Green Mars
A review
©Inchoatus Group
April 2
|
|
Important InformationTitle: Green Mars Author: Kim Stanley Robinson Publisher: Bantam Books Cover art: just like before, nicely affecting for readers mulling over the story, but on the shelf a bit too much like a movie trailer Length: 624 pages in mass-market paperback Rating5 out of 7 (still good, but more politics and less science exacerbates the errors of Red Mars) |
|
Most Idiotic Reviews
“As the face of Mars changes, a revolution bides its time, waiting impatiently for the trigger event that will provide the perfect, probably only opportunity for the denizens of Mars to begin to secure an independent, self-assertive collective soul.” --Curledup.com
Many lemming critics hailed Green Mars equal to or superior to Red Mars. They are quite mistaken. But this one is particularly egregious. If you pay attention closely, you can hear in the background of this quote sounds of the lock-stepped marching of Bolshevik revolutionaries or any other fantasized Marxist coup d’etat. This is the kind of foolishness leftist propaganda breeds: this idea that the only possible satisfying course of action for any group of humans is the looming revolution for a collectively assertive soul. Does it occur to anyone that this is an oxymoron? This is the problem with Green Mars: Robinson has gone a bit overboard on his politics and it has weakened the overall book. Most Accurate Review “This wide-ranging novel is loaded with all manner of scientific and historical detail, but the story bogs down under its very breadth and seems almost like a Martian year—twice as long as it needs to be.” --Publisher’s Weekly This reviewer is quite correct: the book is too long. The quote’s a bit wrong in its focus, however. The scientific detail was welcome in Red Mars since it served the scope of the story and added to its magnificence. The extra burden of attempting to explain some highly idealized politics and passing it off with the same pragmatic applicability as the well-grounded science is a burden the book cannot bear. The politics bog down the story.
What We Say
This is not a bad book. Not at all. Despite being perhaps a bit overly generous to authors like Goodkind, 5’s are still rather hard to achieve on this site. If the review sounds a bit harsh, it’s due to the fact that Green Mars is such a disappointment from the magnificence of Red Mars. We noted in our review of Red Mars that one would question at times exactly how this Martian economy was working. These questions become much more painful when directed at Green Mars. It’s all well and good for ivory-tower, world-building scientists to bring idealized philosophy to their colony. In fact, expected! But in this novel a functioning, working, free-market society supposedly exists albeit with some socialist overtones. As such, the society should be experiencing some of the pains all economies do when idealism touches reality. Such gaffs can be forgiven in lesser novels. Ironically, Robinson is so good at the technical details in all other aspects that his fictional society becomes fully real and we expect it to function as one—thus, these errors become more obvious.
We open long after the end of Red Mars in Hiroko’s hideaway as the first generation of native-born Martians are growing up. They will begin to take an active part in the story, in the politics, and the ambitions of the others living on the planet. Most impressive is that the presence of those lost in the revolution or before—most notably Chalmers and Boone—are still keenly felt as people of lesser ability try but fail to come out from under their shadow. The loss of these legends feels much like how amputees describe their lost limbs: gone but somehow present in their absence. Other critics note the power of Robinson’s myth-making ability and they are quite right. The political factions are splintered all across the spectrum between total Reds (leave Mars alone) and total Greens (terraform Mars tomorrow) in every possible hue and permutation. Much of the book is given over to an attempt towards consensus between these groups and the stance they should take in regard to their own consensus. While lacking in sound political application—people in charge of the transnational corporations, people presumably fairly pragmatic, still spout the same abstract thought one would hear in a business ethics course between professors and grad students none of whom ever having attempted an independent negotiation or transaction more difficult than buying a used car—Robinson still retains his brilliant psychological insight into how people behave in such congresses. There are still moments of literary insight in these pages and should still be heeded.
Most notably, however, is the celebration of the scientist in the growing importance of Sax Russell. The chapters devoted to Sax, his approach to problems, his decisions, and his evolution as a character both in his attitude towards himself and the people around him, are astounding. Never has the experimental scientist been so beautifully rendered. Robinson’s writing in this regard has achieved something akin to a painter executing a genius portrait patrons can savor for ages to come. There are times in a great novel where a character will sublimate to an icon around which a group or a profession will gather and hold as an ideal or archetype for themselves. Every scientist, we expect, will find their ideal in Sax Russell.
Place in Genre Rating a book like this is difficult. Is it an independent novel? Should it be considered as part of the trilogy? Red Mars could stand on its own and we’ve elected to treat Green Mars independently as well. As such, it deserves its rating of 5: interesting, but derivative of Red Mars. It will have the cumulative influence on the genre that it will enjoy for being a part of the trilogy, but ultimately it is only a bridge between Red Mars and Blue Mars with little to say on its own behalf. Aside, of course, from the creation of Sax Russell. Our rating and belief in the Mars trilogy as a whole is much stronger than the individual rating of this book. Taken as part of a trilogy, our rating would be higher.
Why You Should Read This Anyone who read and enjoyed Red Mars will likely feel good about proceeding along with Green. This will be a very large number of people indeed. There will be many people who vociferously disagree with us and think it is just as good or even more so. We think they’re naďve clowns like the fellow who reviewed for curledup.com but that won’t dismiss how they feel about the book. Any scientist should absolutely read this book—even in the absence of having read Red Mars—in order to be introduced to Sax Russell. Why You Should Pass If you’re a right-wing zealot, you probably won’t be able to get over the politics. A good example is the TV show West Wing. If you can’t stand to watch that show, you’re going to find Green Mars equally irritating. The hippie sex increases quite a bit as well. If Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land offended your sensibilities, you’ll find those same parallels here.
|
||||||
|