Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is the discussion topic for our chosen August, 2013, Contemporary SF/F Novel discussion:


Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

(Winner of the 1993 Nebula Award for best novel.)

I read it in 90s and enjoyed it. I particularly remember how it felt almost in a sense like future history, like all this was actually happening and being documented. The science felt realistic enough that it did not even feel particularly speculative.

It didnt excite me sufficiently to rush on to read the sequels but I did find it an enjoyable, interesting and satisfying read. I have 2312 in my bookshelves at the moment and will be reading it soon. I have already dipped into it and I am looking forward to the experience. It may even inspire me to go on at read the Green and Blue Marses.

This has been for a while on my TBR bookshelf. Up to now, I read two novels - The Years of Rice and Salt which I liked but found a little bit difficult and 2312 which I found awesome (c.f. my review ) - but no other narrative that I can remember.

I've only read the first part "Festival".

But his style is clearly recognizable: Some introducing article per chapter - sometimes experimental, sometimes dry hard science.

I'd have expected a first chapter telling about the first landing on Mars. Not so. It blends into the future and tells us about the political situation a generation later.
I see two motives there that will probably guide the whole book:

1. The triangle romance between the charismatic leader John Boone, his rival Frank Chalmer and the beauty Maya.

2. And a Machiavellian political murder (view spoiler)[of John Boone (hide spoiler)].


I can imagine that this entry is hard for some people, having no context and liking a smoother glide into a story. For me it is a perfect start: having to think through a plot without the detective story part.
Contrast this with Leviathan Wakes where I needed 80 pages to get into the book's flow!

US vs Russia - in 1993, Robinson should have seen the Chinese coming, for sure (they play an important role in his new novel 2312).

Part 2, The Voyage:
The 100 settlers' voyage to Mars start in 2026 in the large spaceship Ares told from Maya's POV.

I expected more technical descriptions form Robinson, but he didn't do a Moby-Dick; or, The Whale in space - (view spoiler)[there was just just one sunstorm and a maybe-stowaway (hide spoiler)].

He emphasized more the development of social interactions: forming and breaking groups, questions of leadership and a intellectual argumentation/rebellion by Arkady against tradition, authority of Earth.

Questions of terraforming arise.

I thought Red Mars had some great hard-SF in it, from the spaceship outbound to establishing the initial colony (construction with locally obtained materials, finding water, hydroponics, radiation protection) to the terraforming project (ideas on oxygen production, soil creation, obtaining water, warming things up.) Some great ideas on economic ways to exploit Martian resources (ultimately a space elevator.) Plus all the fun of ideas on economic uses starting a hippie commune on Phobos. :)

On the other hand, [I really] didn't care for any of the characters. :( I think Robinson overdid the flaws (or perhaps only the truly psychotic would imagine colonizing another planet.:) Because I didn't like the characters, I didn't really care for the soap opera or power games they played with each other.

Which meant half the book excited me, and half board me, in alternating sections.

G33z3r wrote: "On the other hand, early didn't care for any of the characters. :( I think Robinson overdid the flaws (or perhaps only the truly psychotic would imagine colonizing another planet.:) Because I didn't like the characters, I didn't really care for the soap opera or power games they played with each other."

Robinson surely described the characters more as archetypes (I'm just in Part 3 with Nadja as worker protagonist, though) which isn't annoying at all for me once I grabbed that concept. I really like the intrigues and social interactions (even the love stories, though I'm not at all into romance): I see them as a balancing factor to the hard science parts. And they are absolutely typical Robinson.

Andreas wrote: "I'd have expected a first chapter telling about the first landing on Mars. Not so. It blends into the future and tells us about the political situation a generation later...."

A lot of stories, written as well as movies/TV, have started doing this the last decade: Teasing an important, dramatic, action scene at the start, then jumping back and telling what happened before, incorporating the opening, and then moving on to resolution.

