Reddit reviews Red Mars (Mars Trilogy)
We found 48 Reddit comments about Red Mars (Mars Trilogy). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
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Reddit reviews Red Mars (Mars Trilogy)We found 48 Reddit comments about Red Mars (Mars Trilogy). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
It's already written
Mars is very very amazing. So much about it screams Terraform ME!!
The Martian Day is only 30minutes longer than earth.
It would have 4 seasons due to a similar inclination in its tilt.
Possibly vast amounts of underground water.
Sigh.. Best books I ever read.
Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
If you are interested, I highly recommend the speculative [Mars trilogy by K.S. Robinson] (http://amzn.com/0553560735). More than just about the colonization and terraforming, the books go deep into the geopolitical ramifications of having a new colony.
Plus, Robinson is a kickass author. My second favorite after Asimov.
In Red Mars, they use a combination of techniques to enrich the atmosphere. The most effective was to aerobrake a series of comets through the atmosphere, melting the ice and adding gases.
While not my favorite ever I really enjoyed the Otherland series (only four volumes but each book is fairly large).
It's entertaining cyberpunk and features some interesting looks at the future. Very enjoyable read.
Another (shorter) series that is good for a quick read and a lighter introduction to scifi is The Risen Empire. Split into two parts (although together they would have made an only slightly-large novel) it's along the border of Hard Scifi and "pulp scifi". I'd consider it as an okay introduction to hard scifi.
Which leads me to the third and forth series, Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space. Reynold's is hard scifi, meaning that there are points where he spends twice as much time describing the technical details when character advancement would be very much welcome. However, this also means he takes into account things like relativistic travel and how boring space battles would be to spectators. Awesome books though.
Last but not least is the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's hard scifi that doesn't lose sight of character development. Also, out of all the books I've mentioned I'd have to call it the most "realistic" as the technological point at which it starts could conceivably be reached in the next decade or so.
All enjoyable reads, all enjoyable scifi. After (or during) these don't forget to check out classics like Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Banks, etc. Especially Asimov's Foundation books or the short(ish) story Nightfall, although the original short story can easily be considered better than the expanded version linked (so you might want to stop reading when you reach the end of the original).
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.
In his most ambitious project to date, award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson utilizes years of research and cutting-edge science in the first of three novels that will chronicle the colonization of Mars.
For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny.
John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic "alchemists, " Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life...and death.
The colonists place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light to the planets surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces--for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.
Brilliantly imagined, breathtaking in scope and ingenuity, Red Mars is an epic scientific saga, chronicling the next step in human evolution and creating a world in its entirety. Red Mars shows us a future, with both glory and tarnish, that awes with complexity and inspires with vision.
If you haven't already read Red Mars, the series is a scientifically in-depth narrative about the colonization of mars.
Coyote + sequels by Allen Steele.
Red Mars + sequels by Kim Stanley Robinson.
40,000 in Gehenna by CJ Cherryh, now available in Alliance Space.
A lot of sci-fi books predict private space exploration as well. My favorite example is the Mars Trilogy. However, the supposed leaders in commercial spaceflight, like SpaceX for example, are subsidized by NASA just like the companies that were developing Ares I and V. The only difference is that their projects cost less. But the reason they cost less is not because they are innovating the field by being commercial enterprises, rather, they cost less because they only go barely past the Kármán line whereas the Ares rockets could go to the moon.
Up vote this people, this is a fucking good book. An as b0b0tiken says, after reading this book, I would gladly take this trip.
Here is the mobile version of your link
Red Mars
Yeah, there's a whole series of books about it.
Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
Really guys? No one mentions the hard SF books for Mars exploration by Kim Stanley Robinson?
Mars Trilogy
Have you read the 'Red Mars' series? They're by Kim Stanley Robinson and are pretty much exactly the sort of hard sci-fi + character development that you seem to enjoy. They're also pleasantly topical given Curiosity's successful landing.
> As an engineering student, adherence to logically engineered ships is cool. :P
Yeah, I have a physics background, so I'm right there with you. It's just that the ships already exist in a world with nonsense piled upon nonsense, so at this point I don't necessarily feel the need to make any part realistic, as long as it's cool. It's a little like saying the saddle for a wizard to ride on a flying dragon should physically be near the middle instead of near the front.
