Reddit reviews Red Mars (Mars Trilogy Book 1)

Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson:

Red Mars (Mars Trilogy Book 1) by Kim Stanley Robinson http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QCS914/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_4Re8tb1W5S90X

Fiction:

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin is a great start (good critique of anarchist philosophy).

The Red Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson actually cites Mondragon and discusses cooperative economics in detail.

After The Deluge (of Critical Mass fame) by Chris Carlsson is a novel about a post-capitalist San Francisco.

Non-fiction:

After Capitalism by Seymor Melman.

America Beyond Capitalism by Gar Alperovitz.

Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism by Richard Wolff.

Capitalism's Crisis Deepens: Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown by Richard Wolff.

After Capitalism by David Schweickart.

Against Capitalism by David Schweickart.

Capitalism or Worker Control by David Schweickart

Putting Democracy to Work by Frank T Adams.

Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice by Jessica Gordon Nembhard.

Humanizing the Economy: Co-operatives in the Age of Capital by John Restakis.

Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution by Marjorie Kelly.

For All the People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America by John Curl.

Makes sense. I have lost any hope that our species will be capable of restraining ourselves from destroying our own biosphere.

On a related note, for the last couple of nights I've been playing a cool new boardgame called Terraforming Mars. It is partly based on the hard science fiction series about same, written by Kim Stanley Robinson.

It looks like we have a lot in common in terms of what we like to read! I absolutely love Heinlein and have read all of his books. We also have Ready Player One in common on our lists.

I think you would enjoy this book for sure. I think it has a similar feel to Heinlein but a little more modern.

I was originally going to go for the Mars Trilogy's first book Red Mars, but that just has to wait for a Reddit free gift from my new favourite SciFi author :D

If you like hard sci-fi and haven't read the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson - I can't recommend it strongly enough. It's actually what got me into KSP, because after reading it I was just desperate to explore space.

Here you go:

Red Mars

Green Mars

Blue Mars

Fulfilled: Kim Stanley Robinson (plus two or three more). And, to be more directly Marxist, his thesis advisor Fredric Jameson.

Here's his description:

> Watch Nat Geo's MARS Monday 11/14 at 9/8c: http://makemarshome.com/
>
> Watch Kevin and Jake's videos! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_MhErD-EA0&index=2&list=PLiyjwVB09t5xDxwO8KpwJA2HTA13xarpf
>
> Thanks to Nat Geo for sponsoring this video
>
> Earth and Mars size comparison: http://www.space.com/16871-how-big-is-mars.html
>
> calculate how much you’d weigh on Mars: http://www.exploratorium.edu/mars/yourweight.php
>
> Martian ‘sun dial’:
>
> http://www.universetoday.com/96930/curiositys-sundial-carries-a-message-of-hope/
>
> http://mars.nasa.gov/multimedia/interactives/revealing-mars-before-after-image-comparison-slider/rover-opportunity/
>
> Touching Mars images (walnut regolith): http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/multimedia/images/2005/dust_devils.html
>
> Pascal Lee:
>
> http://www.pascallee.net
>
> https://www.facebook.com/PascalLeeOfficial/photos/a.533740600028877.1073741831.518292958240308/951932401543026/?type=3&theater
>
> Other flag ideas:
>
> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151214-what-would-the-flag-of-mars-look-like
>
> https://astrosociety.org/edu/publications/tnl/66/flag.html
>
> Kim Stanley Robinson’s excellent trilogy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QCS914/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
>
> terraforming of Mars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars
>
> Outer Space Treaty: http://www.state.gov/t/isn/5181.htm#treaty
>
> Extraterrestrial Liberty: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-18063-2_3
>
> Time on Mars:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timekeeping_on_Mars
>
> http://jtauber.github.io/mars-clock/
>
> Mars orbit: http://www.windows2universe.org/mars/mars_orbit.html
>
> Mars orbit proximity chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mission_to_Mars#/media/File:Mars_close_appr.png
>
> NASA Mars time program: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/mars24/
>
> Mars Watches:
>
> http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/spotlight/spirit/a3_20040108.html
>
> http://web.archive.org/web/20120525133718/http://executivejewelers.com/jewelscart2000/store/jewelscart2000_listCategoriesAndProducts.asp?idCategory=10
>
> Darian calendar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darian_calendar
>
> Ask a Mathematician physicist article: http://www.askamathematician.com/2012/09/q-is-it-likely-that-there-are-atoms-in-my-body-that-have-traveled-from-the-other-side-of-the-planet-solar-system-galaxy-or-universe/
>
> Apollo quarantine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Quarantine_Facility
>
> space dust: http://www.universetoday.com/92807/rocks-from-mars/
>
> Blood and skin cells changing: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1q16hw/im_32_is_there_a_single_cell_or_even_molecule/
>
> Planetary protection:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection
>
> https://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/
>
> Mars sample return [PDF]: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/pss/presentations/200803/04-Atlas-PPSonMSR.pdf
>
> glow worms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnocampa_luminosa
>
> ANSMET: http://caslabs.case.edu/ansmet/
>
> AH84001: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Hills_84001
>
> Bill Clinton speech on Mars rock: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHhZQWAtWyQ
>
> All music by http://www.youtube.com/JakeChudnow

>That said I feel like it would be a hell of a lot easier to live on a hot earth than it would be to live on mars.

Maybe; a rise in temperature means a rise in the prevalence of disease and superstorms. Combine those two and it doesn't look very promising for human civilization on earth.

On the other hand, developing a colonized mars with domed cities that have been acclimated to human climate would be quite easy to live in due to the lack of superstorms and disease. We need the tech (no small feat, though possibly achievable in the next half century I think) and the management to manage that tech. Even so, access to these domed cities would be limited so the point is moot if we're talking about moving the majority of human life over there.

If you want a good piece of hard sci-fi, check out Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. The focus of the utopic novel is colonizing and terraforming Mars and includes a great deal of political ideology and quasi-scientific ideas about how we would make it on Mars.

Awesome post! Love reading these.

For anyone who wants to read realistic science fiction focused on Mars in the same vein (but much deeper) as The Martian check out Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars

Windmills for energy? Lots of wind on Mars.

I thought they recently discovered frozen water was abundant on Mars' surface?

Everything else I agree with though. Also, read Red Mars if you haven't!

Hah, well there's a loaded tag.

I have no idea what happened to him/her, but I'm happy to have lent some input.

For the record I'm no expert, just a space nerd that reads a lot :-p

If you're curious to read more I'd recommend either Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments for nonfiction, or Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy for really well-researched and realistic science fiction.