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Red Mars cover art

Red Mars

By: Kim Stanley Robinson
Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
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Summary

Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel, Red Mars is the first book in Kim Stanley Robinson's best-selling trilogy. Red Mars is praised by scientists for its detailed visions of future technology. It is also hailed by authors and critics for its vivid characters and dramatic conflicts.

For centuries, the red planet has enticed the people of Earth. Now an international group of scientists has colonized Mars. Leaving Earth forever, these 100 people have traveled nine months to reach their new home. This is the remarkable story of the world they create - and the hidden power struggles of those who want to control it.

Although it is fiction, Red Mars is based on years of research. As living spaces and greenhouses multiply, an astonishing panorama of our galactic future rises from the red dust. Through Richard Ferrone's narration, each scene is energized with the designs and dreams of the extraordinary pioneers.

©1993 Kim Stanley Robinson (P)2000 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"Generously blending hard science with canny insight into human strengths and weaknesses, this suspenseful sf saga should appeal to a wide range of readers." ( Library Journal)
"The ultimate in future history." ( Daily Mail)

What listeners say about Red Mars

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Epic scope, pedestrian delivery

Let's start with the positives: the audio production of this recording is excellent and the narrator is top notch.

The book itself is epic in scope and tells the story of the settlement and terraforming of Mars in great detail. As far as I can ascertain, the author's research is impeccable and the descriptions of Martian geography and scientific processes are inspired.

So, what's the problem?

Well, there's the length, and there's the pace of the story. Even if it were only half its current length, this would be a big book. To sustain such a long narrative, you would hope for interesting characters, lively prose and plenty of incident and excitement. Sadly, all of these ingredients are absent.

The story unfolds at a glacial pace and the author studiously avoids anything approaching adventure. There are storms, but everyone survives them without too much difficulty. There are many journeys, all of them long, during which little or nothing happens. A mystery is solved in a dull and perfuctory fashion.

Events do finally take a more interesting turn in the final third of the book, but even so, there is too little danger and too much talk.

The prose is functional and competent but nothing more. The characters are flat and two-dimensional and given to delivering set speeches on scientific and political topics. Many of the minor characters seem to be there solely to provide information dumps.

There is plenty of New Age philosophising and cross-cultural apologetics along the way, all of which is no doubt very worthy, but this listener soon tired of it and longed for something interesting to happen. Some sections of this book sound like an attempt at dramatising whole articles from Wikipedia.

So: a long book which is well read and which has some fascinating scientific detail, but which offers little in the way of excitement or interesting characterisation.

I love science fiction, but I'm afraid that I found 'Red Mars' very dull.

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24 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Boring

I note that it is highly rated by many people but I found it over-long with stereotypical characters one couldn't empathise with. The book is often commended for its well researched detail but the amount of detail acts as padding and gets in the way of the story - an encyclopaedia may have lots of well researched detail but that doesn't make it a good novel.

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19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Big Snooze

The books flits about from one (of the many characters) to another without going into depth and allowing you the chance to empathise. This makes their petty squabbles as to how the planet should be handled irrelevant to the reader. You never really get to understand the reasoning behind each characters stand point only their actions as to what they will do to protect their way of thinking. I also bought the sequels Green and Blue - and it doesn't get any better or more interesting.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Epic, intelligent, hard sci fi

Amazing, ambitious book covering humans' first colonisation of Mars and dealing in a highly plausible way with all the challenges they face in first surviving and then deciding what to do to the planet. Very strong character development and intriguing characters struggling with big questions in science and economics which are all meticulously researched. Only occasionally let down in the descriptions of the environment where it's sometimes hard to work out quite what's going on. Good narrator performance albeit not very varied. Also the book is quite 'serious' and the characters are not a barrel of laughs. Overall though a very impressive achievement.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

I'd rather read an encyclopedia

As a young boy I loved reading about the solar system and looking at the beautiful pictures in encyclopedias. Some time ago I was recommended this series by a fellow researcher and I have to say that this book and series is disappointing.

The book is stilted and plods, there is no real sense of drama or dynamism. You also never really get a sense of the scene being properly set, there are lots of place names thrown about but little or no descriptive writing that makes you feel anything about the place.

This also extends to the characters, I couldn't feel anything really positive towards any of them, I frequently found myself thinking so what? They all seem to be petty, small minded and a little annoying or otherwise bland stereotypes.

Getting through the book was very arduous and painful - even just listening. I have listened to the whole series and they don't get better. The book and series promised lots and delivered very little.

Bland and uninspired.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

red mars

Promised much but never delivered this book was so slow I gave up on it as not worth the time to listen

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic read

The narrator seems odd initially, but asit goes on, you realise he's a perfect fit!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Listen every year

I love this book I listen to it at least once a year. I’d like to be Nadia but fear I am Phyllis

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Epic. very long but worth it!

very long but worth it! Thought provoking while being enjoyably. so many different aspects, philosophies and ideas combined into one great narrative.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Sweeping story, superb narration

This was my fourth run through Red Mars (the other three times being in book form at various times over the last 15 years) and I loved it just as much as before - convincingly messy future history filled with characters who don't fall into easy categories of good or bad, and science & geography on a mind-boggling scale. So grand. But a special mention due for the late Richard Ferrone's narration here, which is so terrific - some of the best audiobook work I've heard. This was the first time I've heard one of his performances and now I understand why they're much-loved.

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1 person found this helpful