Cons: His explorations into the sociology,sexuality, and psychology of his characters were often boring,always lengthy,and sometimes unexpectedly and disturbingly crass. (i.e. not for the kids to read)If that weren’t bad enough,he also attacks Christianity of all types with a sledge hammer. Declaring it repeatedly as an archaic religion for a band of greedy idiots. All other types of faith are regarded as “interesting” and “progressive”. Robinson could have introduced his ideas into the story without being so heavy handed and long winded. Unfortunately he did not.
Rating: 2 / 5

The author clearly hates whites and arabs, and it would be interesting to know the ethnicity of the author. I think we can guess.

Best to spend your hard-earned money on the Classics until the new Dark Age is over.
Rating: 1 / 5

While “Red Mars” is certainly vast in scope and largely interesting from a scientific standpoint, the overall story suffers from underdeveloped characters, an overemphasis on Martian landscape, and no cohesive plot. And maybe that’s Robinson’s plan – the major character in the novel is Mars itself, not the folks who live there…

Rating: 3 / 5

Yet, with 2006 hindsight, there are a number of critical situations which don’t hold up well 13+ years later… here are a few:

1) The year 2027 is overly optimistic for colonization of Mars – mankind will be lucky to have even set foot on Mars by this date, let alone attempt a hugely expensive colonization effort.

2) The MARS colony spacecraft is made up of 48 boosted Shuttle upper stages… this is never going to happen – indeed, at this point it is clear that the Space Shuttle won’t fly more than a handful more missions… and, certainly, Shuttle upper stages aren’t going to be boosted and used for any reason (this upper stage boosting idea seems to have been a pipe dream fantasy of some in the early 90’s, and Robinson seems to have fallen in with this group).

3) The original 100 member Colony team is made up of almost a 50/50 mix of Americans vs. Russians… realistically, this colonization will likely be made sometime after 2050 by independent Chinese, American, or Indian efforts (with lesser powers Russia, Europe, and likely Japan “helping” one or the other of these future superpowers).

4) Later colonization participants include a large faction from the Muslim world… again, this is highly unlikely given the current political climate, and a more “enlightened view” of the Muslim world.

This book is part of a Mars Colonization “trilogy”, and the last two books, GREEN MARS(1995) and BLUE MARS(1997) won Hugo awards.
Rating: 3 / 5

It is my hope that by posting these comments, Amazon will come under pressure to reveal its Digital Restriction Management policy, as well as how its DRM software works. Furthermore, I hope they will discontinue their policy of remotely deleting and/or crippling books that have been purchased. This is America, Amazon. We don’t believe in Memory Holes!
Rating: 1 / 5