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Mars Trilogy #1-2
Red Mars and Green Mars
Two eBooks in One! Red Mars: In his most ambitious project to date, award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson utilizes years of research and cutting-edge science in the first of three novels that will chronicle the colonization of Mars. For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren, desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny. John Boone, Maya Toitovna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers an opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic "alchemists," Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life ... and death. The colonists place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light to the planet's surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces--for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed. Brilliantly imagined, breathtaking in scope and ingenuity, Red Mars is an epic scientific saga, chronicling the next step in human evolution and creating a world in its entirety. Red Mars shows us a future, with both glory and tarnish, that awes with complexity and inspires with vision.
Green Mars: Nearly a generation has passed since the first pioneers landed, but the transformation of Mars to an Earth-like planet has just begun. In Green Mars the colonists will attempt to turn the red planet into a lush garden for humanity. They will bombard the atmosphere with ice meteorites to add moisture. They will seed the red deserts with genetically engineered plants. Then they will tap the boiling planetary core to warm the planet's frozen surface. But their heroic efforts don't go unchallenged. For their plan to transform Mars is opposed by those determined to preserve the hostile and barren beauty of Mars. Led by rebels like Peter Clayborne, these young people are the first generation of children born on Mars, and they will be joined in their violent struggle by original settlers Maya Toitovna, Simon Frasier, and Sax Russell. Against this cosmic backdrop, passions, rivalries, and friendships will explode in a story as big as the planet itself. A novel of breathtaking scope and imagination, of lyric intensity and social resonance, Kim Stanley Robinson employs years of research and state-of-the-art science to create a prophetic vision of where humanity is headed--and of what life will be like on another world. Nebula Award- Winner, Hugo Award Winner
Green Mars: Nearly a generation has passed since the first pioneers landed, but the transformation of Mars to an Earth-like planet has just begun. In Green Mars the colonists will attempt to turn the red planet into a lush garden for humanity. They will bombard the atmosphere with ice meteorites to add moisture. They will seed the red deserts with genetically engineered plants. Then they will tap the boiling planetary core to warm the planet's frozen surface. But their heroic efforts don't go unchallenged. For their plan to transform Mars is opposed by those determined to preserve the hostile and barren beauty of Mars. Led by rebels like Peter Clayborne, these young people are the first generation of children born on Mars, and they will be joined in their violent struggle by original settlers Maya Toitovna, Simon Frasier, and Sax Russell. Against this cosmic backdrop, passions, rivalries, and friendships will explode in a story as big as the planet itself. A novel of breathtaking scope and imagination, of lyric intensity and social resonance, Kim Stanley Robinson employs years of research and state-of-the-art science to create a prophetic vision of where humanity is headed--and of what life will be like on another world. Nebula Award- Winner, Hugo Award Winner
ebook
First published May 27, 2003
40 people are currently reading
751 people want to read
About the author
Kim Stanley Robinson
247 books7,475 followersKim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer. He has published 22 novels and numerous short stories and is best known for his Mars trilogy. His work has been translated into 24 languages. Many of his novels and stories have ecological, cultural, and political themes and feature scientists as heroes. Robinson has won numerous awards, including the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the World Fantasy Award. The Atlantic has called Robinson's work "the gold standard of realistic, and highly literary, science-fiction writing." According to an article in The New Yorker, Robinson is "generally acknowledged as one of the greatest living science-fiction writers."
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
September 8, 2014
This is not your teenager's science fiction. Robinson can write, and he has a grownups grasp of politics. You get a healthy dose of that in this book. Its pretty heavy on exposition, and I could have used a little more action. Especially because Robinson handles those parts well. Not to worry, unlike quite a bit in this genre, he never gets preachy or distracts from the story. The climax is worth the wait. I'll likely give the sequel a try. Recommended for thinking science fiction fans.
June 28, 2012
Incredible. I have been to Mars.
December 7, 2018
We need to separate issue in these two books in the trilogy. I have not yet read the third, only the first two.
As a avid reader of SciFi, I like it when authors know their subgenre and execute well. This trilogy is supposed to be HARD SciFi in which everything should be at least plausible and if one must have some imaginary tech... at least make it physically possible... or if one just must have something magical, restrict it to just one thing. But... but... please don't just ignore basic physics.
In these books, the first terraforming intervention is to use small windmills to capture wind energy, convert it to electricity to power heat coils to warm up the atmosphere. Please! Someone does not understand basic physics and climate science. First, where does wind come from? From heat differences! Where does the wind energy go? Into heat! Reading the books one would think that wind just magically appears and so does it's energy... and that energy just disappears as well. Seriously, windmills would simply have zero net effect, period!
But wait! There's more! Then Robinson has two of our heros, both scientists, attaching wind mills to the outside of a dirigible, a lighter than air craft, to power it's electrically driven props! no... No! NO! First... if one is flying free in a lighter than air craft with no power, even in a strong wind, the aircraft is in the wind... and feels no wind! Then... if one is trying to power an aircraft using its passage through the air, one has built a perpetual motion machine!
So, Robinson has no understanding of either the first nor the second law of thermodynamics.
Then there is the matter of the amount of fuel that can be stored on a wheeled vehicle and how much energy one needs to make a trip across huge distances on loose sand and rock. His vehicles, pressurized rovers as big as a large RV can travel for thousands of kilometers on only a few hundred kilograms of hydrogen peroxide? What is the reactant? It can't be Mars atmosphere which is CO2.
Robinson's science is simply so bad that the moment I read them, I was pulled instantly out of the story.
