Subject: RED MARS by Kim Stanley Robinson (and also "Green Mars")

From: [email-masked] (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070)
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 19:07:49 GMT

RED MARS by Kim Stanley Robinson
                    "Green Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson
                      Book reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper
		       Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper

                      RED MARS by Kim Stanley Robinson

     Kim Stanley Robinson has taken a big subject--one might almost say
sprawling--the colonization and terraforming of Mars.  It is so big that it
needs three books, of which this is the first.  But this book is independent
enough to stand on its own.

     Robinson's works often derive from history or historical trends, and so
one isn't surprised to see that outlook brought to this book.  Yes, it is a
book about its characters, but it is about them as shaping (and being shaped
by) history.  Though the plot of the space colony torn between loyalty/duty
to the parent government(s) on earth and desire for their own freedom is
scarcely new, Robinson lifts it above a simplistic parallel to the American
Revolution or some other familiar event.  It becomes its own event, similar
in some ways to earlier events, different in others.  He deals with the idea
that the Mars colonies will be in many ways less heterogeneous than the
American were, for example.  In many space colonization stories, we see only
the main characters, with everyone else seeming to be sheep following the
leaders of various factions.  In RED MARS the later colonists are not sheep
to follow the "First Hundred" blindly; everyone is an individual and
everyone has a point of view.  The politics of the novel encompasses all the
nations of Earth, not (as is all too common) merely the superpowers.  The
effort of the developing nations to "get their share of the pie" is one of
the main forces behind much of what goes on in (and on) RED MARS.

     Robinson also assumes his characters know their history--discussions of
terraforming Mars are not the totally technical and scientific discussions
one has come to expect, but include references to projects and events which
affected Earth's environment.  RED MARS is an adventure story, true, but it
is not a simple-minded one and there is much to chew on.  It seems to be a
descendent of Heinlein's THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS, only more
sophisticated and writ large.  More sophisticated because Heinlein stacks
his deck: he doesn't give any "responsible spokespersons for the opposing
view."  All Heinlein's characters speak "self-evident" truths ("why should
anyone trust someone else to license a doctor instead of making his own
decisions?")  that always work (the successful line marriages, clan
marriages, and other social structures in THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTREES work
because Heinlein writes them as working).  Robinson, on the other hand,
gives two--or rather all--reasonably balanced sides to every argument and
lets the reader decide.  Writ large, because Heinlein's Lunar colony is
fairly small and compact while Robinson covers, if not all of Mars,
certainly a substantial part.

     Not only are the philosophies and their expositions more sophisticated,
but the style is as well.  For example, Robinson's use of color is both
expected and surprising.  There are the Reds and the Greens, and we as
readers have some already-wired reactions to those names.  But here the Reds
are not the Communists or even the Russians--they are the
"environmentalists" who want to preserve Mars in its pristine state: red.
And the Greens want to terraform Mars to serve the people--a more Marxist
approach in a sense.  This total reversal of expectations is just one way in
which Robinson makes the reader think about his or her automatic assumptions
and quick reactions to certain words or phrases.  (Some of this may be from
having read "Green Mars" as well; I am not absolutely sure that the Reds or
the Greens are specifically named as such in RED MARS.  See my review of
"Green Mars" below for more details.)

     I definitely recommend RED MARS, and in fact intend to nominate it for
a Hugo.  (While the copyright date of this edition is 1993, the first
publication was in Great Britain in 1992, so this book is eligible for the
Hugo *this* time around.)

                    "Green Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson

     People have told me that Kim Stanley Robinson has said that this will
not be part of his "Mars" trilogy, but his interview in LOCUS last year says
that it was certainly the first step toward writing it.  Even if he does not
incorporate the text into one of the three novels, "Green Mars" will clearly
remain a part of the same timeline.  The basic story of "Green Mars" is of a
group of people climbing Olympus Mons, but the real beauty is in the filling
in of detail for the world around the volcano.  You are *on* Olympus Mons,
but you see all of Mars, not only at this instant, but also its past and its
future.  Thus may sound like Jorge Luis Borges's "Aleph," so let me make
clear that I am not talking about the climbers finding some magical window--
I am saying that the story is that magical window for the reader.

     I am sure a rock climber would appreciate the descriptions and details
of the climbing itself, but even a person whose only exercise is opening the
door to the library will enjoy this novella.  If you are reading Robinson's
"Mars" trilogy starting with RED MARS, this is a must-read as an adjunct to
that.

%T      Red Mars
%A      Kim Stanley Robinson
%C      New York
%D      February 1993
%I      Bantam Spectra
%O      trade paperback, US$11.95 [1992]
%G      ISBN 0-553-37134-7
%P      519pp
%S      Mars
%V      1

%T      Green Mars
%A      Kim Stanley Robinson
%C      New York
%D      1988
%I      Tor
%O      paperback, US$2.95 [1985]
%G      ISBN 0-812-53362-3
%P      113pp
%S      Mars; Tor Double
%V      ?; 1

Evelyn C. Leeper   |   +1 908 957 2070   |   [email-masked]