Rating: 
Summary: Blue Mars - The Geology Lesson
Review: This series had great ideas, and a great story line. What it didn't need was an extended geology lesson. Robinson seemed to be focused on the look of the land, as though you were using a map as you read. After a while, all the escapements, plateaus, and canyons melded together. Story should have been the main emphasis, not geography...
Rating: 
Summary: On a level with the Foundation trilogy
Review: Asimov is dead, Heinlein is dead, thank god for Kim Stanley Robinson. There seems to be a shortage of hard sf writers at the moment, so if you are looking for a good read the mars trilogy is it. The last 200 pages of blue mars are, I think, one of the best passages I have ever read. It has the same quality as Arthur C. Clark's "City and the stars". Epic, haunting, it leaves you with a yearning to be there. It transcends being a mere novel to become an epic poem, a shakespere play of the future. (PS If you are interested in the technical side of getting to mars look up Rober Zubrin)
Rating:
Summary: actually more like a 4.5.... you gotta problem with that?!
Review: This book is the closer in the superb eco-socio-sci-fi trilogy masterpiece that is the Mars Trilogy. The books have always been fascinating to read partly because of the way Robinson skillfully mixes dirt-under-the-fingernails realism with well-grounded flights of intellectual and scientific fancy. His characters have grown stronger, out of their essentially allegorical roles in "Red Mars," but they suffer a bit without a key crisis or two to rally around... this book is slower, longer, more verbose and more of a thought experiment than the page-turning "Red Mars," however, Robinson evokes the land and characters so well that I don't really think it's a problem.In summary, let me add that most of these reviewers seem to be jerks.
Rating: 
Summary: Where's a good editor when you need one
Review: Blue Mars isn't a novel, it's a core dump. How Mr. Robinson's publisher let him get away with this formless foolishness is both mysterious and frustrating. Red/Green Mars were very compelling novels. Blue Mars is like a big block of stone with a beautiful sculpture trapped inside; unfortunately, no one bothered to do any of the hard work of getting it into proper shape. Robinson needs a good spanking for getting so sloppy.
Rating:
Summary: Longer than Foundation, more sand than Dune.
Review: Blue Mars is a lousy book in a lousy trilogy. It aspires to be the story of a world, and this lofty goal is simply beyond the reach of an author mired in the expression of his own opinions. In literary terms the trilogy has been a downhill run. At least Red Mars had a plot. Blue Mars is 800 pages of character development. No conflict, no suspense. Nothing. Unfortunatly all Robinson's characters are more-or-less the same: whiney and self-absorbed, not unlike Robinson himself if you've ever heard or read of him publically. Blue Mars basically follows these characters around in their respective wanderings: around Mars, to Earth, Mercury and the outer planets. In the background a constitutional government is set up on Mars, and its early evolution is traced. Robinson really gets into trouble, though, because he has an extremely shallow understanding of the things he's writing about. Robinson postulated a world that didn't make any sense. It was not internally consistant. This shouldn't fly in hard science fiction. He has a simplistic and unrevealing view of human nature. Pop-psychological tripe. His politics are mired in the 1970s. Big companies are bad and are about to take over (this plot line has petered out by Blue Mars). He thinks population growth is a bad thing. His ideal economy tries to do away with hierarchy and capital markets in favor of democracy and worker ownership. A case of Marx-meets-the-Teamsters There are also many technical problems with the series. His technical understanding seems, well, borrowed. It is as if he had interviewed a dozen thinkers and asked each of them for a few good ideas. He then incorporates them blindly, and without thinking through their consequences. Each idea (except the longevity treatment and the great flood) gets three pages and then dies, its implications lost. For example, in a society where energy is plentiful and molecular manufacturing mundane, the Earth (which is essentially a ball of heavy elements) inexplicably runs so low on metals that this dominates their relations with other powers. With widespread fusion power (since the first book) Mercury's solar power is still considered useful. Technological is driven by large social projects, top-down, not bottom-up. Ugh. Robinson would do well to read the works of Julien Simon so his future history wouldn't sound so ridiculous. He should reread the Foundation trilogy so he realizes that even a long book can move. He should fire his editor, as another reader alludes below. And a little character diversity wouldn't go astray. This book was disapointing, as was the series. Such a grand vista, and such a bland thinker to interpret it. I give it two stars, only because it was possible for it to have been even worse. If one reads with a skeptical eye, there are some things of interest. But probably you should just save your money.
