Blue Mars (Mars Trilogy) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

First, plot. The second attempt to destroy the socket is a major event that catalyzes the beginning of a Martian government. Ann's health and Sax's subsequent intervention lead four of the Martians to a return home. Nirgal tries for the simple life and learns firsthand how terraforming affects day to day life on Mars. Advanced fusion allows settlements on Mercury, the moons of the outer planets, and a starship to Alpha Centauri. And the book closes with a reconcilliation between two characters who have always had their differences. Trying to compare the action and plot in Blue Mars to its two predeccesors is difficult, mostly because those two have <so> much happening there is almost too much action. Think back to Red Mars, if you've read it, and try to summerize everything that happened. It's tough. Blue Mars is a different book, it is more philosophical, more contemplative. Rather than holding these qualities against it, we should commend Robinson for not sticking with the exact same format, and try something different.

As far as the characters go, Sax Russell is the most changed. His relationship with Ann, and all they go through in this book, really cement his status as My Favorite Character. The fact that he changes his whole ideology and practice just to appeal to one person makes him that much more endearing as a character. Ann's thoughts near the end about being several different people makes sense when you think about the journey her character has taken throughout her life. Nadia and Art made the section about the constitution (which I will admit got a little tedious) much more bearable. And Nirgal remained Nirgal throughout, a piece of much-needed stability.

This book is great. Not as great as Red Mars, but that's like comparing The Godfather to The Godfather Part II. I mean, Part II was so immensely good, so beyond good, that trying to compare even a really great movie to it just shows how great it is. So let's dispense with the injustice of consantly comparing Blue Mars to Red Mars.

Read this book. Don't listen to all those reviews that say you'll fall asleep or throw it across the room. Read this book. You will have to pay attention, but if you consider "reading" flipping through the pages until you see something interesting, then you have problems. Read this book. You will be rewarded.

I honestly don't know what the common, plot oriented reader can truly get out of Blue Mars. This is not an attempt to grude against the novel, but simply a statement - people like me, who like plot oriented tales, who like characters which are -I can't seem to find the word: passionate, perhaps, or passionly written - well, I don't think you'd find this kind of thing here. I'm certain even the most faithful fan of this book won't call it a page turner, and won't discuss the brilliance of the plot. As for the characters, I personnal cared but for few of them, Sax, Nadia, maybe even Michael and Ann. I still feel that the most fascinating characters - John, and to a greater extent Frank and Andrey(sp?) - were terminated before their time.

It is a subjective statement, I admit, but one that I think is shared by many. Sure, avid fans might ignore it rushly, but I do think the great amount of people who find the characters less than appealing indicates something, not so much about the quality of the writing but of the author's intention.

This is not, as one could think, a Novel of ideas. I do not have the background to challange Mr. Robinson's speculations about physics, chemistry or biology, but at least the economic theory Robinson proposes is shallow, a collection of phrases and slogans and mixture of philosophies that creates the world he envisions.

I think this might be the secret for Robinson's success. For if Ursula K Leguin's The Dispossed was an ambigious utopia, this is a mysterious, science fictional one. I think Mr. Robinson created the future as a land of hard science fiction - where it is science fiction, not science, that transforms the world.

In the Foundation trilogy, Asimov's imaginary science revolutionizes the world, but the science is never exposed in details. In the Mars trilogy Robinson created a science fictional science, and a science fictional Utopia - a world that is changed by the fictional creation of a science.

I think I can see how this is appealing to the hard core science fiction fan. The creation of not only the universe in which the science change the world, as Asimov did, but also of the science itself.

Alas, this vision is not my vision, and the book, an ode for this science fictional science, is not one I can truly enjoy.

I like to look at each volume of this trilogy in terms of its color. RED was exciting and adventurous; the settlers touched down on a barren but beautiful alien planet and set out to conquer it. GREEN was deep, passionate, and surreal; Mars was beginning to sprout life, the aged settlers were as wise as any century old genius should be, and young Martian born generations were rising up to create a culture of their own.

BLUE is calm, seductive, somewhat depressing, but in a beautiful way that makes you marvel at life.

The revolutions are over and the original settlers are winding down toward the ends of their lives. Meanwhile, the younge generations have come into adulthood and Mars is now theirs. The Martian culture has finally evolved from several diverse cultures into itself.

BLUE is less plot driven than RED and GREEN. While RED and GREEN planted the seeds and guided the growth of life and culture on Mars, BLUE waters it. All the action has been taken care of, and now we sit back and marvel at the results of two centuries of ingenius passion and ambition that has created an entirely new world.

One of the brilliant things about this final volume is that blue Mars can be interpreted as a utopia or a dystopia, depending on the reader's politics and values. Robinson stops writing plot and devoloping new characters, and simply carries out the plots and characters he has already developed to their logical conclusions, and he lets you decide how to interpret them. It seems almost as if Robinson stopped writing altogether, and just let the world and characters that he had already created age on their own like a fine wine. BLUE is more brave and experimental than RED or GREEN, and in a way it is also more brilliant. It seems more a work of philospohical poetry than a novel.

The blue hue of this volume also serves up a beautiful sense of depression, that is not disappointed or regretful about the past but rather sad that everything will soon be over. I am convinced that Robinson interviewed several senior citizens close to the ends of their lives before writing this book, because the mood of the 200 year old characters and of the book itself is so incredibly convincing that I feel like I already know what it will be like to be at the end of my own life several decades from now. The beautiful thing about this sense of sadness toward the end is that while the characters are coming to the ends of their lives, so are you, because throughout this 2000 page epic you have felt as if you were there inside the minds of these brilliant people, who seem like real historical figures out fo a real life future history that was somehow brought back in time and depositied in the 1990's, and when they cease to live, you cease to live through them.

Blue Mars is like The Martians, the book of short stories filling in the gaps of this epic, because it is not so mcuh a story that takes place on Robinson's Mars as it is a study of Robinson's Mars, for true fans and only true fans to enjoy. So if you loved RED and GREEN, do not let the negative reviews on this page discourage you. Those people are not true fans, they have not lived on Robinson's Mars as some of us have, and Blue Mars was not meant for them to understand in the first place. Blue Mars is for the Martians.