution won't allow it, and at its heart this is an evolutionary process, an endeavor driven at a level below intention, as when life made its first miracle leap out of matter, or when it crawled out of sea onto land.
Again we struggle in the matrix of a new world, this time truly alien. Despite the great long glaciers left by the giant floods of 2061, it is a very arid world; despite the beginnings of atmosphere creation, the air is still very thin; despite all the applications of heat, the average temperature is still well below freezing. All these conditions make survival for living things difficult in the extreme. But life is tough and adaptable, it is the green force viriditas, pushing into the universe. In the decade following the catastrophes of 2061, people struggled in the cracked domes and torn tents, patching things up and getting by; and in our hidden refuges, the work of building a new society went on. And out on the cold surface new plants spread over the flanks of the glaciers, and down into the warm low basins, in a slow inexorable surge.
Of course all the genetic templates for our new biota are Terran; the minds designing them are Terran; but the terrain is Martian. And terrain is a powerful genetic engineer, determining what flourishes and what doesn't, pushing along progressive differentiation, and thus the evolution of new species. And as the generations pass, all the members of a biosphere evolve together, adapting to their terrain in a complex communal response, a creative self-designing. ability. This process, no matter how much we intervene in it, is essentially out of our control. Genes mutate, creatures evolve: a new biosphere emerges, and with it anew noosphere. And eventually the designers' minds, along with everything else, have been forever changed.
This is the process of areoformation.
One day the sky fell. Plates of ice crashed into the lake, and then started thumping on the beach. The children scattered like frightened sandpipers. Nirgal tan over the dunes to the village and burst into the greenhouse, shouting, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" Peter sprinted out the doors and across the dunes faster than Nirgal could follow.
Back on the beach great panes of ice stabbed the sand, and some chunks of dry ice fizzed in the water of the lake. When the children were all clumped around him Peter stood with his head craned back, staring at the dome so far above. "Back to the village," he said in his no-nonsense tone. On the way there he laughed. "The sky is falling!" he squeaked, tousling Nirgal's hair. Nirgal blush and Dao and Jackie laughed, their frosted breath shooting out in quick white plumes.
Peter was one of those who climbed the side of the dome to repair it. He and Kasei and Michel spidered over the village in sight of all, over the beach and then the lake until they were smaller than children, hanging in slings from ropes attached to icehooks. They sprayed the flaw in the dome with water until it froze into a new clear layer, coating the white dry ice. When they came down they talked of the warming world outside. Hiroko had come out of her little bamboo stand by the lake to watch, and Nirgal said to her,
"Will we have to leave?"
"We will always have to leave," Hiroko said. "Nothing on Mars will last."
But Nirgal liked it under the dome. In the morning he woke in his own round bamboo room, high in Creche Crescent, and ran down to the frosty dunes with Jackie and Rachel and Frantz and the other early risers. He saw Hiroko on the far shore, walking the beach like a dancer, floating over her own wet reflection. He wanted to go to her but it was time for school.
They went back to the village and crowded into the schoolhouse coatroom, hanging up their down jackets and standing with their blue hands stretched over the heating grate, waiting for the day's teacher. It could be Dr. Robot and they would be bored senseless, counting his blinks like the seconds on the clock. It could be the Good Witch, old and ugly, and then they would be back outside building all day, exuberant with the joy of tools. Or it could be the Bad Witch, old and beautiful, and they would be stuck before their lecterns all morning trying to think in Russian, in danger of a rap on the hand if they giggled or fell asleep. The Bad Witch had silver hair and a fierce glare and a hooked nose, like the ospreys that lived in the pines by the lake. Nir...