It seems to be the modern version of the "hook" writers are always supposed to lead with to catch the reader's attention.

The disadvantages it gives away a lot of what's going to happen, which makes the part going back to tell the lead up less interesting.

G33z3r wrote: "The disadvantages it gives away a lot of what's going to happen, which makes the part going back to tell the lead up less interesting."
Yes, it spoilers that a couple of the main protagonists (Frank, John, Maya) will survive and a couple of intrigues.
But I like this way of introduction.

I've just finished part 3 "The Crucible".
Once again, Robinson surprises me by the chosen protagonist POV Nadia Chernyshevski, a Russion engineer with a Rubens figure. But it is well-chosen, because this part is mainly about building the settlement. Nadia's characterization is excellent - first, I didn't get involved but once her character changed (view spoiler)[when Anne showed her Mars' beautiful nature and later on her romance with Arkady (hide spoiler)] and she took positions, I really liked her.
Robinson made a good job to slowly lead away from Maya's problems with her lovers to Nadia's trips around Mars.
The second character I really became fond of was Arkady - first he was just a pubertal, annoying anarchist for me. But with his grand architectural ideas and his involvement in Mars, he is another example for an interesting character development.

Once the settlement was built, Robinson did an excellent job of world building with his ideas of terraforming and exploration. And there is always a place to describe the astonishing landscapes and nature, like dangerous sand storms.

Intrigues and conflicts didn't come too short (though this chapter was mainly on building and describing). I especially liked the way, Anne Clayborn (the geology team leader) is exposing herself politically when she stood against terraforming - maybe it is an argumentation of science versus commercial exploitation. She is one loner and it is interesting to note those people as well.

Quite short part 4 "Homesick".

POV Michel Duval is the psychologist of the 100. He is an observer rather than a member and an outsider to the US and Russian people because he is French. And he is badly homesick for Provence. In a psychedelic episode, he finds to Hiroko's group who worship Mars as a new religion.

Andreas wrote: "Robinson surely described the characters more as archetypes .... which isn't annoying at all for me once I grabbed that concept...."

I don't mind that each of the PoV characters represents a different, uh..., point of view (in the sense of having an opinion on some political, economic, or ecological aspect of Mars colonization.) Those conflicting viewpoints provide a vital context to the hard sci-fi, providing the "why?” and "should we?" reasons and questions.

I just hate that they are all such psychological train wrecks as well. I care more about their soap opera and psychodrama if I didn't think the whole cast deserved to die.


Andreas wrote: "The second character I really became fond of was Arkady..."

Arkady is such a broadly drawn, almost parody character, that he works well as comic relief. He's still crazy, but in a fun and charming way. :)

G33z3r wrote: "I just hate that they are all such psychological train wrecks as well."
And the most lunatic one is the group's psychologist Michel :)

It is Robinson's style: No clean hero, but ones with heavy problems. You find them in 2312's main protagonist Swan as well as in The Years of Rice and Salt. I don't know the other works of Robinson, though - maybe someone who read more of him can elaborate on this hypothesis?
It seems to be Robinson's way of writing about social problems within hard science scifi and bring in just another dimension.
I'd appreciate if it were a little bit more light-handed, though (I wouldn't put it that extreme, that "the whole cast deserved to die").

Andreas wrote: "G33z3r wrote: "I just hate that they are all such psychological train wrecks as well."
And the most lunatic one is the group's psychologist Michel :)

That's one of those "why would Earth think it was a good idea to send Michel on this mission?” (I thought his PoV section was a total waste, though mercifully short.)


Andreas wrote: "(I wouldn't put it that extreme, that "the whole cast deserved to die")..."

Okay, that was hyperbole. I suppose an accurate formulation would be that I didn't care at all who lived and who died. Usually that's a big problem for me, because I like to latch onto a sympathetic character when I read a book.

It's a testament to how many interesting scientific, engineering, social & economic ideas Robinson brings to the story that I kept reading (and, on the whole, enjoying) the book despite my indifference to the characters.

