‘Green Mars’ is a novel which kept challenging my expectations, and then surpassing them. If you’d told me that I’d find a long section of a science fiction novel – dealing with a conference arguing what form a new Martian government would take – truly gripping, I would never have believed you. It would have sounded like some nightmare episode of ‘Star Trek’ where Kirk and Spock sit around with some warring ambassadors and long passionate speeches are made and William Shatner overacts wildly to try and make the whole thing entertaining. And yet in ‘Green Mars’ we do get such a sequence and – incredibly - I found it fascinating. Philosophy is entwined with science fiction, as agenda collides with agenda and the very notions of democracy and freedom are debated.Picking up some years after the failed revolt of ‘Red Mars’, Stanley Robinson brings us back to some (now very old) characters from the first book, as well as some newer characters and walks them stuttering to an uncertain future. It’s a book about rising anxieties and simmering discontent. It’s a book which agonises at the failures of the past revolution, but knows another is inevitable. It’s a book which is tense in an understated way, so that moments of drama in the narrative become even more exciting. Undoubtedly there are flaws: some characters are much more interesting than others; while the focus on one character at a time, means that the motivations of others who aren’t in focus seem to develop at a frightening rate and in sometimes odd directions. I’m also not convinced that the idea of various ‘aging techniques’ keeping most of the first 100 visitors to Mars alive is such a great idea for the story. In a book which strives to make its science fiction as real as possible, it seems a peculiar insertion of fantasy. Step back and consider it: doesn’t the idea of a revolution having pensioners 140 years old plus as major players seem more than a tad ridiculous? While on the more nit-picking side, it’s strange, although maybe not surprising given when it was written, that a character at one point receives a fax. Perhaps though fax machines will make a big comeback in the 22nd century.The centre of the whole novel is when one character tells another “You’ve never seen Mars”. They are two characters with hugely different viewpoints, one of the Red Mars camp, who believes that the planet should be left pretty much as it was found, the other of the Green Mars camp, who wants the planet’s surface to be habitable for man. They are in the same geographic place, they have the same literal view in front of them and yet they are seeing a completely different planet. And the difficulties of reconciling these diametrically opposed visions is what the book is about. It’s obvious that everyone’s perceptions are different, but this is about such fundamental differences that the individuals concerned can’t even recognise each other’s versions of the planet. On Earth right now, if you’re one of the one percent or you struggle to make ends meet; if you’re an environmentalist or if you work in the oil industry; if you happen to be born in leafy suburban Dulwich or downtown Dhaka – then your understanding of the world, indeed the language you would use to describe it, would be so amazingly different. If we were to compare them side by side, we would think that the descriptions were of two totally different and alien worlds. How we can ever reconcile these vast differences is a big theme of the book, but one which is too huge to really answer. We think in the West, with the internet and the homogenisation the big brands bring to the world (corporates are a big target for this novel) that everywhere is smaller and more alike, but the world in reality is still so big and people’s understandings of it are completely subsumed by the world right in front of them. No single book can answer this quandary of course – and diversity of beliefs, creeds and principles is clearly not a bad thing - but ‘Green Mars’ makes the case that progress is inevitable and that the future belongs to the adventurous rather than the conservative. Science fiction is without a doubt forward looking and tends to come down on the optimistic side of things, so we shouldn’t be surprised by that conclusion. However we’re only two thirds of the way through the trilogy, so we will see how it plays out.
The nice thing about giving your characters longevity treatments is that you can keep the same bunch of characters throughout your epic series, no matter how long the time span. It’s like having a bunch of Gandalfs running around.And in Green Mars, this really is the case. Out of the first one hundred Terran scientists to colonize Mars, a small fraction has survived the previous century of hardship, revolution, and each other (no small feat, because they are all crazy!). But that small fraction is aged, wizened, passionate, and surprisingly active. Many of them still trek around Mars like they are on a Tolkien-like quest; alternately terraforming and ecotaging their beloved home, while essentially booby-trapping the planet against potential conquest.Also, like Gandalf, their reputations over the past one hundred years have evolved into legend and, in some cases, messiah-dom. It isn’t the longevity treatments that cause this level of fame—everyone on Mars, now populated in the millions, receives longevity treatments—it’s their celebrity combined with their historical impact. Besides being the first ever colonial mission to Mars, the trip to Mars began as a reality show for the people on Earth. Video feeds of the astronauts’ interactions were sent back home for entertainment. Consider the extent of worship some of our reality show celebrities experience today. Now consider if those people lived over one hundred years…Oh, no. Oh god no.So these quirky, eggheaded scientists are living, breathing (through a filter, of course) mythological giants. Deities, if you will. And why not? After all, they meet the qualifications of any other god: build planets, create and sustain life, shape political and economic events. This is the ultimate story of intelligent design.But now, in Green Mars, the first colonists have experienced a failed insurrection and are writing the rule-book on how to overthrow an imperial planet. In that case, these people are more like renowned revolutionaries: Tom Payne, Jean Paul Marat, Che Guevara, but with the fabled celebrity of Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed. In many ways, the individuals themselves have embraced the personas bestowed by their followers, while other characters struggle against them, desperate for exoneration from their past sins. But public memory is steadfast, and every mythical epic needs antagonists.This second installment of the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson rectifies the weaknesses of the first novel, Red Mars. Characters are stronger and their interactions are more interesting. Mars remains the focal point, and the descriptions of engineering and scientific feats are just as heavy-handed as before, but that’s not a bad thing. KSR writes science like a poet. Sometimes it slows down the prose, but it’s not as clunky as its predecessor. Green Mars is longer than Red Mars, but I read it in less time and in fewer sittings.Do you need to read Red Mars in order to understand Green Mars? No, but as much as it drags, the literal world-building in Red Mars, and its introduction to the characters is a valuable supplement to the Green Mars portion of the story. I would recommend the completionist approach to this series. We will see if I feel that way after the next installment, Blue Mars.
