Martians!

[bloodyrosemccoy]

In honor of the Phoenix probe, I’m gonna tell you about my latest delving into science fiction—the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s a bit different from my alien-minded interests, but I find I’m very much enjoying it—despite its classification as hard science fiction, the Sweeping Scope of it has a Giant Fantasy Epic sense to it, and it’s got a lot of cool viewpoint characters.

 

Since the beginning of the story is set twenty minutes into the future,* the trilogy starts out as the hardest of hard science fiction—it’s adamantine science fiction. Robinson did a lot of research for this series, because he wanted it to be actually possible as a scenario. You get the biological, engineering, chemical, and physical aspects of what it would be like to try to terraform Mars.  The amount of work involved amazes me. He does slip into the less hard science fiction—the first is the invention of a handy plot point that allows the main characters who originally colonized Mars to live long enough see the entire long process of terraforming—but most of these advances are is still in the realm of possibility, rather like those 1960’s books about what could happen in the far-off year 2000, so it’ll look retro in a few years but works for the story.

 

He does tend to get a little excited describing every step of the science, and the geography (areography) of Mars, which can get a little long. But that’s a liveable problem.

 

And it isn’t just science.  That handy longevity Plot Point I mentioned shows one important part of this series that all the blurbs on the cover are always carrying on about: this is also a story about people. The politics of Mars show up—economics, politics, and environmentalism make appearances and give you the view of a whole civilization with all their differing opinions on every matter, and all the human issues—petty and important, sometimes simultaneously—that would go with a trip to Mars.  Robinson does pretty well at giving you the different viewpoints of characters—you can understand the motives of even the characters I hate (including the first two viewpoint characters). That’s my favorite part—I’m kept interested in the individuals as well as the overarching Saga.

 

He is pretty conscious of this as a Sweeping Saga, and trowels on the symbolism. The charismatic first man on Mars, who is the all-American hero, is named John Boone. The two opponents for whether to terraform Mars or keep it pristine are named Saxifrage—after a plant that gets into rocks and breaks them apart—and Clayborne.** He also tries consciously to make a folkloric and mythological—one short interlude chapter is apparently told from the point of view from a Jungian collective consciousness.*** But the self-consciousness doesn’t get too overbearing—this is one author whose Fucking Deep tendencies have yet to completely ruin the story.  And so far, it’s apretty absorbing one. Now I’m all psyched for us humans to get our asses in gear and head off to MARS! I mean, what could be cooler?

 

And we have made the first step. You go, Phoenix!

 

*Warning: This is a link to TV Tropes, a site that EATS TIME. Click with care. 

**My favorite name-insert was a tented town called Bradbury, which in Green Mars was described as looking “like something out of Illinois: treelined blacktop streets, screened-in orches fronting two-story brick houses with shingle roofs, a main street with shops and parking meters, a central park with a white gazebo under giant maples …”

 

***Only he also was trying to equate the folklore to that of Paul Bunyan, so clearly he didn’t do all his research—Paul started out as a commercial creation.  It would be like comparing the new folklore of Mars to stories about the Kool-Aid man. 

Comments

[chairman-wow.livejournal.com]

:D We stayed up late last night watching NASA TV on the internet. Not that 1am is really late, for me.

Also, I was just in a bookshop looking for a Kim Stanley Robinson book someone recommended to me (Amazon? io9? an actual person? I can't remember). No-one around here seems to carry it, though. If I do find it and it's good, I may pick up those Mars ones, too.

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Oh God, my favourite sci-fi quote EVER is from Red Mars; 'I think you value consciousness too highly and rock too little'

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

*grin* That sounds like Ann. God, she drives me NUTS. But I can see her side of it ...

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Ann FTW. I love how uncompromising she is with her science.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Hee--not to mention how uncompromising she is with the FUCK YOU ALL attitude. Gotta hand it to her--she's at least consistent. She's just got that dose of acute depression in her personality that annoys the hell out of me.*

I love how she's described as the woman in the American Gothic painting, only gaunter and more severe. What a fun person. ;)

I identify more with Sax, not only in my opinion on terraforming but also on outlook in life. We both have a philosophy that can be summed up as: "But ... but ... SCIENCE!"


*I am allowed to say this because I have been in the same place, and my own depression annoyed the hell out of the part of my brain that still knew what was going on. "Oh, Christ, are we going to go down THIS road again?!"

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the depressive personality is not my favourite, but I read Red Mars at the time I was taking a philosophy paper that made me a) angry and b) appreciate my geol major liek whoa, so I totally sympathised with her :)

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

hmmm.... I am intrigued. Although when it comes to folk legends in outer space, nothing beats Resnick's "Santiago".

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Now I'M intrigued! Elucidate?

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

You haven't read it? I believe there are two novels, actually, and I can never recall if I've read them both or not (especially since I keep getting it mixed up with the Widowmaker series). Hang on

*goes off to look for my copy, as I apparently no longer have the intro memorized*

....


....

*and returns, having failed in my quest*
Damnit, I need a better-- ok, any-- system of organization for my books.

I apologize for the probably misquoting, but "Santiago" begins something like this: "They saw his father was a comet and his mother was a cosmic wind. They say he juggles black holes in his bare hands..."

Anyways, he's sort of an intergalactic Paul Bunyan. I grant that Resnick's writing is not to everyone's taste, but I think he's got a real knack for space westerns (not to mention an excellent sense of the absurd, as demonstrated in his book of short stories, "Will the Last Person to Leave the Planet Please Shut Off the Sun?")