So I should stop whining about the characters I didn't like and talk something about the science and economics that I found fascinating....

There were some great ideas on teraforming in Red Mars. Some I thought especially interesting:

The use of windmills to generate heat, taking an energy source common on Mars and using it to warm the place up. Basically converting one form of atmospheric kinetic energy into another kinetic form. (The "unauthorized" use of bacteria with that heat to extract oxygen from the CO2 in the Martian air as well as nitrogen from Martian soil also a cute idea.)•

Excavating huge and extremely deep holes to tap core heat of Mars. On the other hand, I thought Mars's core was considerably cooler. I guess Robinson feels the fact that Mars isn't geologically active and gravity is lower make such deep holes feasible. (I still wonder that's technologically cost-effective compared to the windmills, though.)

Robinson has some interesting plans for extracting water. Unfortunately, the last two decades of exploration by Rovers have greatly reduced the probability of finding that kind of ice on Mars.

I also love the hydrogen dirigibles used to fly about, as well as the gliders.

I'm also having trouble with the personalities and conflicts. It reminds me of Starfish by Peter Watts (which was published long after Red Mars). That book is full of psychologically damaged characters who were specifically chosen because their neuroses make them uniquely suited to work in the depths of the ocean. But I liked the protagonist in that book better than any of the scientists (at least so far) in Red Mars.

Quite long part 5 "Falling into History".

We've witnessed John Boones' assasination in the prologue. This part starts before this event and concentrates on the astronaut and rival of Frank Chalmer POV John Boone.

Some 20 years passed, the first 100 are old by now, many new colonies on Mars have been founded by a widespread range of nations and terraforming has been widespread with very different technologies.

This part is like a mystery story - accidents and sabotages happen and John investigates them. His character develops in interesting ways as he finds Sufi mystiques and Japanese worship. Though John has some small flaws like an addiction to a fictious drug, he is presented as a hero larger than life.

Alternatives to capitalism or even money-based economics are discussed intensely.
Huge technology changes are developed - one being the space elevator and the other the injection of an ice asteroid into the Marsian atmosphere.

But the most dramatic change is introduced with genome repairing medicine which elongates the lifespan to several centuries. Peoples behaviours and opinion change rapidly under this influence and Robinson makes a real good job discussing these changes.

Andreas wrote: "But the most dramatic change is introduced with genome repairing medicine which elongates the lifespan to several centuries...."

I had the feeling that Robinson introduced this longevity drug so he could conduct his terraforming over a long time frame and still keep the "Original 100" around.

G33z3r wrote: "I had the feeling that Robinson introduced this longevity drug so he could conduct his terraforming over a long time frame and still keep the "Original 100" around."

That is certainly a good motivation (though a couple of the first 100 certainly died already due to accidents and a more prominent one is looking at the daisies from below).
But he could have done it in a bad way: Just add longevity as a deus ex machina without consequences other than having people around longer.

Instead, he described how the longevity changes people and uses it as a means of character development - at least for John Boone. And he talks about political consequences on overcrowded earth, as well.

Additionally, it is also a valid extrapolation of medicine science and certainly adds a different important topic (like economy or terraforming technologies) to his near future scifi. I don't know if scientiests were already hunting for longevity by genome correction at the beginning of the 90s, though.

So, I don't consider it as a trick just to keep characters around.

Part 6: Guns Under the Table.

After Boone's death, things calm down, the rebellish mood drained away or disguised itself.
We're watching POV Frank Chalmers fighting against the infiltration of the Mars treaty by transnationals. Most of the chapter is about politics (that is what Chalmers is all about).
The most important action here is the building of the space lift which was really fascinating. It leads to constant immigration with all the negative side effects. Pressure is building up and will soon be released.

I didn't like this part, mostly because arrogant Frank Chalmers is such a contrast to the charismatic John Boone. I understand that the political part had to be illuminated sooner or later. But I'd appreciated this part to be shorter.

