Mars trilogy

"Red Mars" redirects here. For the planet, see Mars.

Red Mars

Red Mars
Author	Kim Stanley Robinson
Cover artist	Don Dixon
Language	English
Series	Mars Trilogy
Genre	Science Fiction
Publisher	Spectra/Bantam Dell/Random House
Publication date	January 1, 1993
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages	519 pp. (hardcover)
ISBN	0-553-09204-9
OCLC	26054317
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 20
LC Class	PS3568.O2893 R44 1993
Preceded by	none
Followed by	Green Mars

Green Mars

Red Mars
Author	Kim Stanley Robinson
Cover artist	Don Dixon
Language	English
Series	Mars Trilogy
Genre	Science Fiction
Publisher	Spectra/Bantam Dell/Random House
Publication date	March 1, 1994
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	535 pp. (hardcover)
ISBN	ISBN 0-553-09640-0
Preceded by	Red Mars
Followed by	Blue Mars

Blue Mars

Red Mars
Author	Kim Stanley Robinson
Cover artist	Don Dixon
Language	English
Series	Mars Trilogy
Genre	Science Fiction
Publisher	Spectra/Bantam Dell/Random House
Publication date	June 1, 1996
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	609 pp. (hardcover)
ISBN	ISBN 0-553-10144-7
Preceded by	Green Mars
Followed by	none

The Martians

The Martians
Author	Kim Stanley Robinson
Cover artist	Don Dixon
Language	English
Series	Mars Trilogy
Genre	Science Fiction
Publisher	Spectra/Bantam Dell/Random House
Publication date	September 1, 1999
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	352 pp (Hardback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-553-80117-1

The Mars trilogy is a series of award-winning science fiction novels by Kim Stanley Robinson that chronicle the settlement and terraforming of the planet Mars through the intensely personal and detailed viewpoints of a wide variety of characters spanning almost two centuries. Ultimately, more utopian than dystopian, the story focuses on egalitarian, sociological, and scientific advances made on Mars, while Earth suffers from overpopulation and ecological disaster.

The three novels are Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993), and Blue Mars (1996). An additional collection of short stories and background information was published as The Martians (1999). The main trilogy won a number of prestigious awards.

Plot

Red Mars—Colonization

Red Mars starts in 2026 with the first colonial voyage to Mars aboard the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever, the Ares, with a crew of whom are to be the first hundred colonists, composed for the most part of Russians and Americans. The book details the construction of the first settlement on Mars, called Underhill. A debate among the colonists breaks out about the advisability of terraforming the planet, focusing on the two extreme views personified by Saxifrage "Sax" Russell, who believes their very presence on the planet means some level of terraforming has already begun and it should be continued, a viewpoint held by a group called the "Greens"; and by Ann Clayborne, who represents the viewpoint that humankind does not have the right to change entire planets at their will and Mars should be left in its original state, a viewpoint held by the "Reds". Hiroko Ai represents a middle ground, believing that a new way of living could evolve on Mars, a philosophy referred to as Areophany.

The Greens eventually win out, through direct intervention in some cases, and the first steps to terraforming Mars start during the novel. At the same time, new towns are developed across the planet, increasingly open as new technologies and materials allow pressure to be contained in new ways. However, because of the greed of the transnational corporations that come to dominate and control the nation states of Earth, the new Martian towns become overcrowded and undermaintained. Several cases of sabotage of terraformation infrastructure occur, blamed on the anti-terraforming Red forces. The situation results in a violent revolution in 2061, in which many of the First Hundred are killed, and much of Mars' infrastructure, notably the space elevator and Phobos, are destroyed. Most of the surviving members of the First Hundred are forced into hiding underground — in this case a literal underground shelter created by Hiroko Ai under the Martian south pole.

Green Mars—Terraforming

Green Mars takes its title from the stage of terraforming that has allowed plants to grow. It picks up the story from Red Mars, following the lives of the remaining First Hundred and their children and grandchildren. Hiroko Ai's base under the south pole is attacked by UN forces, and the survivors are forced to escape into a (less literal) underground organization known as the Demimonde. Among the expanded group are the First Hundred's children, the Nisei, a number of whom live in Ai's second secret base, Zygote.

As unrest in the multinational control over Mars' affairs grow, various groups start to form with different aims and methods. Watching these groups evolve from Earth, the CEO of the Praxis Corporation sends a representative, Arthur Randolph, to organize the resistance movements. This culminates into the Dorsa Brevia agreement, in which nearly all the underground factions take part. Preparations are made for a second revolution beginning in the 2120s.

