Weißer Mars.

by Brian W. Aldiss, Roger Penrose

White Mars is, as its title implies, Brian Aldiss's considered reply to the novels Red Mars , Green Mars , and Blue Mars , in which Kim Stanley Robinson portrayed the terraforming of our neighbor planet and the creation of a utopian society there. Aldiss disapproves of the whole idea of meddling with another world in the first place, and, more genially, of the melodrama surrounding the creation of Robinson's utopia. Where Robinson's Martians get their chance after near-genocidal warfare on Mars and environmental disaster on Earth, Aldiss's get theirs as the result of a corruption- and scandal-fuelled recession in which supplies for the Martian colony are cut. This is, unusually for the shrewd and sometimes cynical Aldiss, a novel with a hero--Tom Jeffreys, the Thomas Jefferson of this Martian His manner was less severe than well controlled. He showed great determination for the cause in which he believed, yet softened it with humour, which sprang from an innate modesty. He was not above self-mockery. In his speech he adopted the manner of a plain man, yet what he said was often unexpected. This is a very English, very urbane book, in which there is an awful lot of talk--about utopia, about consciousness, about subatomic particles; Aldiss collaborated on parts of the book with mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose. It is a wise book and a knowledgeable one. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Utopia, Near Future, Space, Planets, Criticism

459 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Pseudonyms: Jael Cracken, Peter Pica, John Runciman, C.C. Shackleton, Arch Mendicant, & "Doc" Peristyle.

Brian Wilson Aldiss was one of the most important voices in science fiction writing today. He wrote his first novel while working as a bookseller in Oxford. Shortly afterwards he wrote his first work of science fiction and soon gained international recognition. Adored for his innovative literary techniques, evocative plots and irresistible characters, he became a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 1999.
Brian Aldiss died on August 19, 2017, just after celebrating his 92nd birthday with his family and closest friends.

Brian W. Aldiss Group on Good Reads

Reviews

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my dearest ambitions is to live long enough to witness human landings on Mars and the first permanent settlement there. But, having lived through the false promise of the 1960s space race, I am not holding my breath. In the meantime I can at least imagine what the colonisation of Mars would be like by reading novels. Brian Aldiss and Roger Penrose's "White Mars" is in the tradition of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, but imagines the founding of a utopian society on Mars as an example to Earth. The novel is well written, highly readable and a catalyst to the imagination. My only criticism is that towards the end it runs out of steam, as if the novelists had lost interest in their project once they had discussed all its philosophical ramifications. Key plots are tidied up in a series of short dismissive paragraphs which, whilst informing the reader what happened, are hugely unsatisfactory. This part of the story could have formed the basis of a much longer or even of a second novel. I must await my reading of Brian Aldiss' "Finches of Mars" to see if his new novel makes up for these shortcomings.

[Joe Santoro · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I have really enjoyed some of Aldiss' earlier work, I can't really say this is a good story. It has some really interesting concepts, certainly, but the focus is far more on Aldiss getting out his views on what a utopian society is, or should be, that it gets in the way of the story. There's also quite a bit of semi-real science that seems to be a focus, but then leads nowhere.

If the 1/3 or so of the book devoted to science and political lectures (which are literal lectures in a lecture hall delivered by the characters), and instead spent more time talking about how the world got to where it was in his story, this could easily have been a 4 or 5 star story.

That said, there are a few interesting and unique bits that I wish were elaborated on, the main one (which I won't actually post here as it's sorta a spoiler, if an early one) especially. Unfotunately, like the science, it essentially led nowhere.

As is, it's a self-indulgent lecture masquarading as a 60s style sci fi novel that I can't help but think could have been so much more.

[D.L. Morrese · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a good book. It might appear that this would be a great book: the great SF writer Aldiss pairs up with the great mathematician Penrose to write an SF book. However, this is not a SF book. But, it is also not a utopian novel. Essentially, it is a lot of trees wasted for bad writing.

Why am I so harsh?