I just finished the book.

The last two Parts "Senzeni Na" ("What have we done?") and "Shikata Ga Nai" ("it cannot be helped") are full of desperate, even space opera like action and breathtaking images (view spoiler)[like the coming down of the space lift cable as an equatorial belt (hide spoiler)]. They see thousands of lifes fading away and a GRRM style thinning out of protagonists. Some of them will really be missed :(

I'd have estimated that the story works out like a nice and clean 1776 revolution, but thankfully, Robinson chose a different way:
It was more like an Aristotelian catharsis after a catastrophy in a Greek tragedy.

There is no real cliffhanger that would force you to read the sequel Green Mars. But I'll do for sure!

The novel has some downsides like repetitive landscape descriptions. But in general, I found the several scientific explorations (technical, economical, social and psychological) awesome. Some of them don't stand the test of times - like water on Mars, the role of the Chinese. And some where clearly wrong when the novel was written - like the role of the Swiss in manufacturing where it should have been Germans (who got a stupid role with the UN secretary Helmut). And I really liked some of the characters.

I think it really deserved the Nebula and BSF awards from 92/93.

In summary, that's 5 stars from me!

I'm still on Nadia's section (The Crucible), but I was thinking about their trip to the northern pole, and the ice they found. I haven't really been following the progress of the Mars Rover, but I wonder how much of the landscape Robinson got right, and how much is just plain wrong.

Sue wrote: " I haven't really been following the progress of the Mars Rover, but I wonder how much of the landscape Robinson got right, and how much is just plain wrong."
I believe that Robinson got it right from the knowledge he had when writing the novel.

Alone the water ice cap on the north pole is about the size of Europe and 3.7km thick!
More current discoveries (just citing from wikipedia):
"In 2005, radar data revealed the presence of large quantities of water ice at the poles[20] and at mid-latitudes. The Mars rover Spirit sampled chemical compounds containing water molecules in March 2007. The Phoenix lander directly sampled water ice in shallow Martian soil on July 31, 2008."
There is a whole article about water on mars!

Sue wrote: "I'm still on Nadia's section (The Crucible), but I was thinking about their trip to the northern pole, and the ice they found. ..."

I thought Nadia's section was one of the most interesting in the novel, mostly because it had so many technological ideas.

Andreas wrote: "The last two Parts "Senzeni Na" and "Shikata Ga Nai" .... The novel has some downsides like repetitive landscape descriptions...."

In contrast, I thought the concluding road trip through Valles Marineris was overly long, which rather blunted the impact of the rest of the novel.

Maybe this is why "Red Mars" has so many road trips:


The Map Is Not the Territory: Sci-fi writer Kim Stanley Robinson on the glory of low-tech exploration.

KSR discusses hiking.

That's a great article about exploration and mapping.

I keep wondering if terraforming is really cost-effective?

Most of the exploitation of Red Mars seems to be driven by commercial interests, mostly exporting Martian minerals back to earth. Couldn't this be done economically by miners living in pressurized quarters and operating earth moving equipment from pressurized cockpits, using pressure suits or breather masks when necessary?

Is it really necessary to give Mars a breathable atmosphere just to exploit its minerals?

G33z3r wrote: "I keep wondering if terraforming is really cost-effective?

Most of the exploitation of Red Mars seems to be driven by commercial interests, mostly exporting Martian minerals back to earth. Couldn'..."

Exploiting is not the only reason to be there. The UN wanted it to be a valve for overcrowded earth. A small one, of course. But even then, with lots of people imigrating Mars, at some time a terraformed planet surely makes sense. After all, running around in pressure suits your whole life doesn't make that much fun. And building a whole bubble tent around Mars is also a kind of terraforming :)
Mars seems to be a kind of backup planet which simply has to be terraformed.