By the way, one set of sci-fi books I really enjoyed as far as realism is concerned are the Expanse books. The authors say that the books are emphatically not hard sci-fi, but still, they only seem to go into "magic" technology where they have to. For example, ships have an "Epstein drive" that makes space travel reasonable and economical, but it thrusts like a normal rocket, rather than warping around as in Star Trek. So if people travel from Mars to Jupiter, they accelerate at 1g for half the trip so they can walk around in the ship at 1g, and then they flip the ship around and decelerate at 1g for the second half. Trips can take a long time, obviously, but it physically makes sense, and interplanetary distance is such that if you work it out, travel times would take weeks or months rather than years. They describe how some ships end up feeling a little like towers when they're under acceleration, since they extend away from the main thruster, so "down" ends up being back toward the thruster.
Fun fact: If you used real-life technology to build a nuclear rocket and accelerated at 1g for 10 days, you could get to Alpha Centauri in 133 years. (One-way, no slowdown.) The estimated cost would be about one entire month of US GNP. (So no one makes any food during that time, or anything else.) (This wikipedia page is cool.)
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars) was also enjoyable to me for similar reasons. Two thumbs up.
I think you'd really like this book, your comment is basically the defining opinion of some of my favorite characters in it.
Okay, for sci-fi, you have to get The Culture series in. Put Player of Games face out.
I don't read a lot of space books, but Asteroid Hunter by Carrie Nugent is awesome. I mostly have recommendations for spaceflight and spaceflight history, and a lot of these come from listeners to my podcast, so all credit to them.
The Mars Trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson
An excellent read in my opinion, charts the course of the first permanent settlement on Mars and continues through the years, the political strife, effects of immigration to Mars due to massive global warming on Earth, realistic science, at least for the first part, factions, both personal and political. Pretty dense books, but worth the read.
The obvious answer would be The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson, starting with Red Mars.
Came here to say the most in depth and likely realistic protrayal of how a planet would be settled and likely how it's politics would evolve has been done by the "Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars" trilogy by kim stanley robinson.
It goes from early settlement military vs scientific type government to democratic evolutions to control issues between earth and mars (self determination) to building huge space infrastruture to suppor tthe planet like a space elevator etc to fights with terrorists about the degree of environmental distruction vs preserservation that should be allowed.
read those books.
One of the best book series I have ever read - sci fi or not. Great for political study as well as planetary engineeering and space settlement and more.
It's like having the experience of having actually done it once and then considering doing it better the second time around.
If you have any interest at all in this subject matter you simple have to read those books (and you'll love them).
It gets you your Ph.D. in "Mars settlement".
Then you'll be ready to talk without repeating what has already been extensively thought about ( not that there is anything wrong with that)
Red Mars ( book 1 of 3 link)
"In his most ambitious project to date, award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson utilizes years of research and cutting-edge science in the first of three novels that will chronicle the colonization of Mars.
For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny.
John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic "alchemists, " Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life...and death.
The colonists place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light to the planets surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces--for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.
Brilliantly imagined, breathtaking in scope and ingenuity, Red Mars is an epic scientific saga, chronicling the next step in human evolution and creating a world in its entirety. Red Mars shows us a future, with both glory and tarnish, that awes with complexity and inspires with vision."
Green Mars (book 2 link)
"In the Nebula Award winning Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson began his critically acclaimed epic saga of the colonization of Mars, Now the Hugo Award winning Green Mars continues the thrilling and timeless tale of humanity's struggle to survive at its farthest frontier.
Nearly a generation has passed since the first pioneers landed, but the transformation of Mars to an Earthlike planet has just begun The plan is opposed by those determined to preserve the planets hostile, barren beauty. Led by rebels like Peter Clayborne, these young people are the first generation of children born on Mars. They will be joined by original settlers Maya Toitovna, Simon Frasier, and Sax Russell. Against this cosmic backdrop, passions, rivalries, and friendships explode in a story as spectacular as the planet itself."
Blue Mars (book 3 link)
"The red planet is red no longer, as Mars has become a perfectly inhabitable world. But while Mars flourishes, Earth is threatened by overpopulation and ecological disaster. Soon people look to Mars as a refuge, initiating a possible interplanetary conflict, as well as political strife between the Reds, who wish to preserve the planet in its desert state, and the Green "terraformers". The ultimate fate of Earth, as well as the possibility of new explorations into the solar system, stand in the balance."