There are a few good ideas in this book. Another reason to -potentially- like it is because it is written by Aldiss and Penrose. Two great minds that reasonably have something interesting to say. This voice is strongly proposed in another review I found on amazon. (vhttps://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...)

So, this book is a utopian vision of the universe primarily inspired by Penrose's ideas about consciousness. It turns out, this idea (based on orchestrated quantum reductions) is hopelessly inadequate to describe the biology of the brain. As a neuroscientist, I am aware of this. But, there is no reason to discard the idea entirely as we simply do not have the data.

What disturbs me hugely is that the premises of their utopian society lies in both something that as to do with sex, and with consciousness. Indeed, it is not even clear to me what precisely they meant by "sex". I just observe these two old chaps seem to chuckle when talking about sex. It appears that all we do has some relation to having sex. Also, how they appear to deal with rape (namely, not at all; a very paternalistic approach like "get over it") confuses me. As such, reading this book gives me a bad feeling and a certain revulsion against their utopian ideas. (I have a background deeply rooted in academia and I am aware that some mid-to-old professors do have these sentiments that appear out-of-touch with modern life).

Anyway, in the end I did not learn anything new. Penrose is still considering quantum reduction as the underlying events of consciousness and some weird cosmic mumble-jumble.

I can recommend not to read this book.

[Denise Johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finally gave up. I realized I didn’t care and I have a pile of books I really do want to read. I gave up around page150!

[Antonio Iannarone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part high-Utopian visions, part high-energy particle physics. I was deeply affected by the speculative society founded on Aldiss' Mars.

Richard Rorty would approve this Martian society where the earnest imaginations and experiments of Utopianists are encouraged over the production of theoretical knowledge. Aldiss and Penrose are a wondrous union.

[Adam Meek · Rating 3 out of 5]

an interesting response to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. a good alternate title would be 'semi automated poverty space communism: the book'

[Dee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Science Fiction is a literature just built for surveying. To really get into it, one must survey the field. If you read Aldiss, you owe it to yourself to do some literary surveying. Surveillance? Anyhow, you'll owe it to yourself to read some Plato, Sir Thomas More, Sir Roger Penrose, and Kim Stanley Robinson. And maybe Robert Zubrin. This is because Brian Aldiss's writing is highly literary-not in the sense of being affectedly literary, but in that the man was broadly educated, well read, and wrote more than just science fiction novels. Roger Penrose gets credit having written this with Aldiss.

Aldiss's sf writing is itself a survey of the idea space related to environment, ecology, and society. This particular novel is less about ecology than environment and society, and its place as a piece of sf related to the history of Utopias and real philosophy makes it a worthy read. Hopefully more worthy than this rushed and disjointed review.

It may be that this was one of the least pleasurable reads I've experienced from Aldiss. Nonetheless it was worthwhile-it is jam packed with interesting intellectual fodder. I'll be chewing the mental cud for a while as my brain digests all the book contains. It was mildly pleasant as far as storytelling goes. My thought is that a good Utopian novel suffers a greater challenge than any Dystopian novel when it comes to engaging the reader, because in it one tries to construct a possible world out of propositions which aim to correct social problems in a series of interrelated thought experiments while at the same time relate a passable narrative. Anyhow, within the novel there are numerous references to Utopian works such as Plato's Republic, More's Utopia, even Mao's Little Red Book, for example. The discussions of the characters bring to mind Plato's dialogues-as in Dialogues and in Republic.

Plato, however, didn't write modern novels. Aldiss does a pretty good job of joining action and character growth with a sort of exposition and intellectual exploration similar to what you find in various dialogs Plato employed. Embedded in the discussions the characters have are all the clues you need to second source the ideas you are reading about, or at least enough to get you started, if you're really that interested. I suspect you will need to be interested if you are ti finish this book because, while the story is *_nice_*, it's not highly compelling; it's INTERESTING. So if you can interest yourself in it, you'll finish this book and maybe want to read the books referred to in it.

