ZB13

(Alistair) And next in my book-reading, this science fiction work from Greg Bear, set in the same universe downtime from Queen of Angels and Slant, or / (as the cover of my copy would have it).

An enjoyable story, all told; Moving Mars is the first-person autobiography of Casseia Majumdar, the scion of one of Mars's oldest extended families-slash-business syndicates, who gets caught up in Martian politics - both internal and interplanetary - through the frontier society of Mars's first attempts to form a state, up through their final unification and breakaway from an Earth increasingly determined to control both the planet, and the uses of the new theory of physics (rather like some of the ideas explored in his Anvil of Stars, I note) discovered there... and when I say breakaway, I mean breakaway.

Starts slowly, for the first, oh, two-thirds of the book, and I still haven't decided whether that's a bad thing or a good thing. I'm inclined to think it's mostly the latter, since it accelerates to a jolly good climax at the end, and that itself wouldn't have been nearly as good had we not spent the first two-thirds getting to know the characters well, but it does make it slow to start, which may be offputting.

Good politics, with a nice balance between idealism and realism. Lots of plausible future world-depth and developments. Interesting characters. I don't think it's one of Mr. Bear's best books - compared to Eon or Queen of Angels, for example - but it's certainly worth reading, I think.
( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/ce... ) ( )

New colony gets a transportation industry leg-up on the old bastards on Earth.

The inhabitants of Mars have to deal with trying to build a society how they want, and not in the old way that has been done before. This requires a lot of politicking and brainstorming.

They also have to deal with the usual greedy types that covet their resources and technology back where they came from.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2007/06/moving-mars-greg-bear.html ( )

New colony gets a transportation industry leg-up on the old bastards on Earth.

The inhabitants of Mars have to deal with trying to build a society how they want, and not in the old way that has been done before. This requires a lot of politicking and brainstorming.

They also have to deal with the usual greedy types that covet their resources and technology back where they came from.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2007/06/moving-mars-greg-bear.html ( )

New colony gets a transportation industry leg-up on the old bastards on Earth.

The inhabitants of Mars have to deal with trying to build a society how they want, and not in the old way that has been done before. This requires a lot of politicking and brainstorming.

They also have to deal with the usual greedy types that covet their resources and technology back where they came from.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2007/06/moving-mars-greg-bear.html ( )