Green Mars

By: Kim Stanley Robinson

Narrated by: Richard Ferrone

Length: 27 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's Summary

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

Critic Reviews

• Hugo Award, Best Novel, 1994

"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)

Green Mars: a textbook scifi novel

Speculative science fiction, when done well, can feel like a yet to be fulfilled prophecy. Kim Stanley Robinson writes good speculative science fiction that achieves this feeling in his novel Green Mars. Green Mars is the second installment of Robinson's epic opus, The Mars Trilogy. Evidence of the book's popularity among scientific crowds is the fact that Green Mars was included in the payload of the 2008 Phoenix expedition to the planet Mars. It is among the first books in the Interplanetary Library.
An initial warning: Red Mars, the first book of Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy, should be read prior to reading Green Mars. The trilogy is not a series of stand alone story arcs that can be coherently read out of order. Red Mars and Green Mars were published a scant 13 months apart in 1993 and 1994. This quick publishing turn around time and the fact that the books are over half a thousand pages each leads one to believe that both books were finished at the same time. While this is just speculation (although I'm sure Kim Stanley Robinson has addressed this matter in interviews in the past 20 years), one can continue to speculate as to why the story was published slightly over a year apart in two different books. Perhaps the author wanted to double his entries in the Hugo and Nebula sweepstakes (Red Mars won the Nebula in 1993, Green Mars won the Hugo 1994). Perhaps the editor thought the tome would be too ponderous for a single book. Perhaps the publisher (Spectra/Bantam Dell/Random House) wanted the profits from two books instead of just one. Whatever the reason, just make sure, even though you are presently reading a review of Green Mars, that you read Red Mars first.
Green Mars is set in the near future and is centered around the populating and terraforming of Mars by immigrants from Earth and native born Martians. Green Mars weaves into its plot many other speculative science fiction devices in addition to terraforming. Medical advancements that double or triple the human lifespan play heavily into the story's plot. Other major plot conflicts include environmental disasters and protection (both on Earth and Mars), political dominance by multinational corporations, population growth, and battles over and with advanced technologies such as space elevators, orbiting solar mirrors, and the medicinal treatments for prolonging life. The story is extremely multifaceted and epic in scope. The trilogy spans about 150 years. Green Mars is not particularly light reading, but the story and the science in the story will not soon leave a reader's hippocampus.
Kim Stanley Robinson employs a narrative style common to fictional mega-epics with a large cast of characters. The story is told from a third person perspective that is limited to a single character's point of view per chapter. The point of view character alternates every chapter so that the reader can get an idea of everything going on all around Mars. The author creates a linear fluidity to the story this way.
This narrative method also allows Kim Stanley Robinson to show off his multiple disciplinary, scientific interests. Depending on the point of view character, the author will use that character's specialty to wax informatively on various fields of science such as geology, environmental science, physics, solar system astronomy, biology, botany, sociology, psychology, philosophy, humanities, economics, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, social engineering, military science, political science, and even a dash of religion. Often the story is secondary and/or dependent on the description of the sciences (and speculative sciences). Attention and focus is required to follow the story through these interesting, college-level, intellectual interruptions. It is impossible to read Green Mars and not learn something.
This will turn off some readers who are only interested in a Mars themed, thrill ride adventure story. If that is what you want, try Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land or Edgar Rice Burrough's A Princess of Mars. Green Mars is written for a “hard science fiction” fan base that is interested in intellectualism as much as literary entertainment.
The characters, especially the point of view characters, in Green Mars are primarily archetypes of different kinds of scientists, various kinds of revolutionary fighters and politicians, and religious leaders. Their personalities are largely shaped by their professions and/or scientific disciplines. However all the characters are well written and through their actions, thoughts, and expressed values the reader sees multiple dimensions of their passions, flaws, and personalities.
The characters and the story are easy to fall in love with but challenging to read. The liberal arts academic who dreaded science class might want to approach this book with caution. However, if you pick up Green Mars and the Mars Trilogy, no matter what you scientific inclination is, you will probably be entertained and definitely be educated.

9 of 9 people found this review helpful

Good sequel w/ soulless performance

Richard Ferrone returns w/ another performance almost devoid of emotion and conviction. But the book makes up for it. Great story, believable predictions of the future of economics, and a Terran disaster actually considered one of the worst case scenarios governments worry about. Although there is a lot of hippy-dippy stuff, and some fuzzy ancient history, which bug me, but those are short lived irritations that don't detract from the story. My on;y real issue is all my favorite characters were killed off in the first book.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Great Story Continued

What made the experience of listening to Green Mars the most enjoyable?

This book is extreamly detailed both in character content and in the sciences. I feel like I read a textbook with a story attached. I certainly know more about Mars, Climatology, Biology, Geology, and others...and I enjoyed learning about it.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Like old friends

This is the second book in the series that I have listen to and I still find myself looking forward to turning it on when I can. The narration is wonderful and the story is varied and engaging. Would definitely recommend this book (and series) to those looking for an escape to an immersive world.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

The Mars Trilogy (slowly) Continues

First of all, this is the sequel to Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars. Most of the characters from Red Mars return and Green Mars is not written to catch up anyone behind in the lore.