It is significant that Roger Penrose is given credit: "By Brian W. Aldiss with Roger Penrose" because Penrose is a cosmologist, theoretical physicist, and a philosopher, a genius of the first order. It is appropriate that a physical philosopher have a hand in this work. You can identify his contribution if you have kept up on science of the more philosophical/theoretical/mathematical sorts. If you're unfamiliar with Sir Roger Penrose, let's just say he is a Stephen Hawking class thinker, one of Hawkings contemporaries, a true peer. If you don't know who Stephen Hawking is, I give up.

The tradition of physical philosophers in Utopian literature is ancient and this book shows it's still relevant. You'll read in the dialog references to ideas about mind and quantum mechanics-that's from Penrose. You should read about his ideas in his words either before or after reading White Mars. He has published several popular books. I suggest his "Shadows of the Mind," which deals most directly with the ideas about consciousness presented in "White Mars."

It's interesting that in addition to Aldiss's "White Mars" there are three novels unrelated to it by Kim Stanley Robinson titled "Red Mars," "Green Mars," and "Blue Mars." They describe the building of something more and less than a Utopia. I'd called them Topian Novels, novels about building a place and its various societies-or should we speak of society as a variegated but singular global thing so say a place and its society. Anyhow, the white of "White Mars" is related to the international cooperation regarding Antarctica, which is white. The colors of Robinson's Mars are related to Mars' actual color is its climate changes as a biosphere and ocean form on its surface.

I suppose if you're going to write about Mars you're going to write about ecology and environment one way or the other. It's been that way since Lowell wrote nonfiction about Mars. Most of what I've read by Brian Aldiss is about environment and ecology. Most US American readers familiar with him will have read "Starship," titled "Nonstop" in Great Britain, and if you are familiar with Kim Stanley Robinson you may have read "Aurora." There are some strong parallels between the two books and between the two authors. It's worth reading both. There's no calling Robinson derivative, tho' one might infer I'm saying there is. It's just that SF is a literature of ideas and the two authors treat similar syndromes of ideas.

[Jason Bleckly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not good. Possibly 1.5 stars due to it's ideas I figured Aldiss teamed up with a Nobel winning scientist I’d get a great hard SF story on colonizing Mars. That’s what the back cover blurb seemed to indicate. What I got was 3 largely unreleated narrations, I won’t use the would story as there isn’t really one.

First is a utopian manifesto. That’s the best way to describe it. It’s literally the characters sitting around drinking ‘coffdrink’ while debating the pros and cons of society to lay design the rules for their utopia. No-one actually does anything about building and running a colony on Mars. All the discussions come with a bevy of real world citations to demonstrate the points being made. But this is fiction set in 2060, yet nothing is citied from the 21C. Does this there will be nothing of note said in social philosophy in the next 40 years? The story would have been more believable if in the debates the characters had made referenced some fiction citiations for the arguments beyond the date the book was written.

Second is the scientists. They live in a separate complex doing pure research into particle physics Every now and then one of them delivers a lecture on physics. And the reader gets the full lecture. While the ideas are interesting, some of it has been outpaced by real world advances in physics since the book was written. But there is no story in it.

Third is the Maritan life that is discovered. This is probably the most interesting and imaginative part of the book. I can’t really say more about this without spoiling what little story the book has.

The 3 threads do eventually join together tenuously at the end. The book is full of ideas, but I think they could have been better expressed in an academic paper, which is what the book frequently reads like. What the book is clearly trying to achieve and get people thinking about is estimable, but this book is simply not well executed.

I read this all the way to the end so you don’t have to.

[Dirck Lint · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am, once again, lamenting the lack of half-stars in the ranking system here, because I think from a purely subjective viewpoint, I'm rating this book too high. It is not a bad book, but it's a strangely archaic form; a (admittedly, overtly) Utopian novel, which is not at all shy of being powerfully didactic. Even the choice of language, the way the characters express themselves, seems like something from about a century ago. The only modern elements to it are some specific nods in the direction of physics, and even there we find some interesting gaps (e.g: no serious nods in the direction of the difficulty of returning to Earth's gravity after several years on Mars, or indeed of the problems a child born on Mars would have with immigration inward).