"Red Mars" eventually builds a "Space Elevator" on Mars for lifting payloads into orbit. The idea is that after the huge expense of construction, the cost of traveling from the surface into space becomes negligible.

Unlike a building that has to support its weight, the space elevator uses tensile strength. Twice the length of geo-sync orbital height, in effect it uses tidal forces to keep one end on Earth and the other far out in space, placing the main orbital station at the midpoint.

The "space elevator" has been a staple of science fiction since Arthur C Clarke used the idea in his novel The Fountains of Paradise. (Clarke didn't invent the concept, he just popularized it.) KSR also acknowledges that a less famous sci-fi author, Charles Sheffield, also use the idea, apparently independently, the same year. The idea has since been used, under various names ("beanstalk" also seems popular). Usually, scifi has built them on Earth. (And it's pretty common to either name it or the space station at geo-sync "Clarke".) They have to be tethered at the equator, so either Indonesia or Brazil are common anchors (Clarke chose his home of Sri Lanka, confessing in the preface it wasn't on the equator, so he moved it. Now that's power!:)

The idea also requires keeping low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites clear of the elevator. Since there is no orbit that doesn't intersect the equator (or any other great circle), any non-geo-sync satellite needs to be able to maneuver to avoid the elevator (the elevator being too massive to dodge.)

In "Red Mars", Robinson builds the elevator on Mars. Mars is easier for construction, since it has lighter gravity and thinner atmosphere. KSR adds another thought to the concept that I don't think was explored previously in sci-fi:

(view spoiler)[What happens if the elevator ever breaks? The picture Robinson paints is grim. On Mars the unsupported strand wraps the planet twice, collapsing in seeming slow-motion but with the immense energy of meteor strikes all around the equator. (On Earth, the half-strand would only circle the globe once.) The result is massive destruction, painting the technology as potentially devastating on a level only matched by thermonuclear warfare. So, maybe not such a great idea after all?
(hide spoiler)]

G33z3r wrote: "And it's pretty common to either name it or the space station at geo-sync "Clarke"."

Thanks for pointing that out, I didn't notice it.

I didn't quite understand the concept how the lift could evade Phobos. Some oscillating thingy...

G33z3r wrote: "I thought Red Mars had some great hard-SF in it, from the spaceship outbound to establishing the initial colony (construction with locally obtained materials, finding water, hydroponics, radiation ... On the other hand, [I really] didn't care for any of the characters. :( I think Robinson overdid the flaws (or perhaps only the truly psychotic would imagine colonizing another planet.:)"

That is spot on--I didn't realize that I internalized the same thing--I *liked* the book for it's technical realism and sociology, but something about it kept me from *loving* it. Great insight.

I read it long time ago and liked it. The next two books did not catch me so much. The strange fact is that I remember enjoying it but almost nothing about the content. From characters only some glimpses about one Japanese and one Russian lady and a male character nicknamed Coyote. There was some politics, sometime quite intense, and debate over terraforming Mars. I wonder if my short memory is derived from not being able to care about any of the characters in the book.

Like Dune, this book will probably stay with me forever. It holds so many threads so deftly that it was a truly immersive experience.

I really liked the characters, especially Frank Chalmers. I did not find their internal struggles depressing. I just found them to be familiar and representative of humans in general. I don't find flawed fictional characters any more depressing than I find flawed people in real life. I work with students who struggle in school, so maybe I'm unusually used to people who keep their flaws right on the surface.

The only character that bugged me was Michel. I thought his grip on psychology was terrible, and he was supposedly an expert in it.

Just as a followup, I'd like to point you to this year's Aurora which was awesome, one of this year's best books.

Andreas wrote: "Just as a followup, I'd like to point you to this year's Aurora which was awesome, one of this year's best books."

I'll second that. Aurora was amazing!

I'm afraid this book was a miss for me. Like G33z3r I just could not connect to any of the characters. As much as I love hard sci-fi, I need at least one character to care about, and I didn't care about any of them in this book. :-(