The book follows the characters across the martian landscape, which is explained in detail. As Sax Russell's character infiltrates the transnat terraforming project, the newly evolving martian biosphere is described at great length. A mainstay of the novel is a detailed analysis of philosophical, political, personal, economical, and geological experiences of the characters. The story weaves back and forth from character to character, providing a picture of Mars as seen by them.

One major event is a sudden, catastrophic rise in Earth's global sea levels, which is caused not by any greenhouse effect but by the eruption of a chain of volcanoes underneath the ice of west Antarctica, disintegrating the ice sheet and displacing the fragments into the ocean.

Blue Mars—Long-Term results

Blue Mars takes its title from the stage of terraforming that has allowed atmospheric pressure and temperature to increase so that liquid water can exist on the planet's surface, forming rivers and seas. It follows from the end of Green Mars and has a much wider scope than the previous two books, covering an entire century after the second revolution and showing the spread of human settlements across the solar system—a process Robinson terms the Accelerando.

The Martians—Short stories

The Martians is a collection of short stories that takes place over the timespan of the original trilogy of novels, as well as some stories that take place in an alternate version of the novels where the First Hundred's mission was one of exploration rather than colonization. Buried in the stories are several hints about the eventual fate of the Martian terraforming program.

Writing style

The author uses a third-person perspective throughout the entire series. The story follows a multitude of characters who see the plot from different angles. This gives the reader a broad picture of the developments in the novels. The chapters are separated by arch chapters that mark off the character the reader follows.

An interesting aspect to the series is the protagonist-antagonist relationships. Because the series spans a period of 200 years, there are multiple characters who hold the title of protagonist. In contrast, the antagonist position is only filled by one or two characters (depending on the reader's perspective). More so, Robinson introduces a unique perspective on the protagonist-antagonist relationship. The transnational corporations, which play an integral role in the series, also match each other in this bond. Unlike the individual characters, this relationship lasts through all three books.

Robinson also does not just use the standard plot graph of build up, climax, and conclusion. The books delve into much more than one plot, each with its own time line and conclusion—but all of these fall under the great umbrella that defines the Mars trilogy—the colonization of Mars. Such an example of this is relationships between characters that end abruptly — only to be touched upon again much later in the story as a side note — but sufficiently reminds the reader that it did play a part in the development of the character.

Story elements

Corporations

Trans-national Corporations, nicknamed "Transnats", are extremely powerful multinational corporations that first emerge in the mid-21st century. These multinational corporations have grown so large as a result of globalization that they have sufficient economic power to take over or strongly manipulate national governments, initially only relatively small third-world governments, but later, larger developed governments too. In Robinson's future history, the transnational corporations become similar to nation-states, continually attempting to take over competitors in order to become the sole controller of the interplanetary market. As the Mars trilogy draws to a close in the mid-22nd century, the transnational corporations are forced by a global catastrophe to concede more democratic powers to their workforces.

Although there are many transnational corporations mentioned, two play an active role in the development of the plotline. Praxis, a largely benevolent and relatively democratic firm, and Subarashī, which plays a large role in the maltreatment of the citizens of Mars.

Other themes

The books also speculate on the colonization of other planets and moons in the solar system, and include descriptions of settlements or terraforming efforts on Callisto, Mercury, Titania, Miranda, and Venus. Toward the end of the last novel, humans are taking sub-light colony ships to other stars, taking advantage of the longevity treatments to survive the trip to their destinations.

A great portion of Blue Mars is concerned with the effects of extreme longevity on its protagonists, most of whom have lived over two hundred years as a result of repeated longevity treatments. In particular, Robinson speculates on the psychological effects of ultra-longevity including memory loss, personality change, mental instability, and existential boredom.

Characters

The First Hundred

The initial colonists from the Ares who established a permanent colony. Many of them later become leaders or exemplary figures in the transformation of Mars or its new society.