Rating:
Summary: Robinson closes series with best book yet!
Review: Blue Mars is a spectacular finish to a defining series in modern Sci-Fi. Normally at his best when creating landscapes , Robinson expands on this talent creating a character-driven finale to a science based series. Not a lite read, I reccomend this book for anyone with a love of great books and an affinity for cutting edge science.
Rating: 
Summary: Haunting and hopeful, but where was the editor?
Review: The final 200 pages of this book are among the most rewarding I've experienced in SF. Haunting and hopeful, a tale of redemption and foregiveness, there is a touching maturity to the writing that is rarely reached in this genre. Its too bad you have to work through the first 500 pages to get there. With good editing, this could have been a brilliant 400 page instant classic. As it stands (at 762 pages), it requires incredible patience and endurance from the reader. But the payoff is there if you stick with it.
Rating:
Summary: A good book, but....
Review: In many ways, it is a pity that the trilogy that began with Red Mars should end with Blue Mars. The book disappointed me, although I was crazy in love with the other two. It was as if KSR had run out of ideas, or as if, due to the huge success of the previous two books, he was pushed to publishing Blue Mars way before he was ready. Do not mistake me, the book is not bad. It simply isn't half as good as the other two of the series. It was the first one of the trilogy that made me feel that it included too much science and too little characterisation. Many themes that were already discussed in Red & Green Mars returned in this book, but nothing new was added, either to the sociopolitical issues or to the actual history of the people that we learnt to love, respect or intensively dislike in the previous books. I don't even know what to suggest to others who have loved Red & Green Mars. To read Blue Mars will probably disappoint them, as it did me. Not to read it will probably leave them with the question "How does it end? What happens to the remaining of the first 100? And what happens to the beautiful newly-born planet & society we left full of hope in Green Mars?" I guess the suggestion is probably read it, if only for the sake of the other two. Left at that, Blue Mars probably merited only two stars. I gave it the 3rd star for only one reason : at the end, it makes us see there can actually be no end. Mars may be fully terraformed, but this does not and will not stop humans from seeking their destiny among the stars. There is no end to human curiosity & ingenuity, no limits to human endeavor, and therefore there is no end of hope for our race. Our place is among the stars. This is the common link between all three books, and it is a message worth hearing.
Rating:
Summary: DULL
Review: "Red Mars" was very well done, and all three books in this series are praiseworthy examples of technological research and terraforming projections, but none of that matters very much to most readers if the plot is a sieve, the characters wooden, and the action contrived. "Blue Mars" is a failure I'm afraid. I usually avoid SF, preferring historical fiction like the O'Brian naval adventure books, or WWII novels like "The Thin Red Line" or "The Triumph and the Glory" It is only because I'd heard so much about "Red Mars" that I tried Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy, and the all three books were good in spots, overall I found them pretty tedious.
Rating:
Summary: Possibly The Greatest Novel of All-Time.
Review: If there is one word that completely describes this novel, while at the same time being terribly inadequate to describe it, the word would have to be...beautiful. Purely, positively, without a doubt, the most beautiful work I have ever had the pleasure, nee ecstasy of reading. The technology involved is breathtaking, complex, and most importantly of all, scientifically feasible. The characters all have souls that interact in a highly complicated way with the soul that is projected by the burgeoning life of Mars that continues to grow as you read. This book is a tribute to the soul of mankind and his destiny to spread beauty and life throughout the universe.
|
