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Blue Mars | Rating | |
| B | |||
| Kim Stanley Robinson | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| The Mars Trilogy | Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars | ||
It's really, really hard to sum up this book. That's because there's no real coherent plot. If book one was about the colonization of Mars and the beginings of terraforming, and book two was about the continuing terraforming efforts and Mars' bids to control its own destiny, then book three is... what? There are plot threads about the Flood on Earth as a major percentage of the Antarctic ice sheet melts (due to volcanism, not global warming); about Mars still wanting to be free of Earth immigration policies; of the decline of the supereldery; the search for Hiroko, who has attained a status not unlike Elvis with sightings all over the place; the evolving relationships between some of the prominent members of the First Hundred; and of course the terraforming.
The story spans decades, at least. Possibly it covers a century or more, but dates are mentioned sparingly, so it's hard to tell. Most of the book is narrative, with drops into real-time action more as examples than anything. It gives the book an air of... I don't know, unreality and reality at the same time. It's much different from the television approach to storytelling most books take, in which you see everything on a screen inside your head as it is described in the book. Instead it is more like being told history. This happened, then this happened, and the people did this and other people reacted this way. Let's take a look, shall we?
Finally, finally technology seems to advance. We get visible improvments in many things, which is good. I rather doubt it'll take humanity until the dawn of the twenty-third century to achieve some of these things, however, so it still seemed slow.
This is a honkin' thick book, and sometimes it feels like it. Each facet of the story is interesting, but rarely gripping. Some of them I just didn't really care about, like Nirgal's quest to find Hiroko. Others were fascinating, particularly the areas concerning uberscientist Sax Russel. It is a good sequel, and ends well. But I wish there was a little more plot to go with this history-to-be.
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