I have not read a book that really caught my attention in a little while. I had this one on my "to read" list for a few years and finally decided to try it out. It has surprised me greatly. I have to say it is now a contender for my top book series, potentially taking Dune out of the top spot. While this will have to wait until I finish the trilogy, I expect I will continue to enjoy the journey.
What made me appreciate Dune so much was the depth of the Dune universe and in particular the scientific discussions about ecology, geology, economics, politics and religion combined with some great characters and an epic feel to it. I loved the really interesting interplay of all those forces in a far distance expansive humanity. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson starts the series with the theme of human's attempt to colonize the red planet. Once I started the book I realized it was much more than that. The book uses this Mars colonization as a medium, but the real story lies on the characters, which for the most part are thinkers, scientist philosophers, that want to colonize a new planet and make a fresh start for humanity. This serves as a great way to discuss social, political and economical systems that we have adopted over the course of human development. It is very interesting how a few characters really try to discard some of the most fundamental aspects of human culture as either inefficient or as an antiquated system that had a purpose originally but we managed to exploit it to turn it into something harmful to society. It's a book that really tries to challenge the status quo, and worked very well on me to get me to evaluate a bit more carefully some of the pillars of humanity. There are some very compelling ideas there.
What made me appreciate Dune so much was the depth of the Dune universe and in particular the scientific discussions about ecology, geology, economics, politics and religion combined with some great characters and an epic feel to it. I loved the really interesting interplay of all those forces in a far distance expansive humanity. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson starts the series with the theme of human's attempt to colonize the red planet. Once I started the book I realized it was much more than that. The book uses this Mars colonization as a medium, but the real story lies on the characters, which for the most part are thinkers, scientist philosophers, that want to colonize a new planet and make a fresh start for humanity. This serves as a great way to discuss social, political and economical systems that we have adopted over the course of human development. It is very interesting how a few characters really try to discard some of the most fundamental aspects of human culture as either inefficient or as an antiquated system that had a purpose originally but we managed to exploit it to turn it into something harmful to society. It's a book that really tries to challenge the status quo, and worked very well on me to get me to evaluate a bit more carefully some of the pillars of humanity. There are some very compelling ideas there.
I really don't want to give much away for anyone actually interested in reading this, but if you like books that are sometimes heavy on ideas and science, this is the book for you as it was the book for me. I look forward to every chance I have to read it, which hasn't been very often due to my time commitment writing my graduate theses.
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