Second, while I enjoyed Green Mars enough to continue to Blue Mars it's definitely not as good as Red Mars. Richard Ferrone's performance is actually a bit better than previously, but the second half of this novel feels a bit like Robinson got bored with his new characters and decided to relive the glory days of the previous novel. Also, a significant part of the prose is pure tech talk, which gets VERY dry. Overall, I'd only recommended this to a fan of Kim Stanley Robinson or a completionist.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

The author is consistently wordy

This is the second of three books by the author, all suffering the same issues. The SCI-FI concepts are pretty interesting - teraforming, robots, vision of the future of colonization of the solar system. There are some very fun concepts in the book. Unfortunately, the author seems bent on displaying his knowledge of just about any topic that comes to mind and this consistently distracts from the story. I was tired when the book was finally done.

The performance is good - kept the story interesting.

3 of 5 people found this review helpful

Decent story, dry narration

The story is unfortunately rather slow simply due to amount of detail that Kim puts into it. the narrator, however, makes this story drier than Isidis Planitia in M year 1.

Takes years for it to go anywhere

This book was long and felt long. Every time something happens it has a tendency to switch characters, and it usually switches to someone that is just wandering around without any drive or purpose.
What is frustrating me the most is that the book talks about all these different factions and political views, but they all blend together and we never discuss the finer points of the different idiologies.
Another thing that does not help is that the narrator has exactly one voice that he can make.
For a book with this may characters that all have very similar ways of behaving, it would really help with some audible distinctiveness to the different characters.

My last thoughts are that it is not all bad and there is some good stuff here. I just wish the author had focused more on fleshing out the characters and their actions instead of talking about ecoeconimics for the billionth time.
As a side note ecoeconimics is a bizarre concept to understand. Where do these people get their stuff from?! It is at the same time the most talked about and least explained thing in this entire setting.
I have to stop now before I go crazy thinking about economics on Mars. Not sure if I will buy the last book.

Incredibly thorough.

Being that the author is the same as in Red Mars, this performance is a bit lacking. There is plenty of room for different characters. Audiobooks should have some degree of characterization across the text. But overall, Richard Ferrone does a fine job. The story is a masterpiece. Green Mars is easily the climax of the Mars Trilogy, and while I’m not even a quarter of the way through Blue Mars, the final book in the trilogy, I cannon help but love the stage that has been set for me by Robinson’s Green Mars. Green Mars is a wonderfully told story that will make you laugh, cry, mad, excited and very nervous. Overall, this book is a must read for all who enjoy literary genius.

Tediously boring

It’s just not very interesting and it just keeps going on and on, very unsatisfied and I didn’t like the first one either I definitely won’t check out the third

amazing story, shocking performance

I've read the series times, it's brilliant, but the narrator can't pronounce even simple words!

Really interesting

Really interesting lot of interesting asides well worth a read if you are interested in the future of mar colonization then read it :)

Great second book in the series

I bought the first book long ago and liked it but started listening to other books in between. Now I got this one and I loved it! I really like the way the author portrays the characters, both likeable and not so, even some despisable ones. One gets a better insight on the group of leaders of the first 100, now more mature att over 100 years old. Also the new martians, who they are and what they want.
Mars is being changed slowly through terraforming while Earth is being destroyed. It is a (in my eyes) very probable outcome for our planet.
I will start in number three now!

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

Green Mars

This follows on from the slower parts of the previous book. It drags on about the atmosphere, in my view it never gets going. A good book for helping you sleep.

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

More a geology & geography lesson than a novel

What disappointed you about Green Mars?

Seems much more concerned with incredibly detailed descriptions of the geology & geography of Mars than building any kind of ongoing narrative with any kind of pace. The big things that do happen have so little build up or time spent on them that it all feels rather flat.

Has Green Mars put you off other books in this genre?

No but perhaps off other books by KSR & certainly off Book 3

What does Richard Ferrone bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

Some really great characterisation (working with little in the way of real material); I'd happily listen to another book with the same narrator

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment, I was hoping for an epic tale of survival against the odds & a sweeping history & all I really got were endless travelogues

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

Thought provoking, complete, and original

A splendid series, with truly engaging characters, sweeping story line, and many unexpected changes. Rarely has an author been prepared to kill off so many lead characters - made possible only by accepting the sweep of history approach. The story follows broad themes and minute detail as the writer feels fit and the tale demands. The narrator's laid back style sometimes conflicts, but in general I found it fitted the mood of the story. Definitely worth buying,

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

Incredible trilogy thus far, Blue Mars here I come

I really like the characters in this book, all built up so complexly that they feel real, and I've come to know them so well they feel like friends. The story is great too, continued to surprise throughout. Also, I love the language and comparisons used in this book, as a person with a understanding more entrenched in science this book's language was more understandable to me than other book's.

0 of 1 people found this review helpful

future

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

0 of 1 people found this review helpful