Do You like book Green Mars (1995)?
Eh.... After the rich personal relationships that were carved out in Red Mars, this one was a bit of a letdown. It focused more on geology, biology, and general politicing that seem to be the modern focal point of anything to do with Mars in sci-fi... (see Ben bovas work if you doubt this)All in all the people felt mechanical, the science felt forced and disinteresting... I have already stockpiled BLue Mars and Martians, so I will probly see this set through, but if you read Red Mars and are lukewarm about following through, save yourself the time, and pass.
—Darth
“Technically he weighed about forty kilos, but as he walked along it felt more like five. Very strange, even unpleasant. Like walking on buttered glass.”This is my favorite feature of hard science fiction, the little minutiae that make the imaginary scenes not merely believable but also visceral; more vivid to me than riding on a dragon’s back and such. I like Kim Stanley Robinson’s conception of a Mars in the process of terraformation where global warming is actually a good thing!Green Mars is the second book of KSR’s famous Mars trilogy, it follows on from Red Mars 50 years later where terraforming is in full swing. Many of “The First Hundred” characters (original colonists) from Red Mars play a significant part in this second volume, even the dead ones are often mentioned. The main story arc of Green Mars concerns terraformation and the fight for independence from Earth (bound to happen). Interestingly a faction of the Mars population, many of whom were born on Mars and have never been to Earth, are against terraforming and want to preserve Mars in its natural state. This is “The Reds” faction, their objection is (I think) for aesthetic reasons and to preserve what they perceive to be the purity of the pre-colonized planet. Their opposition comes from “The Greens” who want to fully terraform Mars so people can walk freely on the surface as we do on Earth.Aside from the epic story arc the novel is very much a character study, to the detriment of my enjoyment of the book. The central characters are quite well developed, believable and complex individuals; the problem is that what they get up to is often not very interesting at all. There is a fascinating character named Sax Russell whose personal story is very dramatic at times and he ends up much the worse for wear. However, there are many pages where he is basically pottering around, studying plants, lichens, ice etc. This kind of narrative is very dry and my mind started to wander after a few such pages. Then there is Maya Toitovna who spends a lot of the novel inside her head, being very angry, resentful and unreasonable until she eventually works out her psychological problems. There are simply too many pages focused on her angst, which becomes quite tiresome, especially as I don’t personally identify with her problemsGreen Mars has several protagonists (four or five I think) and the common problem with multiple points of view in a novel is very much in place here. Some characters are more interesting than others, and even the interesting ones spend too much time ruminating on issues, personal, scientific or philosophical; dragging the narrative down in the process.Kim Stanley Robinson is an uncommonly good prose stylist for a hard SF writer. He comes up with pithy lines such as “It was not power that corrupted people, but fools who corrupted power.”; and almost lyrical passages like “In the first hour of the day all the ice glowed in vibrant pink and rose tones, reflecting tints of the sky. As direct sunlight struck the glacier’s smashed surfaces.”. However, he seems less interested in pacing and storytelling than to explore the issues that interest him, people, power, politics etc. I think he did a better job balancing the storytelling and the serious issue in Red Mars. Green Mars starts off well, gradually grinds to a halt, occasionally livens up with danger and explosive action, only to grind to a halt again. To be honest by the end of the book I have already lost interest.Having read two volumes of the trilogy so far and really like the first one I am ambivalent about reading the final volume Blue Mars. It will be a shame not to read it having come this far, but at this point I don’t really know if I have the fortitude to plow through another volume so dry the book itself needs to be tarraformed.
—Apatt
As I read further in this series I like it more. I don't like it a ton but I liked this book better than the first in the series: Red Mars. It continues to hold my interest and I want to find out what happens to the characters. I may like this book better because I like the point of view of the characters that are highlighted in this second book rather than those from the first. Kim Stanley Robinson writes the books in a series of sections from one character's point of view. Which in this case is a good thing because without it I may have gotten bored and not continued with the books. Usually when a author does write this way I'm disappointed to leave that point of view but in this case it allows me to be refreshed and continue on. I do think there are some significant holes in the science but I don't pay particular attention to this as a reader. I read to be entertained so as long as there is consistency in the story and no glaring or jarring discrepancies in the way the author builds their universe I accept and move on.
—Julie
