Red Mars (Mars Trilogy) Mass Market Paperback – October 1, 1993

(This was my favorite book of 2022, a year when I read 100 books!)I read this book because it's the gateway to Green Mars and Blue Mars, both of which are on my to-read list as I work my way through all the novels that have won the Hugo Award. I absolutely loved it! It's much better than some other Hugo winners I've read; 1993 was apparently a competitive year, with two winners ("A Fire Upon the Deep", which I liked, and "Doomsday Book", which I haven't read yet) taking Red Mars' place. I finished this book really excited to continue on to read its Hugo-winning sequels!*BRIEF SYNOPSIS: This book delivers the quintessential sci-fi story that continues to inspire and drive humankind: what will happen when we finally manage to settle on Mars? Set in the mid-2000s (remember that the book was published in 1992), "The First Hundred" scientist colonizers emerge from a rigorous selection process and embark on the year-long voyage to the Red Planet. Comprised of 50 men and 50 women, all of them exceptional in their fields, the crew successfully lands and establishes the first permanent human Martian colony. Rifts among the First Hundred soon emerge as they plot a path forward for the planet, and as more colonists arrive each of the Hundred (now celebrities on both Earth and Mars) acquires more power and influence to push forward their various agendas. Debates rage as some want to gain corporate influence, terraform the planet, preserve Mars' natural environment, secede from Earth, establish independent cities/colonies, etc. These rifts play out over the course of decades as more and more people come to Mars, and the plot eventually culminates in a hugely destructive revolutionary war attempt, with members of The First Hundred in the leadership on both sides.*Top-Notch Tribal (then Global) Politics: While the book's Martian setting and advanced technology inherently tag it as a sci-fi novel, the underlying interpersonal and political dynamics are the beating heart of the story. It is absolutely full of internecine debates on the personal, national, and planetary scale. I knew I was going to love the book from the first chapter, when one of the characters wanders around a Martian bubble city and comments on the disagreements that have sprung up between the city's American and Saudi Arabian residents. Political intrigues on both Earth and Mars define the story, kicking off in the early chapters when readers become aware that The First Hundred were selected to represent specific member states (35 Americans, 35 Russians, and 30 from diverse nations), and that two of the main characters (Frank and Maya) respectively represent these nations.Key debates that define the story include:-The creation of a "Martian Society", including whether or not it should continue to support and rely upon corporate capitalism. It even extends to things like the architecture of Martian buildings!-Whether or not Mars should be terraformed, and how much;-The extent to which the Martian colonists should be beholden to UN directives;-Violent disagreements between North/South nations back on earth, including the preservation of Antarctica and the corporatization of Mars;-And a whole slew of complicated friendships, romantic relationships, and one-on-one personal rivalries between the members of the first hundred, including between Frank and John, between Ann and Sax, and between Arkady and Hiroko and (basically) everyone else.*Excellent Characters: Each section of the novel places a different member of The First Hundred in the first-person narrator role, so we see them play off one another in compelling ways as the story progresses. Each of them are compelling individuals that add critical insights to the unfolding story. I personally enjoyed the bits about Frank's bureaucratic wrangling with earth as the longstanding "Secretary of Mars" for the U.S., Ann's commitment to fighting terraforming efforts, Nadia's mechanical genius, and Arkady's constant societal insights.*Awesome Commentary on Humanity: The story is full of canny insights into mankind's penchant for disagreement and conflict, including/especially in crisis situations. I don't hold with the idea that "conflict forces people to work together" (I think the national and international divisions that emerged over COVID-19 are reflective of that), and Robinson seems to me to make a similar point in Red Mars. (By the way, this is also a key reason why I like Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem so much.)*Fantastic Sci-Fi Moments: The novel's greatest contribution to sci-fi, I think, is in going to such lengths to explore and describe the planet to its readers. We become more and more exposed to the entirety of Mars' surface as the story progresses, and descriptions of its canyons and glaciers and mountains are pretty profound. I loved vicariously exploring our neighbor-planet as the story unfolded. Other notable sci-fi bits included:-The biochemical terraforming of Mars;-"The Immortality Plague": a genetic engineering method that allows the First Hundred to live beyond their natural lifespan (and its attending effects on mankind's problems);-The creation of the Space Elevator (out of an asteroid that they lure into Mars' orbit as a third moon);-The saboteur-driven destruction of Phobos during the revolution.I could (obviously) rant and rave about this novel for a long time, and I'm SO curious to see what happens next. An enthusiastic five stars for great political/interpersonal intrigue and some great sci-fi.

I hate to use a word that seems like a cliché these days, but Red Mars is an epic story.The ideas in Red Mars are big, really big. Should Mars be terraformed so that it be more habitable? Should we leave it alone and frozen in time to be studied? Should the politicians on Earth be the ones to govern and rule settlements on another planet? If given a blank slate what would a new society loo like? What factors would shape it? How will people deal with an influx of new people, new cultures, and new ideas? Robinson tackles these issues by telling the colonization of Mars through several viewpoints from characters that run the full spectrum of ideas and motivations that shine a new and different perspective on the events that are shaping their world; their new Martian society. The personal struggles and political turmoil that comes with building a new world can be a little overly dramatic at times and bog the reader down. In the end though I'm glad that the characters don't take a secondary role and are in fact the main forces shaping Mars for what it will become. Without the diversity of characters and viewpoints this would have been just another fantastical sci-fi romp on another planet. Thankfully it is so much more than that.The real meat of this book, however, are the descriptions of the alien landscape and science behind making Mars a place for human habitation. The descriptions will make you believe that you are seeing the sun setting on the polar dunes and looking down from the rim of Olympus Mons on the planet far below. You can practically hear it when a huge aquifer bursts and floods Valles Marineris with a roiling sea of ice and steaming water. It truly is a magnificent world that Robinson was able to build from the ground up. The technical details of their colonization and terraforming efforts are well thought-out. Full of the small details of geology, physics, genetic engineering, mechanical engineering, ecology, robotics, and spaceflight exhibit the research and our level of knowledge of Mars at the time the book was originally published (1993) that Robinson managed to include not as after thought, but as the main course. The detail wasn't confined to the sciences of terraforming. Robinson isn't afraid to explore the softer sciences of psychology of isolation, the economics of martian derived mining, and the politics of multinational corporations. What was really impressive to me was that Robinson managed to do all this without every talking down to the reader. I appreciate it when an author allows the reader to think with them and not force feed the reader into a particular scenario the author has predetermined is the right course.Red Mars isn’t a perfect book, but there is so much in it that is great, it is certainly worth reading.