The other issue this book presents is that it inclines very heavily toward "tell" rather than "show." This is, to a degree, down to the presentation of it as a set of personal 'testaments' but even so it's a little hard to square with the current preference for "show." This is another glance at earlier forms of fiction, and I find myself wondering if I shouldn't now re-read H.G. Wells's The World Set Free, the title of which is echoed here, to see if this is a very conscious emulation (I've pretty much forgotten the Wells, so long ago did I read it; if there is a mirroring, I'm not currently equipped to spot it).

Being a closeted Utopian myself, I more or less enjoyed the book, but I would hesitate to recommend it to others.

[William Crosby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Make sure you note the subtitle: "Or, the mind set free: a 21st-century utopia." And, in the spirit of a discussion about a utopia on Mars, there are many ideas discussed: critiques of Earth's cultures and nation-states, pollution, ecology, corporations, physics, religion, legislation, social customs.

There is a minimal plot so, if you are really wanting a story you may be disappointed. If you just take the plot (an Earth consortium of multi-nationals which is the group which sent the people to Mars has collapsed because of rampant corruption so the people on Mars are stranded and strive to build a better society; plus there is a very strange life form on Mars to add a bit of tension) as an excuse to talk about the ideas. The characters are not well developed and are primarily used to present different views.

If you have the mindset that you are looking forward to a Platonic-Socratic discussion (and Plato and other philosophers are referred to multiple times) rather than a story, you will be happier with the book.

[colin smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

I must be well out of kilter with the rest of White Mars readers, because I saw it as how easy it is for a Utopia based on political theories to go wrong.

The idea of creating artificial deprivations so that compliance can be "rewarded" by, an example from the book, being allowed to have an artwork or photograph - THAT is Utopia ?

Other examples are that capital punishment ids reintroduced (but only for people the L:eader doesn't like, and his mistress/stepdaughter is rewarded for nothing much at all , apart from rendering services for the Leader.

I thought it was a satire, so checked online and the words Utopian Society came up time and again. If the society described in White Mars is meant to be a Utopia, then Tom Jeffers, the main protagonist, can keep it.

A political polemic thinly disguised as a sci fi novel, which rather woodenly plods through dubious territory while trying to justify some very dubious behaviour on the part of the Leader.

Well, that's what I made of it anyway.

[Andreas Tyrberg · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is a book that is full of loose threads. There are lot's of interesting ideas that are mentioned, but after few pages left without my follow up. There are possible plots that the authors seems to build up for and then leave - not leave the reader hanging in a good sense, just leave like the authors forgot they started the team.

I would like the book to be three or four short novels where the authors build into different philosophical questions they have in the book. That way it would be possible to focus on the good stuff and to leave the 3/4 of the book that just feel like fill out pages.

One star because of that it seems like the writers know how to write, but still do all the beginner mistakes of focusing on everything at once which make a rather bad book.

[Cristina Uguccioni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interessant und definitiv "anders" als sonst.
Es ist de facto kein reguläres Science Fiction Buch, sondern ein Versuch eine Utopia in Form einer Sci-Fi Roman zu schaffen. Aldiss zitiert hierbei Plato, Thomas More und anderen, die viel mit philosophieren beschäftigt waren. Der wissenschaftlichen Einfluss von Penrose ist dabei, dies erhält in meinem Augen 5 Sternen. Aber es ergibt sich im Laufe des Buches so wenig Plot, so wenig Action!
Die wenig vorhandene Action, fragmentiert in wiederkehrenden langweiligen dargestellte "Erinnerungen" oder Gedanken ist so träge, dass ich - für meine auf dem Sci-Fi Genres Erwartungen - das Lesen fast mehrfach abgebrochen hätte. Leider musste ich mich überwinden, die Lektüre zu beenden. Daher nur 3 Sternen insgesamt.

[Gary R Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a journey!