John Boone

Template:Mars trilogy character An American astronaut, and the first man on Mars, he returns a public hero and uses his considerable influence to lobby for a second mission, this time one of colonization. Boone received a large amount of radiation on his first trip to Mars, more than the recommended dosage according to medical regulations. However, his celebrity status allows him to skirt this. On the second voyage, Boone is one of the "First Hundred" colonists sent to permanently colonize Mars. His accomplishments and natural charm yield him an informal leadership role. In the first chapter of Red Mars, John Boone is assassinated by fundamentalists acting under the aegis of Frank Chalmers. The narrative then steps back to the First Hundred's voyage to Mars aboard the spaceship Ares. His ideas continue as a point of reference for the remainder of the trilogy. Boone's character portrayal is complex; in one light, Boone is a stereotypically simple, heroic figure, an everyman hero: his first words on his first trip to Mars are "Well, here we are." He is almost uniformly cheerful and good-natured, and approaches everything he undertakes with hale bonhomie. But later in Red Mars, Robinson switches to Boone's point of view, and it is in this section that it is revealed that late in life, Boone is addicted to omegendorph, a fictional drug that is based on endorphins in the human brain. In addition, it reveals that at least some of his seeming simplicity might simply be an act designed to further his political goals. Overall, Boone is presented as larger-than-life.

Frank Chalmers

Template:Mars trilogy character Head of the American contingent, he is Machiavellian in his use of power. However, his cynicism is later shown to be a form of self-defense; Chalmers is at least partly driven by a hidden idealistic side. Early in the voyage to Mars, he becomes romantically involved with Maya Toitovna, the leader of the Russian contingent of the mission. During the second-half of the voyage, Maya becomes involved with John Boone. Already bitter that John was allowed to join the colonization mission despite his manipulations, Frank further despises John because of Maya's affection. His dislike culminates in his involvement in a plot to assassinate John, which ultimately succeeds. Frank later flees with Maya and other members of the First Hundred to join the hidden colonists at the polar ice cap. He dies trying to save them when they get trapped in a flood unleashed from underground aquifers.

Maya Toitovna

Template:Mars trilogy character An emotional woman who is at the center of a love triangle between Boone and Chalmers, she begins as head of the Russian contingent. The novels hint that she used both wit and seduction to rise through the ranks of the Russian space agency to become the leader of the first colonization mission. After the first revolution, she flees with other members of the First Hundred to the hidden colony in the pole. She becomes a school teacher of the children of the hidden colonists but later becomes a powerful political force. After the deaths of Chalmers and Boone, she falls in love with Michel Duval. She suffers heavily from bipolar disorder and from memory related psychological disorders with growing age.

Nadezhda "Nadia" Chernyshevski

Template:Mars trilogy character A Russian engineer who started out building nuclear reactors in Siberia, during the voyage and initial exploration of Mars, she does her best to avoid the squabbles of the other members of the First Hundred. Instead, she busies herself by building the first permanent habitation of Mars, Underhill, using programmed automated robots. She also helps to construct a new and larger habitat, and research facility in a nearby canyon. In the later books, she becomes a reluctant politician. Nadia is in love with Arkady Bogdanov and is devastated when he is killed in an attack by anti-revolutionary forces associated with UNOMA, the transnationals, and Phyllis Boyle during the first Martian revolution. In retaliation for Arkady's murder, she activates his hidden weapon system, built into Phobos, which causes the entire moon (a UNOMA/transnational military base) to decelerate in orbit and destructively aerobrake in Mars' atmosphere, utterly destroying it. In Green Mars, she falls in love with Art Randolph, with whom she eventually starts a family. After Martian independence, she grudgingly becomes the first president of Mars.

Arkady Bogdanov

Template:Mars trilogy character An engineer with anarchist leanings, possibly based on Russian futurists, Alexander Bogdanov (the character's ancestor) and Arkady Strugatsky, he is regarded by many other members of the First Hundred, particularly Boyle, as a troublemaker. He leads the team which establishes an outpost on the moon Phobos, and leads an uprising against the transnational corporation towards the end of first novel. Like Boone, his political ideas (later known as Bogdanovism) weigh heavily on characters later in the series. In love with Nadia Chernyshevski, he is killed during the first Martian revolution in 2061.

Saxifrage "Sax" Russell

Template:Mars trilogy character An American physicist, he is a brilliant and creative scientist, and is greatly respected for his intellectual gifts. However, he is socially awkward and often finds it difficult to understand and relate to other people. Russell is a leader of the Green movement, the goal of which is to terraform Mars. During Green Mars, Sax suffers a stroke while being tortured by government security forces and fellow member of the First Hundred, Phyllis Boyle. He subsequently suffers from Broca's aphasia and has to relearn how to speak. Originally apolitical, this event and a growing attachment to Mars itself leads Russell to become the physical architect of the second revolution. He is also secretly in love with Ann Clayborne, who cannot stand him at first but, after decades on Mars, eventually reconciles. Saxifrage means "stonebreaker" and is the name for an Alpine plant that grows between stones.

