Red Mars

The first book in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy is turning out to be an interesting read. I read the Years of Rice and Salt a few years ago and was blown away by how good it was, but I wasn't sure what to expect with this one. It's clearly the work of someone fascinated by Mars, who loves the planet and the potential for a new society it brings - and this is both a good and a bad thing.

Written in the 1990s, it's extremely up-to-date on our knowledge of Mars, though there is a fair bit of fictional science in there. The downside to Red Mars is that it's a book that really just wants to explore ideas - it's pretty clear that if Robinson could have made a living just writing a giant wiki about Mars and potential societies that might evolve there, he would have been happier doing that than having to saddle his ideas with characters and a plot. Most characters seem to be archetypes, placeholders for an idea rather than real people. There is an awful lot of infodumping happening - I know quite a bit more about the geology of Mars than I did six weeks ago (unfortunately, I don't know how much is based on real world observation and how much is Robinson's wishful thinking). The space elevator bits were fascinating.

I did enjoy Red Mars, and I'm now reading book 2 of the trilogy; but it feels like a series that many folks who are less science-nerdy than myself might not get a lot out of.