A quiet plausible depiction of the Colonization of Mars. I did not like that the domes seemed to be skinned from the outside of their frames. A sub Martial colony established in lava tubes to protect from radiation and retain air would have seemed more realistic. Domes on Mars or the moon are.just not viable.

[Chris Cormier · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dull and preachy. Not much story or charcuterie development here. More like a idealized set of values for humanity written out under the guise of a sci-fi book.

[Scythe Rowan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interessantes Buch, mir leider nur zu langweilig und stellenweise zu sachbuchmäßig.

[Silvia Kuna Ballero · Rating 2 out of 5]

Questo libro nasce in risposta all'elaborata trilogia della terraformazione di Kim Stanley Robinson, con l'idea che Marte vada preservato e quindi protetto da interventi invasivi di ingegneria ambientale. Le idee discusse sono anche buone, ma è il quadro narrativo a essere inadeguato. Quasi tutti i personaggi sono poco credibili e così mal caratterizzati da essere facilmente confondibili l'uno con l'altro. Per fare un esempio, non si capisce per quale motivo il personaggio delle prime pagine venga menzionato nelle ultime, in apparenza dopo aver compiuto un arco caratteriale radicale di cui però non sappiamo nulla. Le elucubrazioni fisiche (presumibilmente opera di Penrose) non portano da nessuna parte, e la parte conclusiva è posticcia e sbrigativa. In sostanza quest'opera è una successione di trattati sociologici che gli autori tentano di tenere insieme con un po' di eventi e drama narrativo, senza riuscirci.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

...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 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.

Full Random Comments review

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Something about this book didn't click for me. Not until the end. The epiphany, if it was indeed authentic, casts the rest of the book into an entirely different light. With this reveal, White Mars is elevated to the subtle and sublime. Without, a near miss, a tepid and forgettable attempt in the future Utopia novel genre.

I'll avoid specifics but the following might still be a bit of a spoiler for some.

Most, if not all, reviews and synopses I've read point out the obvious theme of Utopian experimentation. Never mentioned is the likely role that Olympus played in the path taken by the colonists, and the possible role in all of human history. One clue, perhaps the boldest, the simulation of the colony.

I think it a mistake to take the ending, humanity and the children of Olympus exploring space, at face value. Less of an allying towards mutual benefit, more the culmination of millennia of subtle conditioning, increasing in intensity and pace during the main narrative of the book, with the final payoff of Olympus' agenda: Humanity as a symbiotic-cum-slave race.

[Sooz · Rating 2 out of 5]

there was stuff i really liked .... ideas about evolution and the roles of competition and cooperation and how the environment will inform which approach is taken. liked the idea of a stranded group of people creating their own standards for society. liked the parallel of the martian life -a symbiotic lifeform- arisen from a cooperative method with that of this group of people -coming from a very competitive-based world- trying to do something the same.

the ending sucked. no other word for it. had there been a good ending i would have given an additional star.

[Hannes Holmquist · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating book about the possibilities of our future mixing the subjects of science, politics and philosophy
unfortunately although the layout makes it easy to follow all the science lingo the actual plot around the characters in this book is rather weak since they mostly just fill in with the function of being observers rather than being people the story evolves around

[Aurélien Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll...it was thinner than either of the KRS installments, and it seemed like there were longish segments about freaky consciousness expanding physics problems. Liked the idea of non-nationhood among the scientists. Could it work? Good question.

[Paul Johnson]

This book is quite possibly the most poorly written book I have ever read. It reads as if it was written by a 13-year-old with Aspergers. Absolutely terrible.

[Luigi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sounded too much like my old main trying to explain things. Gave up on it, but it is now part of my Aldiss collection:)

[Dan Fisher · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe it would deserve a two or a three if the authors hadn't shoehorned a sick piece of rape apology into the middle of it.

[Lee Belbin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mars community development based on Antarctic Treaty an ok premise but authors determined to show off their education looses (a poor) plot. Long-winded

[Anthony Faber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, but implausible Mars colony novel. Still better than most.

[Daniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

i get it but its pretty boring