As a avid reader of SciFi, I like it when authors know their subgenre and execute well. This trilogy is supposed to be HARD SciFi in which everything should be at least plausible and if one must have some imaginary tech... at least make it physically possible... or if one just must have something magical, restrict it to just one thing. But... but... please don't just ignore basic physics.
In these books, the first terraforming intervention is to use small windmills to capture wind energy, convert it to electricity to power heat coils to warm up the atmosphere. Please! Someone does not understand basic physics and climate science. First, where does wind come from? From heat differences! Where does the wind energy go? Into heat! Reading the books one would think that wind just magically appears and so does it's energy... and that energy just disappears as well. Seriously, windmills would simply have zero net effect, period!
But wait! There's more! Then Robinson has two of our heros, both scientists, attaching wind mills to the outside of a dirigible, a lighter than air craft, to power it's electrically driven props! no... No! NO! First... if one is flying free in a lighter than air craft with no power, even in a strong wind, the aircraft is in the wind... and feels no wind! Then... if one is trying to power an aircraft using its passage through the air, one has built a perpetual motion machine!
So, Robinson has no understanding of either the first nor the second law of thermodynamics.
Then there is the matter of the amount of fuel that can be stored on a wheeled vehicle and how much energy one needs to make a trip across huge distances on loose sand and rock. His vehicles, pressurized rovers as big as a large RV can travel for thousands of kilometers on only a few hundred kilograms of hydrogen peroxide? What is the reactant? It can't be Mars atmosphere which is CO2.
Robinson's science is simply so bad that the moment I read them, I was pulled instantly out of the story.
May 14, 2016
I love the first two books (and the third) in this series. The books are well written and the characters show strong development throughout the years that the story takes place. I think this is the most realistic space travel series that I have read so far. It nearly makes me wish that we had a Mars program already in effect! The way the author so immaculately represents the different personalities of different humans and the difficulties, socially, mentally, and environmentally, that a group of 100 individuals would face while colonizing and terraforming a new world was simply amazing. I was so drawn in I couldn't put the books down until I had finished them all. This series has definitely made it to my list of all times favorites and rereads, right up beside Harry Potter, The Stormlight Archive, and Flowers for Algernon.
March 20, 2011
DO NOT BUY. I purchased this from the Sony Reader Ebook store.
The text is OCR-scanned and NOT PROOFREAD at all. Misspellings and randomly-accented characters are frequent and a few times the text drops into pure unintelligibility.
I don't understand where Random House/Spectra gets off charging money for this shoddy product.
The text is OCR-scanned and NOT PROOFREAD at all. Misspellings and randomly-accented characters are frequent and a few times the text drops into pure unintelligibility.
I don't understand where Random House/Spectra gets off charging money for this shoddy product.
February 20, 2023
Basically the same as my review for Red Mars, but feels much more resolved to me at the end, and the characters develop more.
February 12, 2019
Excellent books on Mars colonization. KSR takes into account science, society, politics, etc. very believable how a new civilization would develop in a harsh environment. I gave 4 stars cause it’s a darned good read. Terraforming Mars in 1,000 years is ridiculously impossible. That’s why I didn’t give it 5 stars.
September 25, 2019
RE-READ
I'm getting increasingly frustrated speed at which Mars is not only terraformed as well as the lack of real character developement. I feel that it was a mistake to carry forward any of the first 100 (could have been a new characters without issue) and the whole book just feels kinda rushed.
I'm getting increasingly frustrated speed at which Mars is not only terraformed as well as the lack of real character developement. I feel that it was a mistake to carry forward any of the first 100 (could have been a new characters without issue) and the whole book just feels kinda rushed.
November 5, 2019
First of this amazing trilogy. The scene is set for an amazing saga across time and space. While the science visions are huge, the stories are always human, and the interaction between the two. The author has this amazing way of setting things up and towards the end of the novel, the final scenes are often spectacularly breathtaking - this book is no different. Astonishing worldscape. Loved it!
June 1, 2020
realigned my thinking on what the priorities/objects of society should be.
February 2, 2021
Red - fascinating
Green - too much
Green - too much
November 4, 2021
One on the best Sci fi trilogies I've ever read
April 15, 2022
Sometimes it is hard for me to read this kind of futuristic world building that does not have any kind of queer people.
April 23, 2012
Green Mars began slower than Red Mars, but the second half was fascinating. Given our history of colonies on Earth, there is every reason to believe that an off-world colony would want to throw off Earth's control and head in a different direction.
Read
February 9, 2010January 2005
Want to read
February 16, 2010Kindle,free
May 12, 2011
the best of his Mars books
June 27, 2012
Not a huge science fiction guy, so not all too impressed.
Read
March 4, 2014Interesting that this has a bunch of negative reviews... So far I am enjoying it even more than the first. The terraforming and plant growth aspect appeal to me quite a bit.
June 2, 2013
Took awhile to get into but worth it as the story developes, looking forward to green mars
June 11, 2015
Typical Kim Stanley Robinson book, starts off with universe building then gets all character driven, it was ok.
June 17, 2015
interesting, imaginative and kind of ... realistic. a good argument that the biggest obstacle in the colonization of the red planet is not technology but human nature.
November 23, 2015
Не ми допадна особено. Трудно я прочетох - задълбава много в човешките взаимоотношения и от фантастика се превръща в нещо друго.
Read
October 13, 2016The whole trilogy is wonderful. It's scientifically dense and yet the characters and drama are compelling.
March 10, 2020
The descriptions of the Martian landscape blew me away. I wasn't that impressed with the characters really but just the overall images created were so good I simply could not put it down
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews