White Mars

This is more a philosophical treatise than a novel, and viewed from that perspective, it's not bad. It's utopian fiction, along the lines of H.G. Wells, and the prose style is reminiscent of early twentieth century utopian writings. The plot, such as it is, exists only to provide a platform for a discussion of political theories, metaphysics, thoughts on eduction, ethics, and other such things. It is presented as a sequence of first person narrated journal entries by people stranded on Mars after an economic collapse on Earth, but the characters sound like Victorians with Bohemian inclinations. They don't seem modern, and certainly not futuristic. The book does bring up interesting points and pokes at pet peeves, some of which I share.

More than SF this is also a good reflection upon our modern societies, world those defects are extrapolated to serve as a basis to this scientist utopia.

Capitalism, politics, religion, education, sex... Beyond science and the idea of terraforming the solar system, 'White Mars' has indeed a good philosophical touch.

A good read.

...Adiss and Penrose have delivered a fairly impenetrable counter argument to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. Maybe he is right in saying that Robinson dismissed the 'Red' (or I guess Adiss would call in White) argument for humanity's treatment of the planet but he doesn't present it in a particularly engaging way. Without the connection to Robinson's work, I don't think I would have thought it worth my time to be honest. While the novel is certainly intellectually challenging I found the prose rather stiff and incapable of conveying the passion Jefferies must have felt about creating a new society. The characterization is pretty uniform, each of the character delivering their part of the tale in a detached and almost academic show more style. White Mars is clearly the work of a great intellect (or maybe I should say two great intellects), but, without having read any of his other books, I do get the impression we are not seeing Aldiss at the top of his abilities here.

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I would not ordinarily read an Aldiss SF novel, but the presence of mathematician/physicist Penrose changes things. He is notorious for advancing the notion that a hoped-for theory of quantum gravity will someday provide an explanation for consciousness. In this respect, his influence on the story is evident.