If we are going to terraform Mars, the Mars Trilogy is probably the most realistic guess on how it will go. Kim Stanley Robinson seamlessly weaves hard science fiction, and a human plot. He does not forget what some of his predecessors forget: In every science fiction adventure, there are real people involved and they may do unexpected things. The one criticism is Robinson's politics are extremely obvious. Ultimately, characters fall into two maybe three modes of thinking, and it isn't hard to guess which one Robinson favors. In the real world, there would be about five hundred different modes of thinking, and it would be much less clear who was good and who was bad. ( )

Kim Stanley Robinson is not an easy author to read or to love. Some of his novels can be counted among my favorites (The Years of Rice and Salt), and others (The Gold Coast, Forty Signs of Rain) I simply hated — or couldn’t even get through to the end (Fifty Degrees Below). Even the books I loved required a lot from me: they are thick, dense and epic, layered with so much hard science and social science that they can sometimes read like textbooks rather than novels. But with Robinson’s best books, the effort is worth it. Red Mars is a good example.

Robinson’s epic about the colonization of Mars (the first book in a trilogy on the subject) covers a lot of ground. Sure, it tackles the myriad technical problems involved in colonizing such a hostile planet, including how to build a space elevator for easier transport of settlers and exploitation of Mars’s resources. But from there, Robinson takes on even more weighty themes: the clash between those coming to Mars to try to create an entirely new way of life and those back on Earth who want to retain control; cultural conflicts among the various ethnic and religious groups spreading out to Mars; the discovery of an innovative medical procedure that greatly extends the human lifespan and the implications for an over-populated Earth; all climaxing in a planetary revolution propelled by all of these issues.

This is a ponderous book with a lot of big ideas. It may be a bit overlong — sometimes it seems as if all the characters do is drive around by themselves for great distances over the barren Martian landscape — but those sections may be excused by the action of the rest of the novel. Robinson actually helps us believe that living on Mars is something we can achieve, while showing us that these advances will probably only exacerbate our very human problems. ( )

I very much appreciated the complexity of this narrative. It is neither a simple quest plot (though colonization of Mars could easily fall into that), nor the more subtle character study of the human species in extremes. Robinson instead treats them all; through seven POV characters, and decades, Robinson puts a mirror to human endeavor, avarice, ingenuity, and endurance, all while introducing the reader to a stark landscape, such as we will never see in our lifetimes (given current NASA projects).

My only complaints are with the constant feeling of false starts (which I must admit, may be more my genre expectations that a weakness in the text), and the not-actually-subverted treatment of Asian and Arabic characters as alien, or inscrutable.The focus on Americans and Russians of both genders, and word-choice in other-wise neutral passages makes the assumed audience very noticeable, and the passages concerning Muslims and the Middle East unfortunately date the text, not just that it was published before there was an agreed-upon spelling for "Muslim" in mainstream English, but also their assumed bargaining position in the more political portions of the story.

For fifteen years old though, it's not holding up badly at all. ( )

This is the third Robinson title that I've read and it will probably be the last. I appreciate the grand scale of the book and its insight into the sociology of the colonists. I think, as a textbook, it may be instructive at some time in the future. I should say that I enjoy character-driven science fiction and this is nothing if not that. However, as an entertaining novel it falls short. It drags in many places. There are a lot of holes in the plot and in the underlying assumptions - the speed with which the colony becomes self-sufficient, the ability of one group to move out on their own with very few resources and no reasonable way to create their own - these oversights bothered me. I like that the characters are not black and white and are fleshed out quite well. But even here some of their actions seem to make them into caricatures. Without giving away any plot points I don't think Frank's actions toward John are explained nor do they seem consistent with his personality. Arkady, who we don't know very well, seems to go to extremes. I think Robinson needs the characters to represent various viewpoints and often sacrifices realistic personalities when he does so. The book gave me a lot to think about but I had enough problems with it that I don't plan to read the rest of the trilogy. ( )

Rereading after 15 years this first book in Robinson's magisterial Mars trilogy, I was struck once again by the immense amount of planning and research that must have gone into it. This volume is actually fairly pessimistic, but there are many grace notes that point the way toward Robinson's more usual hopefulness. ( )