Category: General

The best thing about the trilogy is that it’s loaded with economic and political stuff. Robinson develops a whole gift-based economy that’s used among members of the underground. Barter is often used since there isn’t currency, with enclaves specializing and swapping for stuff. Property rights are a constant issue, and evolve as the planet is terraformed. There’s a constant struggle between socialist-environmentalist Reds and libertarian-terraformer Greens that puts a whole new spin on those labels.

The worst thing is the longevity treatment. It does result in interesting social problems (overpopulation), but it seems like a device after a while, reducing the overall plausibility. Maybe I just don’t know enough about the trajectory of life extension science, but I think the treatments were just there to ensure continuity, keeping a few of the original Red Mars characters around when they’d have otherwise passed away. It wouldn’t have hurt to go through a few generations over the course of the trilogy.

As part of my quest to read each and every novel that’s either won a Nebula or Hugo award, I’ve been making my way through Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy: Red, Green, and Blue. I’m halfway through Blue Mars now. They’re hard science fiction at its best, richly detailed, precisely researched, and really long. Essentially, Robinson’s trilogy does for Mars what Michener did for Hawaii, Alaska, and other terrestrial locales.