Book Review – Red Mars

Red Mars, the first book of the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, is a realistic science fiction novel set later in the 21st century.

Where has this book been all my life?  Or should I ask why I hadn’t read it earlier?  Having a degree in astronomy and physics, this should be right down my alley.  I love planetary science, and the exploration of the solar system is a big interest of mine.  Basically, this novel is like a textbook for the colonisation of Mars.  There’s a lot of science, but that’s not all.  There’s politics, philosophy, psychology, romance, extremism, and revolution.

It starts out somewhere in the middle of the book, then goes back to the beginning, on the way to Mars.  100 people were sent to Mars to settle it.  On Mars, we could read about how the colony was set up, how the people interacted, and how the colony grew over a span of several decades.  The story focuses on prominent members of the first hundred.  Frank and Maya are the American and Russian leaders of the colony, John is the first man on Mars, Arkady is a very colourful Russian engineer, Nadia is a workaholic construction specialist, Ann is a very opinionated geologist, Sax is a very serious and closed scientist, and many more.  Each section focuses on a different character as we get in their heads, figure out how they think, and see what life on Mars does to them.  There are vastly different ideologies among the first hundred, some are for terraforming, others are against.  This creates the greater part of the conflict on Mars, but there’s a lot more to it than that.  The characters really make this a joy to read.  I really liked John and Nadia, while I despised Frank.  But overall, the whole cast of characters makes this wonderful to read.

Mars itself is described in so much detail, I felt like I was there.  I felt like I was with the characters, actually living there.  Robinson uses a lot of technical and scientific language, so if you’re not used to these terms, it may be a bit difficult to read.  It’s not an issue for me, though.  It added to the experience.  I loved seeing how Mars changed over the decades while the characters grew from middle-aged to elderly.  Everything changed.

I learned that although I got attached to a lot of the characters, some of my favourites died.  Major characters died, and it just increased the drama.  I couldn’t be too sure about who was going to die next.  It was pretty unpredictable.  I wasn’t able to figure out what was going to happen next.  I couldn’t wait to see what happened on the next page.  Loved it!

I’m glad to finally have read this book.  I can’t wait for the next one.  Highly recommended!  This deserves 5 out of 5 stars.

Mars Colony

I’ve just started reading Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, and it’s had me thinking about humans colonising Mars.  In his book, we do it in 2026.  Several times in the past, NASA has set targets for going to Mars, and they’ve all died out.  The latest target set by the Obama administration is to reach Mars by the 2030s.  Of course, that’s if the government would stop trying to cut planetary programs.  In the following documentary, it says that with the changes of government every 4 to 8 years, it’s unlikely long term goals for colonising Mars would be realised, and we must focus on short term goals.  I haven’t watched the entire documentary yet, but this is a reminder to myself to watch it.  Here it is:

There’s one group that’s planning on sending people to Mars by 2023.  That’s only 10 years away!  I’m sure you’ve heard of it.  It’s Mars One. It’s a non-profit organisation that has already received thousands of applications from people who want to go to Mars and never return to Earth.  Over the next few years, they’ll select the lucky colonists partly through reality TV and pay for it from all the publicity it’ll receive.  The first mission, if it goes as planned, will launch in 2016 with supplies for the colony.  I would love for this to actually happen, but I won’t hold my breath.

There are a lot of novels that feature Mars colonisation, and even my Journey to Ariadne starts out on Mars (no longer a colony, but a civilisation).  One common idea is to terraform Mars.  This would be a very long process.  The Mars Trilogy by Robinson is all about the terraforming of Mars.  I’m very interested in seeing how the story progresses.  In my story, Mars isn’t terraformed, but still quite hostile.  To terraform Mars, a lot of gas would have to be injected into the atmosphere, enough to provide a high enough air pressure for people to survive.  But first, plants would have to be able to grow, meaning a greenhouse effect would be needed to warm the planet.  Water vapour and carbon dioxide are important for this.  Lots of water is needed.  But it’s a difficult process, considering Mars’ lower gravity and lack of magnetic field would make it very hard for it to retain this atmosphere.  Can it be done, though?  Who knows.

Where would we put the first colony?  Lowlands seem like the best bet.  The air pressure would be higher, the atmosphere thicker, and less radiation (although it’s quite high).  In the tropics would be best, most likely.  Stay away from the Tharsis region, as this is a huge bulge on the surface of the planet with a much thinner atmosphere.  In Journey to Ariadne, the story starts out in the Hellas Basin, which is a huge, ancient impact feature that has a very low altitude.

Of course, Mars is only a stepping stone for Journey to Ariadne.  Ariadne is the ultimate goal.

What do you think of the attempt to colonise Mars?  Do you think we should do it?  Leave a comment with your thoughts.

Daily Prompt: Back to School

WordPress’s Daily Prompt today is this: If you could take a break from your life and go back to school to master a subject, what would it be?

My simple answer: Geology

As many of my readers may know, I studied physics and astronomy in university, mostly because of my fascination and obsession with space and planets.  No wonder I’m writing a science fiction novel.  In my first year, I took two classes of introductory geology and enjoyed it thoroughly.  You see, my second choice of subjects to study was palaeontology.  My dinosaur interest was my reason for this choice. But the planets won.

Now, I often think, what if I’d studied only one planet, Earth?  It would’ve been very useful for studying other planets, such as Mars.  I realised that my interest in space was mostly the planets.  After I studied geology and went through most of my university career, I started developing the world I created for my science fiction novels, which is now known as Ariadne.  While astronomy certainly helped me with some of the planning, geology was what helped me create the world and give it a more realistic look.  It seems like a perfect match.

My home province of Alberta in Canada is very well-known for dinosaurs, the Rocky Mountains, and oil.  All three are related to geology.  My adopted country of Japan is a great place to examine seismology and vulcanology (or volcanology, however you want to spell it.  I prefer vulcanology because of a certain group of logical aliens.  But that’s the geek in me speaking). In fact, I have climbed Mt. Fuji almost 8 years ago.  What a wonderful place to look down at the rocks, or even inside the volcano.

One of my most memorable moments was looking inside the gaping maw of Mt. Fuji’s crater.

As an added bonus, my astronomy and geology interests met in a rather peculiar way.  As I was descending the mountain, I realised that the colour of Mt. Fuji was reminiscent of Mars.  Even the photos I took looked somewhat like Mars.

This is not Mars!

It would be absolutely fascinating to study this mountain, especially with the rumblings going on in geological circles saying that an eruption is imminent. But I don’t want it to erupt.  I live a bit too near it.

Space is very interesting, but I love planets.  Geology would bring me closer to understanding Earth, as well as other rocky planets, and help me make my created world even more amazing.