A Martian Palatte and the Matter of Earth
Oct. 7th, 2008 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccastareyesFirst off, nary a day after I give my note about 'Not reading SF until November', Ryan makes a post about how someone got the rights to Red Mars (by Kim Stanley Robinson) and is going to be doing a TV series or miniseries. Ryan mentioned the fact he read the Mars Trilogy in high school when he was just getting into planetary science. So did Briony, another friend (who shares the blog and her advisor with Ryan). So did I.
So, I had to go out and order all three Mars books, plus the short story book. (Via Paperbackswap, so I'm just out 4 book credits, rather than any actual money. I love how the internet makes the barter economy easy.) And now I'm worried that memories won't stand up to my high school nostalgia.
So, I've read a lot of books by Kim Stanley Robinson -- the Mars trilogy, The Years of Rice and Salt (an alternate history where Europe gets so hammered by the Black Death that the major players in the global scheme of things become China and the Middle East, with Japan, India and the Haudenosaunee League (read: the Iriquois and some of the other Eastern US natives) as minor players -- there's also a strong element of reincarnation, allowing the story to be woven together over a millennium), Antartica and the first two books of The Capital Code.
One of the things I remember about Mars and Antarctica was the strong influence of the environment on the writing. In the Mars trilogy, there were debates from the beginning about the morality of terraforming, and I felt like the 'reds' (the anti-terraforming faction, with the greens being the pro-terraforming faction) had as much point and author interest as the 'greens'. There were elements of what right humans had to change the environment of a planet, even if it brought life to a barren place (rather than killing life in a growing place), elements of control* (domed cities are easier for the corporations to monitor), and environmental themes in a place where it isn't as simple as 'save the trees!'. Plus, the place descriptions were exquisite -- the second part of the first book features a main character (a Russian construction engineer) taking a trip out to see the North Pole of Mars with the geologists. I also remember the cultural work, both in showing underrepresented cultures from Earth and in showing Mars developing its own culture and folklore as the trilogy progresses.
On the other hand, Kim Stanley Robinson can be preachy. I couldn't finish The Capital Code trilogy (a series set in a day-after-tomorrow Washington) because it was so preachy about global warming. Keep in mind that I think Anthropogenic Climate Change is both happening and is bloody important, so the book was preaching to the choir. It just read like wish fulfillment for nerds. The fact the character POV shifted from the congressional staffer married to the NSF scientist to one of the NSF scientist's colleagues who has a transcendental experience in the first book, and starts living in a tree and dating a married NSA (I think) agent, didn't help. (Frank (that character) just felt like an author's darling and I wasn't willing to put up with him to read about the other characters.)
I know I had a lot higher tolerance for that kind of thing when I was in high school, and government of Mars was a central theme in the Mars trilogy. I'm kind of worried one of my childhood favorites won't stand up to a reread, even if it did shape my thinking on SF in a major way. (And other things.)
That and I can't read it until December, thanks to NaNoWriMo and my fear of cross-contamination.
So, I had to go out and order all three Mars books, plus the short story book. (Via Paperbackswap, so I'm just out 4 book credits, rather than any actual money. I love how the internet makes the barter economy easy.) And now I'm worried that memories won't stand up to my high school nostalgia.
So, I've read a lot of books by Kim Stanley Robinson -- the Mars trilogy, The Years of Rice and Salt (an alternate history where Europe gets so hammered by the Black Death that the major players in the global scheme of things become China and the Middle East, with Japan, India and the Haudenosaunee League (read: the Iriquois and some of the other Eastern US natives) as minor players -- there's also a strong element of reincarnation, allowing the story to be woven together over a millennium), Antartica and the first two books of The Capital Code.
One of the things I remember about Mars and Antarctica was the strong influence of the environment on the writing. In the Mars trilogy, there were debates from the beginning about the morality of terraforming, and I felt like the 'reds' (the anti-terraforming faction, with the greens being the pro-terraforming faction) had as much point and author interest as the 'greens'. There were elements of what right humans had to change the environment of a planet, even if it brought life to a barren place (rather than killing life in a growing place), elements of control* (domed cities are easier for the corporations to monitor), and environmental themes in a place where it isn't as simple as 'save the trees!'. Plus, the place descriptions were exquisite -- the second part of the first book features a main character (a Russian construction engineer) taking a trip out to see the North Pole of Mars with the geologists. I also remember the cultural work, both in showing underrepresented cultures from Earth and in showing Mars developing its own culture and folklore as the trilogy progresses.
On the other hand, Kim Stanley Robinson can be preachy. I couldn't finish The Capital Code trilogy (a series set in a day-after-tomorrow Washington) because it was so preachy about global warming. Keep in mind that I think Anthropogenic Climate Change is both happening and is bloody important, so the book was preaching to the choir. It just read like wish fulfillment for nerds. The fact the character POV shifted from the congressional staffer married to the NSF scientist to one of the NSF scientist's colleagues who has a transcendental experience in the first book, and starts living in a tree and dating a married NSA (I think) agent, didn't help. (Frank (that character) just felt like an author's darling and I wasn't willing to put up with him to read about the other characters.)
I know I had a lot higher tolerance for that kind of thing when I was in high school, and government of Mars was a central theme in the Mars trilogy. I'm kind of worried one of my childhood favorites won't stand up to a reread, even if it did shape my thinking on SF in a major way. (And other things.)
That and I can't read it until December, thanks to NaNoWriMo and my fear of cross-contamination.
