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Green Mars

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About this listen

 In Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson imagined a near future in which humankind established the first colonies on Mars and began to make the planet inhabitable for humans. In this stunning sequel to that Nebula Award-winning novel, Robinson takes the colonization of Mars to a new generation, with a new set of problems and concerns.

The initial Martian pioneers had fierce disagreements about how the planet should be used by humans. This led to a war that threatened the lives of billions of people on both Mars and Earth. Now, the second generation of settlers continues the struggle to survive the hostile yet strangely beautiful environment of the red planet. Their decisions and actions will ultimately determine whether Mars will simply be a sanctuary for scientists, a source of raw materials for Earth, or something much more.

Richard Ferrone's robust narration of this thrilling, timeless tale captures the fascinating diversity of Robinson's compelling characters, taking listeners to the farthest frontier of humanity's struggle to survive.

©1994 Kim Stanley Robinson (P)2001 Recorded Books Adventure Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Solar System Mars Survival

Critic reviews

"This may well be Robinson's best book and possibly the best of the many and various our-future-on-Mars novels to date." ( Booklist)
"Yet another masterpiece....I can't imagine anybody else staking out any portion of this immemorial dreamscape with the same elegant detail and thoroughness; it's Kim Stanley Robinson's now and for a long time to come." ( Science Fiction Age)
All stars
Most relevant
If you want ‘shoot em ups’ you’ll go somewhere else, this is intelligent theorising on the future. What may be is the business of fiction .

Loved it - beautiful intelligent space opera!

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let's face it, KSR doesn't have the most fluid and beautiful prose style. he's a hard sci-fi guy through and through and these are books of speculation and a lot of interesting science. the first book varies this of pretty well, abs this one is certainly not should of interesting ideas and pacey plotting but it's prose had definitely suffered.

a lot of this is dry and someone's outright clumsy. I get the feeling it was written to right deadlines with minimal editorial input, like the author spent a lot of time on the convention circuit.

that said, if you liked the first one you'll like this one. our heroes go through incredible trials and tribulations, and things okay out much more politically than before. again, lots of good ideas, and lots to enjoy. if you can look past the prose.

good, but flawed

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More of the same from Mr Robinson. All good stuff. Some bits are too long but it's a big story so needs a lot of background.

I gave the first book 5 stars, partly because it was new to me, so only 4 stars this time round, for reasons that I can't really explain!

If you liked Red, you'll like Green.

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I've listened to 2 of the 3 Mars trilogy books by Kim Stanley Robinson. I'd assumed that he must have a science background but, no - he's a writer writer (although he seems to have good science connections). I'm enjoying this series, it has interesting and often credible science ideas. His social interactions also seem reasonably plausible. My only reservations are
1. These books are VERY long and felt like they could have benefitted from a firmer editorial hand. I like a long listen, but (for example) some of the accounts of events like conferences are as unwieldy and turgid as conferences can actually be in real life - who needs that? So after 50 hours of 2 books I really need a break and am not actually looking forward to the third book right now - although I'll get past that and am pleased it's out there for when I'm ready.
2. There is a lot of science jargon. Now I can dig science jargon - but if you're listening to an audiobook on the motorway, as I do, and your the sort of person who likes to picture the story, you might struggle to imagine some of the environments unless the scientific terms are supported with a bit of ordinary english, to help you work out whether , for example the geological description means that the terrain is crunchy and unstable or frozen and smooth.
3. Some (if not many) of the main characters are flawed and selfish but take up a lot of space in the story - I have now lost all interest in whether a vain drama queen feels bad about the death of one of the men she strung along at the hands of another. That was 50 of my hours ago and 100 of their years, but that seems to be an ongoing plot issue.

That sounds critical - but the main news is that the basic story, terraforming Mars with a society that has a wierd and problematic quirk is a good one. The science is thought provoking and well researched. They are very good books, just ovelry wordy.

Solid sci fi performed well

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I love the book trilogy so far, he has done so much research but put them in simple way.

future

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