A review by ineffablebob
Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

adventurous emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Blue Mars picks up immediately after Green Mars ends, with the newly independent Martians figuring out what's next. The first part of the story consists of a lot of wrangling over how they'll rule themselves, which I found fairly interesting for the political and economic ideas. Then there's a trip back to Earth for some of the characters, which gives the reader a bit of a view into what's been happening there. I mostly liked the parts of that involving Nirgal, but there's also long stretches of Michel feeling sorry for himself that were incredibly boring. Eventually the story does come back around to the terraforming on Mars, which has advanced to polar-climate animal food chains. And then it expands even more, to other planets, moons, asteroids...by the second half of the book it feels very much like a prequel to The Expanse (which I suppose it kinda is, from a impact-on-authors perspective). All this is presented largely as background, as the lives of the remaining early Mars inhabitants (and some of the their descendants) continue. If you're looking for big action or heavy intrigue, this isn't the book (or series) for you. It has interesting ideas on extrapolating some key technological advances into human expansion across the solar system, just be warned that it's a very slow burn.