Ann Clayborne

Template:Mars trilogy character Ann is an American geologist, one of the first areologists, and the original Red. She believes that Mars should be preserved in its pristine state. She becomes a leader of the Red movement, which is dedicated to the goal of preserving Mars as it was before human colonization. She is frequently seen as bitter and prefers to live in solitude on extensive trips while exploring Mars. She has a hate-love relationship with Saxifrage "Sax" Russell, an American physicist and leader of the Green Mars movement, which wants to terraform Mars. After she shows signs of aging and her death seems imminent, Russell has the longevity treatment administered to her while she is comatose. She develops a more complex personality afterward — sometimes remaining close to her isolationist position, and at other times appreciating the treatment and Mars in its terraformed state.

Hiroko Ai

Template:Mars trilogy character A Japanese expert on biology, agriculture, and ecological systems, it was Hiroko who smuggled Desmond "Coyote" Hawkins onto the Ares (the two were friends and lovers as students in London). She is the charismatic leader of the farm team, one of the important work groups and cliques among the First Hundred. She thus becomes the focus of many of the trilogy's central themes. Most importantly, she teaches the importance of maintaining a respectful relation with one's planet. On Mars, this is called the Areophany. In the secret colony Zygote, which Hiroko established, the first generation of children of the First Hundred, the ectogenes, are all the product of artificial insemination outside of any human body. Hiroko uses the ova of the female members of the First Hundred as the female genetic material and uses the sperm of the male members of the First Hundred to fertilize the ova. Although Hiroko is seldom at the center of the narrative, her influence is pervasive. Her profound absences are on the scale of John Galt in Atlas Shrugged or Harry Lime in The Third Man. She disappears for the final time in Green Mars. Her ultimate fate is left unresolved. In Japanese, ai means love.

Michel Duval

Template:Mars trilogy character A French psychologist assigned to monitor the psychological welfare of the First Hundred, first in Antarctica and later on Mars, he is often treated as an observer rather than as a member of the group. His aloof personality enforces this ostracism and also subverts his relationships with others. During the first disappearance of the farm team, he is invited by Hiroko to flee with the farm team and establish Zygote, the first hidden colony. He desperately wants to return to Provence as he remembers it, although after visiting as a part of the Martian diplomatic mission to Earth, he becomes even more homesick. Michel falls in love with Maya Toitovna and dies after she displays signs of very heavy temporary memory loss.

Vladimir "Vlad" Taneev

Template:Mars trilogy character A Russian biological scientist, nearly sixty when arriving on Mars, he is the oldest of the First Hundred. Taneev is the head of all medical treatment and research projects on Mars. He became famous as the creator of the gerontological treatment to stave off death. He lived in Acheron on the Great Escarpment in the north of Mars before fleeing to the hidden colony after the First Revolution. He lived in a ménage à trois with Ursula and Marina, the exact nature of which is never resolved.

Phyllis Boyle

Template:Mars trilogy character A Christian-American geologist who favors corporate control of Mars, her harsh personality does not win her many friends among the First Hundred. She eventually sides against most of the First Hundred with the increasingly authoritarian United Nations Office of Mars Affairs (UNOMA), its successor - the corporate/quasi-fascist United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTA), and the transnational corporations. She was in charge of Clarke, an artificially captured asteroid that was the counterweight of the First Space Elevator until members of the first revolution in 2061 sent it spinning off into the outer Solar System. She survived and was able to bring the crew of the station back to the inner systems. She engaged in a brief sexual relationship with Saxifrage Russell, who despised her, while he was living under an assumed identity. Boyle is killed by Maya Toitovna during the rescue of Russell from Kasei Vallis after Maya discovered that Phyllis was torturing Sax. Later, it is revealed by Russell that, immediately prior to her death, Phyllis had been opposed to his torture and demanded that he be released.

Desmond "Coyote" Hawkins

Template:Mars trilogy character A Trinidadian stowaway, he is a friend and supporter of Hiroko, and a fervent anarchist. Present in Red Mars only as a shadowy figure who blends effortlessly into the Martian background, he isn't even identified as anything more than the Coyote until the beginning of Green Mars. He becomes a leading figure in the underground and an unofficial coordinator of a developing gift economy.

Their descendants

Since the trilogy covers over 200 years of human history, later immigrants and the children and grandchildren of the First Hundred eventually become important characters in their own right.

Kasei

Kasei is the son of Hiroko and John Boone and the father of Jackie Boone. Kasei is the leader of the Kakaze, a radical Red faction. His name is Japanese for the planet Mars. He dies during the second revolution, after an unsuccessful attack on the second space elevator.

