Kim Stanley Robinson, the author of this award-winning trilogy, writes SF books that are scientific and sociological. In Blue Mars (in the 21st century) colonists almost succeed in “terraforming” Mars. They fight for independence from Earth and attempt to avert a civil war. (For his books I’ve read, click on his name.)

In this review I will first give Publishers Weekly’s concise summary of Blue Mars, then comment on it: “The conclusion to the saga is not unlike the terrain of Robinson's Red Planet: fertile and fully developed in some spots, vast and arid in others. But, ultimately, it's an impressive achievement. Using the last 200 years of American history as his template for Martian history, Robinson projects his tale of Mars's colonization from the 21st century, in which settlers successfully revolt against Earth, into the next century, when various interests on Mars work out their differences on issues ranging from government to the terraforming of the planet and immigration. Sax Russell, Maya Toitovna and others reprise their roles from the first two novels, but the dominant "personality" is the planet itself, which Robinson describes in exhaustive naturalistic detail. Characters look repeatedly for sermons in its stones and are nearly overwhelmed by textbook abstracts on the biological and geological minutiae of their environment. Not until the closing chapters, when they begin confronting their mortality, does the human dimension of the story balance out its awesome ecological extrapolations. Robinson's achievement here is on a par with Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and Herbert's Dune, even if his clinical detachment may leave some readers wondering whether there really is life on Mars.”

I certainly agree with the last sentence about the high level of Kim Stanley Robinson’s achievement with this remarkable trilogy. It is true that Sax Russell and Maya Toitovna (of the First Hundred) remain leading roles, but Sax Russell’s character changes markedly. Before this conclusion he had been a Green so devoted to the overall science of transforming Mars that he had hardly noticed people. But he now searches much of the planet to inspect its new features and comes to love also the remaining original red parts. In so doing he reconnects with Anne, also of the First Hundred, a Red who had been one of their leaders. She had not spoken to Sax for decades. But now, together they each learn to appreciate the other’s views, and end up as a couple that explore together on foot and by ship. The new blue Mars is warm enough to have lakes and large oceans from all the melted ice. The northern hemisphere has a huge ocean that drowned sites of many of the original tent cities. Mars’ oceans, as with its atmosphere, often have more turbulent behavior than on Earth. This is due mainly to Mars’ weaker gravity. Descriptions of Mars’ ecological features do indeed dominate much of Blue Mars. But another feature is that the dozen or so remaining elders of the First Hundred are beginning to lose the memories of their past. So Sax Russell works with other scientists to create a memory restoring drug which all (except the unusual Maya) take and the effects of the memory restoration leaves them in awe and allows this remnant to connect emotionally with each other in remarkably positive ways.

Because of its great size and huge cast of characters, I found reviewing this trilogy especially hard, which is why I chose to quote from Publishers Weekly and then comment on or expand upon their reviews. Tolstoy’s War and Peace also had a huge cast of characters but most editions of it gave a list of the characters and their relationships. Robinson’s Mars trilogy doesn’t have a list, but it doesn’t need to! I have a higher recommendation for this trilogy than for Asimov’s Foundation series, not for the science of but mainly for the more complete character development Robinson includes and for the more realistic progression of the history of the people involved. I think most Sci Fi fans would love it!