Into sci-fi, huh? Read those too! :D
I take it you've read Red Mars?
103 comments and no one has mentioned the Mars Trilogy?! For shame!
sci-fi suggestion:
The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
I cannot pimp this series hard enough. Immensely hard epic martian colonization sci-fi with characters that are ultimately believable.
I could not put it down when I started reading.
Nobody I've recommended it to has disliked it.
It's also the only fiction novel/series my dad has ever read. Also the only one he's enjoyed.
edit: also thanks to your shelf, I realize there's more books in the "Chindi" series. It was some random used softcover I found for $0.25. I shall go locate the others!
A good thing for you to do is to read Red Mars, it gives a good explanation of possible ways for us to live on Mars (and in the later books in the trilogy other planets).
If you don't mind Sci-fi, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy would be great for inspiration.
Red Mars (Mars Trilogy) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553560735/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_jonPAb41Z800D
Possibly the Western Sahara. It's claimed by Morocco but has an official status of a "disputed zone" with the Polisario Front.
And since you probably won't leave civilization, I would have two suggestions that you might enjoy.
http://www.vbs.tv/watch/far-out--2/heimo-s-arctic-refuge-full-length
http://www.amazon.com/Antarctica-Kim-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0553574027
http://www.amazon.com/Red-Mars-Trilogy-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0553560735
Though not the most recent nor academic sources of discussion on the topic, these two iconic scifi books/series are incredibly detailed and well-informed. They show two slightly different but plausible implementations of the technology involved.
Red Mars ; Green Mars ; Blue Mars - all by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Fountains of Paradise - by Arthur C. Clarke
http://www.amazon.com/Red-Mars-Trilogy-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0553560735
One of my favorite setups for Science Fiction
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Mars-Trilogy-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0553560735
Although I recommend getting it from your local library.
I came here to recommend this series, especially the first book (Red Mars). Awesome, awesome books!
Depends on the book. I've bought books for .99$ and paid s and h for the book.
But I've also bought books for 4$ plus 4$ for a and h.
Just depends. If you click on what book you want you can usually see "buy used" options
Edit: for example
That would be cool.
​
Got me thinking of what sorta stuff would cover more near future sci fi. Cause so often its far in the future or far in distance so as to comment on aspects of the current day in an "alien" world/environment. I found this: "Red Mars" by Kim Robinson.
I liked the Red Mars trilogy. And the series that starts from Coyote does a good job of making the tech believable, but also telling a timeless story that kids can grok.
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Dragon's Egg by Robert Forward
These are "hard" science fiction books: they try to be as realistic as possible. They make you feel like we'll be living on mars in a couple years.
http://www.amazon.com/Red-Mars-Trilogy-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0553560735/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268769251&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Egg-Del-Rey-Impact/dp/034543529X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268769139&sr=8-1
If you haven't already read Red Mars then I recommend it; plot aside, the science behind the terraforming efforts described in the book was impeccably researched, and probably not far off what we'll eventually attempt.
if you haven't read the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, run to the bookstore and get Red Mars. It is probably one of the most well thought out colonization scenarios i've come across.
Arkady Lives!
check this out-- the author really thought it through & seems to have really done his homework
i think i would not go for life. but i would love to go photograph it. imagine being the first photographer on mars
Red Mars - by Kim Stanley Robinson
93.7/100
Near-future hard scifi
This book has been brilliant, with significant emphasis on the science part of science fiction, and builds a very real and imaginable world in which people have started inhabiting Mars. Jazz music references were a pleasant surprise and definitely a bonus if you're a jazz nerd.
Amazon
Looking at the ISS from just one angle doesn't do the project justice. Economically, NASA is a stupidly wasteful place where money goes to die. It was routine for NASA to contract projects out to companies that would later demand more money and time to finish said project. NASA expected and budgeted for "problems" like this.
But the fact is, NASA wasn't built to be economically viable. Its primary benefits come from international cooperation, scientific discovery, and circulating money from the government back into the economy. It's entirely possible that the ISS saved us from a nuclear end to the cold war. It wouldn't make sense to start a project like the ISS today, but keeping it going is another matter entirely. The main argument for shutting the ISS down is that it is getting old, and maintenance problems are only going to get worse.
