Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson

[Christopher]

^Again, I think it's ameliorated by the fact that the people who smuggled him aboard were some of the people in charge of the ship's security in the first place. If he'd been some outsider trying to sneak aboard with no help from anyone on the expedition, it would've been completely absurd. But it was an inside job. He was probably smuggled aboard in a container brought by Hiroko or some of her allies, people who were authorized to be there and who had the access and authority to bypass whatever sensors or security systems needed to be bypassed.

 

[FluffyUnbound]

I suppose my main problem with Coyote stowing away isn't so much about the logistics of hiding his presence from the others (which would be considerably difficult in a closed system) so much as the purpose of bringing him at all. I mean, why go to all that trouble?

I think one of Robinson's main themes is that when you're talking about planetary distances, social and political arrangements of control are extremely difficult to maintain, and the choices made by the individual people sent out to such distances will have profound impacts on historical outcomes.

Basically he's saying that no matter how we try to plan, the people we send on such a mission will be outside of our control very quickly. To Robinson, they're outside our control even before the mission starts -

Spoiler: Spoiler

everyone lies during their psych evaluation, Arkady and Hiroko are planning two separate rebellions even before the launch

, there's a stowaway that the space agencies couldn't stop, etc.

When the theme is how distance and imperfect information make control impossible, a stowaway story line illuminates that very nicely.

 

[Forbin]

One my all-time favorite trilogies! I too long for a faithful film adaptation.

 

[What's his face]

I just finished Green Mars. Wow, what a climax!
I can't wait to see what happens next, now that Mars is independent. Will the new government be stable? Will the Martians be able to help poor Earth?
(don't spoil it for me!)

Also, I've noticed that there's an anthology of short stories set in this universe called The Martians. Is this worth reading?

I've ordered The Years of Rice and Salt, also by Kim Stanley Robinson. It sounds interesting and I will let you know how it is!

 

[stj]

The earth is apparently passing through a magnetic field of stupid. It should be only temporary.

Did you know this was the premise of Poul Anderson's novel Brain Wave?

 

[What's his face]

The earth is apparently passing through a magnetic field of stupid. It should be only temporary.

Did you know this was the premise of Poul Anderson's novel Brain Wave?

I'm so overdue for a signature line change. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[Christopher]

Also, I've noticed that there's an anthology of short stories set in this universe called The Martians. Is this worth reading?

I found it kind of disappointing and self-indulgent. Some of its stories are in the same universe as the trilogy, but others are in various alternate-timeline versions of the continuity, some of the same characters but incompatible events. And there's no advance indication of which is which, and sometimes it's hard to tell. There's one story that you think is a prequel to the trilogy, but then it turns out to have a completely different ending, which feels like a cheat. And there are various vignettes about random sidebar things, and some poems, and some essays from Robinson about his process and what music he listened to while writing and such. It feels like he just tossed together a bunch of preliminary and experimental things and leftover scenes and story notes and Bantam paid him for it and stuck a book cover around it. Some of it is interesting, but overall it lacks focus and cohesion, and I don't think it's something a less successful and famous author would've been allowed to get away with.

The only reason I kept the book is because it has a section containing the entire Constitution of Mars, followed by some worknotes and commentaries from the constitutional convention depicted in the novels. I think there are some interesting ideas there about how to organize a government.

 

[Forbin]

Honestly, I haven't found anything else I've read by Robinson as interesting or memorable.

 

[Ruaidhri]

Also, I've noticed that there's an anthology of short stories set in this universe called The Martians. Is this worth reading?

I've ordered The Years of Rice and Salt, also by Kim Stanley Robinson. It sounds interesting and I will let you know how it is!

Regarding The Martians, Christopher made the point I wanted to make and did it much better. Self-indulgent is right! I always felt like a lot of it was bits of the novels that he edited out because they were clearly inferior, and the publisher asked him to collect it together in order to capitalize on the award wins/nominations the trilogy novels got.

The Years of Rice and Salt....is a seriously awesome book. One of my favorites. As much a work of philosophy as it is speculative fiction.