# Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy - should I keep reading? (spoilers likely)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-stanley-robinsons-mars-trilogy-should-i-keep-reading-spoilers-likely/229546>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [February 16, 2004, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-stanley-robinsons-mars-trilogy-should-i-keep-reading-spoilers-likely/229546 "2004-02-16T21:00:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![MrVisible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@MrVisible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrVisible)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2004, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-stanley-robinsons-mars-trilogy-should-i-keep-reading-spoilers-likely/229546/21 "2004-02-17T21:51:36Z")

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I’m also in the ‘keep reading’ crowd, but I can understand why it’s not for everyone. I was impressed with the research that went into it, and KSR’s unflinching dedication to expanding my geological vocabulary. Now I can refer to the katabatic winds off the Catalinas, and I know that the porous nature of those very old ice cubes in the freezer is due to outgassing. My life is that much closer to being complete.

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**Author:** ![Engywook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bc8723/32.png) [@Engywook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Engywook)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-stanley-robinsons-mars-trilogy-should-i-keep-reading-spoilers-likely/229546/22 "2004-02-18T20:56:03Z")

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Thanks for the great thoughts on this series… it has made me think again. That’s what the dope is for…  
I will finish the first of the three novels, and probably leave the rest (although the quotation from the end of _Green Mars_ was lovely indeed) for another year or another lifetime. I, too, am enthralled by the ideas of terraforming, space elevators, and the mind-numbing **hugeness** of humanity becoming an interplanetary species, and the social effects of mankind becoming psychologically two different species. But I’ll have to write my own damned book if the book I actually do want to read on the subject will ever be out there.

It’s suggested that really good characterization and dialog doesn’t happen all that often in hard science fiction. I’ve thought about why that is… and I think it’s because hard sci-fi treats themes that usually exist on much larger scales than individual people. The actions of individuals are in a way the actions of entire countries or for that matter all of humanity (“one small step for a man…”)

That doesn’t make good characterization in sci-fi impossible, but the above paragraph is something I’ll be thinking about when I write my book.

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**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2004, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kim-stanley-robinsons-mars-trilogy-should-i-keep-reading-spoilers-likely/229546/23 "2004-02-18T22:00:50Z")

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I also really loved the series… for whatever reason I was locked in from beginning to end (it may have helped that I read huge chunks of the books on 9-12 hour train trips and intercontinental flights). I got to really like Sax along the way!

Anyway, he has a companion book, “Antarctica” which I like to call “White Mars” because he based a lot of the scical dynamics of Mars on what he observed in the Antarctica “winter-over” groups, and the novel “Antarctica” is rather repetitive of the themes of the Mars trilogy. He was one of the first (if not the first) authors/artists allowed to go to Antartica for purely artistic pursposes.

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