I have imagined the feasibility of getting a base on Mars going. You should consider reading the Red Mars trilogy for a great explanation of how it could start and continue. It's not only feasible, it's necessary.
With a near term timeline, and scientific exploration, this is so far the sub-genre I am looking for.
> "Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson
from a link
>For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic "alchemists, " Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life...and death. bold is mine
So let's take a look at this and see how it stacks up against hyperstition, the mythos of culture so subconscious that it is a set of assumptions taken for granted, patterns of society which do not normally require questioning. (hyperstition is kind of a new term for me so if anyone has comments on this its appreciated)
I bolded "opportunity to strip the planet" above to highlight the cultural attitude required to produce this behavior. To simply state the issue, exponential exploitation happens when you combine unlimited growth (no natural predator or checks on permacultural viability) with deception and exploitation formalized as the profit motive, the engine which drives our economy.
Let me shift a perspective with a hypothetical question. Imagine that Earth had an "alien encounter" with advanced "visitors" from another solar system. Would you rather that their civilization be founded upon fundamental inequality (division, pyramid, competition, authoritative), or one founded upon equality (civilization 2.0, unity, cooperation, collaborative)? I am trying to imagine the difference in their behavior, and well, Star Trek comes up. So anyhow its just a metaphor to point at possibility.
Personally, I think that competition (exploitation) would be too destructive to make it out to space in any kind of sustainable manner. When we talk about sustainability I suggest we clarify what is it we are really concerned about sustaining. Growth? Looking at the bigger picture it almost seems irresponsible to unleash a self-replicating mining operation firing minerals to some central points and consuming the local resources? Conceivably escaping our solar system to automatically strip anything within thousands of light years? For what purpose is this? Which one would we prefer again?
So I would say that this is a great example of missing out on a more constructive narrative. I also bolded "life...and death" above because this would only be the likely obsession of super-self-centered personality (ego) which has repressed access to god (mediated by church, or blocked by scientism). Scientism allows the mind's entire construction of reality to be fabricated by an assortment of learned patterns, as opposed to directly experiencing through inward application of scientific method (meditative exploration).
So anyhow, considering this kinda stuff has been happening for quite some time (check out my story ;), I suggest that stories oblivious to the whole hyperstition thing and of the implications of mythos, logos, and nomos:
>Mythos, Logos, and Nomos composed the first great Trinity (at least of Western civilization), but its begetting required Logos to first generate the sub-trinity of ontology, epistemology, and teleology, and then for ontology and teleology to "feed back" and powerfully enrich epistemology — logic and science — converting part of epistemology into a meta-science, cybernetics, the art of converting wisdom into choice, choice into action, and action into subsequent evaluation and resulting refinements of future choices and actions … especially those choices and actions which Socrates, according to Plato, associated with the art of governance.
>Such "cybernetic thinking" was crucial to defining and then enriching Nomos. Note that the ancient Greek verb "kuberne" is embedded in both "cybernetics" and "governance", and their association originated with Socrates' analogy to the art of the kubernetes, the helmsman, the pilot, who must integrate knowledge of the changeless ("stars") with the naturally changing ("winds and waves") in order to choose whether and how to act with reference to that which is humanly changeable — to alter the angle of the rudder, the trim of the sail.
btw. check out other documents on that site
This potential conflict is described in the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Best books I ever read :)
Here is a link to the Wikipedia page:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy?wprov=sfti1
Here is a link to the first book, Red Mars, on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Mars-Trilogy-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0553560735
Here is a link that is kind of an overview of space elevators in the trilogy:
http://www.kimstanleyrobinson.info/content/space-elevator
Here's a fictional fun read about colonizing and terraforming Mars. If you're into imagining how we'd do it, the story goes into quite a bit of detail.
A lot of great books have been mentioned here, but I'd like to throw Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson into the mix as well.
It's a book about the settlement of Mars in the near future, but I would not really call it sci fi. The way I read it was as a mainly philosiphical work on what it means to "start" a new world. What society would one create? Have we learned from the mistakes of the "old world"? I found it incredibly immersive.
Could it be Red Mars and the Mars Trilogy? (Red Mars is the first of the trilogy.)