Book review: Red Mars

Red Mars book cover

Red Mars, from Kim Stanley Robinson, is the first part of the Mars Trilogy, and as you might guess by the title, it tells a long story about the colonization and terraforming of Mars.

I've read numerous times about the books, sometimes with great praise, others less favourable, but in general it is considered a good source for fiction regarding theories about how to sustain life on Mars and in general how it would be to live there. So I decided to give it a try. And... while it is true that the ideas are very nice, the book bore me too much so as to not continue with the trilogy after finishing this first volume.

The scientific (fiction) is cool, really cool. Lots of ideas of what would be needed to sustain life, of how would humanity progressively prepare settlements and cities, and build diplomatic structures, and handle Earth problems, and their own ones. Don't want to get into details because I think the book is better enjoyed not knowing too much, just reading and discovering. But it also spends too much time on the human relations part. Maybe it's just me, but there are too many pages about conversations, about "characters thinking", meanwhile almost nothing happens. And then, all of a sudden "a few weeks later", a "a few months passed"... I was expecting either more detailed descriptions of the surroundings, of the actions, or just more events happening, but instead you get half of a book dedicated to relations between humans, true that almost all at another planet, but still, more about sociology than science.

It is a big book, and there are quite a few relevant "situations", so if you're patient things progress and unfold and new changes arise, but almost everything feels too slowly paced to my liking.


Book review: Red Mars published @ by

Categories: Books

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