Nirgal

Template:Mars trilogy character The son of Hiroko and the Coyote, he is raised communally by Hiroko and her followers in Zygote. He is a good-natured wanderer who eventually becomes a political leader advocating ties with Earth. He is one of the founders of the Free Mars movement and is famous for his running technique that allows him to run all day for days on end. Nirgal was part of a mission that was sent to Earth, where he nearly died from an infection.

Jackie Boone

Template:Mars trilogy character The granddaughter of Hiroko and John Boone (raised with Nirgal), she emerges as an isolationist leader, presented as manipulative. After an influential political career, she steps down from Free Mars and joins an expedition to an extrasolar planet near Aldebaran.

Peter Clayborne

Peter Clayborne is the son of Ann Clayborne and Simon Frazier, being one of the first children born on Mars. Peter holds a position of older brother to all of the following first generation. Many revolutionary and later political decisions of the Mars First movement are influenced by his opinions and judgement. He works part-time as an engineer and a green.

Zoya "Zo" Boone

The daughter of Jackie via the gerontological longevity treatment, she has feline traits (purring) inserted into her genome. In Blue Mars, she travels the solar system running political errands for Jackie, although the two do not get along particularly well. Her character is portrayed as hedonistic, making sexual satisfaction a priority and seemingly having little regard for the feelings of others. On the other hand, she apparently has a conscience, risking her life to rescue a man on Mercury and later dying in an attempt to save a distressed flier.

Nikki

The daughter of Nadia and Art.

Other characters

Arthur "Art" Randolph

A representative of the Praxis corporation sent to contact the Martian underground movement on a quasi-diplomatic mission in an attempt to create a system of ecological capitalism based on democratic corporations Like the other metanationals, it takes on intensive economic and political ties with governments, but Praxis aims for partnerships rather than exploitive relationships.

Zeyk Tuqa and his wife Nazik

They are Muslim nomads. Zeyk's eidetic memory becomes a minor plot point.

William Fort

He is the founder of Praxis, one of the huge multinational corporations. He embraces a fusion of Eastern and Western lifestyles.

Quotes

• Boone: (As he makes his first step on Mars) "Well, here we are."
• Nirgal: "No hierarchy is worth acknowledging but this one: the more we give, the greater we become."
• Zoya Boone: "It's like a rainbow. Without an observer at a twenty-three-degree angle to the light reflecting off a cloud of spherical droplets, there is no rainbow. The whole universe is like that. Our spirits stand at a twenty-three-degree angle to the universe. There is some new thing created at the contact of photon and retina, some space between rock and mind."
• Hiroko Ai: "This is home. This is where we start again."
• Sax Russell: "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to be a rocket scientist."

Awards

• Red Mars won the BSFA in 1992, Nebula Awards in 1993, and was nominated for the Hugo, Clarke, and Locus Awards in 1993.
• Green Mars won the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1994, and was nominated for the BSFA (1993) and Nebula Awards (1994).
• Blue Mars won the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1997, was nominated for a BSFA Award in 1996, and received nominations for the Campbell and Clarke Awards in 1997.

Adaptations and uses

Screen adaptations

The Mars trilogy rights were at one point held by James Cameron, who planned a five-hour miniseries to be directed by Martha Coolidge, but he passed on the option. Later Gale Ann Hurd planned a similar mini-series for the Sci-Fi Channel, which also remained unproduced. Then, in October 2008, it was reported that AMC and Jonathan Hensleigh had teamed up and were planning to develop a television mini-series based on Red Mars.

On Phoenix spacecraft

The content of Green Mars is included on the Phoenix DVD, carried onboard of Phoenix, a NASA lander that successfully touched down on Mars in May 2008. The First Interplanetary Library is intended to be a sort of time capsule for future Mars explorers and colonists.

Video Games

The Red Faction series bears remarkable similarity to the Mars trilogy,with a similar overarching storyline (the martian revolution) and many of the same techniques were used to change the surface.

Translations to other languages

The trilogy has been translated into French, German, Polish, and Japanese, among others.

See also

• Mars
• Icehenge
• Terraforming of Mars
• Colonization of Mars
• Mars in fiction
• Kava - The Mars Trilogy contains many references to kava and kavajava—kava mixed with coffee. The novels use kava as the social drink of choice for the human colonizers of Mars.

External links

• The Mars trilogy at KimStanleyRobinson.info
• Review of the trilogy
• About mars and its exploration and Colonization. Courtesy of newmars, a subset of the mars society.
• full version of Red Mars uploaded by publisher, with PDF download