The Apolyton Science Fiction Discussion Group: Red Mars

[CyberGnu]

Static, thanks

[JohnT]

Hey! A mind once changed can never change again!

Static, it is obvious that you wanted more of a blueprint than an novel and you are upset because Robinson didn't give you one. As KSR writes it, he leaves too much of the technology to what David Brin calls "hand-waving" - just making it appear and asking the reader to accept it.

What would have been your reaction had he just added a century to all the dates? Knowing that it wasn't so close to "today", would you allow more leniency on how in-depth he went into the technology?

Sorry, but that's why they call it fiction. You want a real world plan for colonizing Mars, maybe they'll have something at the JPL or NASA sites.

I really enjoy books with shifting viewpoints, and unlike some of the others in this thread, I think that Robinson used this technique effectively. I was kind of resigned to the novel being Maya's story when I got the pleasure of being shifted to Nadia's perspective.

I kind of chuckled when I got to the personality grid... I appreciate an author who is honest and ballsy enough to tell us that he uses a formula to develop his characters!

[Bosh]

My favorite Red Mars scene just surfaced in my brain, the bit where one of that characters goes over all of the requirements to be one of the first 100 and explain how many of the blatantly contradict each other (ie not having an obsessive personality and being incredibly obessed with going to Mars were both necessary) which meant that to get on board all of the crew needed to be fundamentally mendacious or insane
That bit alone makes up for a lot, especially as pretty soon I've got to convince the State Dept. that I love my country but want to get a job that will get me anywhere but here as soon as possible...

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by JohnT
Hey! A mind once changed can never change again!

Sorry, I ride the tide of ideas.

Static, it is obvious that you wanted more of a blueprint than an novel and you are upset because Robinson didn't give you one. As KSR writes it, he leaves too much of the technology to what David Brin calls "hand-waving" - just making it appear and asking the reader to accept it.

This "hand-waving" business is just shorthand for sloppy exposition skills, which is exactly my problem with most current science fiction. This is acceptable for most science fiction, because most sci-fi authors don't try to pass themselves off as technical writers, but it has moved into hard sci-fi as well. It simply isn't adequate to drop in the names of scientific processes/devices and let the reader fill in the blanks.

What would have been your reaction had he just added a century to all the dates? Knowing that it wasn't so close to "today", would you allow more leniency on how in-depth he went into the technology?

The dates are largely irrelevant, since Robinson doesn't bother to tell us what year it is anyway until midway through the novel (unless I missed it the first time). More sloppiness on his part.

Sorry, but that's why they call it fiction. You want a real world plan for colonizing Mars, maybe they'll have something at the JPL or NASA sites.

I'll check there.

I really enjoy books with shifting viewpoints, and unlike some of the others in this thread, I think that Robinson used this technique effectively. I was kind of resigned to the novel being Maya's story when I got the pleasure of being shifted to Nadia's perspective.

I thought the shift in perspective from Maya to Nadia was handled rather clumsily. And it doesn't really help that most of the character setup in the book is done fram Maya's POV, when Nadia makes clear that Maya's views cannot be trusted. It all works out though, because all the characters are generic stereotypes anyway.

And how do you reconcile Maya's descriptions of Frank with the fact that she is in love with him in the rest of the book? Is she merely hiding the truth from herself? I can buy that idea, but Robinson handles it poorly, IMO.

I kind of chuckled when I got to the personality grid... I appreciate an author who is honest and ballsy enough to tell us that he uses a formula to develop his characters!

I disagree that formulaic can be considered "honest and ballsy", no matter how clever the formula may be. And as I said before, I don't think Robinson came up with this formula himself.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I too enjoyed the shifting viewpoints. Maya is a mess. She dislikes Frank and thinks he's scary, but when John dies, she finds she needs Frank. But she's an emotional rollercoaster, so who knows what she thinks?

That, and she seems like a Hillary Clinton type to me. Always interested in the guy that is going to be or is in power. She's attracted to power and that is the ultimate aphrodesiac for her.

I love seeing how Maya sees things, and then it shifts to Nadia and then you are like 'Maya is ****ing loony!' .

And in the end, really, when you have more than 4 or 5 characters don't they all end up to stereotypes, no matter who is writing the novel? KSR's genius is that the stereotypes are very believable and real.

[St Leo]

KSR's genius is that the stereotypes are very believable and real.

Yoosa say people gonna die?

[chequita guevara]

The main character in the book is not any of the obvious characters. The main character is humanity itself. Humanity is the character undergowing growth and change. Mars is the antagonist, creating the situation that forces the change. It is through the secondary characters that we witness the transformation of humanity.

I would like to disagree with the idea that the characters in the novel lack depth. I would argue they have more depth than most characters. Why? Because unlike characters in most books, we see these characters from many viewpoints, none of which are the same. In a sense, this is a literary version of Kiwosawa's Ran.

When we first get to know Frank, he's a murderer. Then we see his leadership qualities and his jealousy from Maya. He's a non-entity to Nadia except as a foil to Arkady. John sees him as a former friend. Frank sees himself as put-on by the world (and it's clear from the writing that Frank suffers from moderate to severe depression).

Maya's a crazy b*tch at first (okay, well, always), deeper and loving from John's point of view, a manipulator from Frank's point of view, etc. We see all these, and we gain a deeper understanding of all these characters througout the book. Far from being one-dimensional, these characters have great depth.


. . . Imran seems to have beaten me to this point. Well, great minds think alike.

[Imran Siddiqui]

MWHAHA... Che called me a great mind

Seriously, though, I agree that looking at the characters from many different views fleshes them out and makes them three-dimensional. You see many sides of each person and then you decide in the end what the person is really like (though you can't always be sure ).

[CyberGnu]

Boshko, that character is Arkady.

For a long time afterwards I thought that was a horrible piece of fiction - How could that possibly work?

Then I experienced the visit to the US consulate in Vancouver to get my J-1 visa, and learned that hundreds if not thousands of chinese scholars go trough that exact process each day...

[chequita guevara]

Hmmmm, Frank is from Jacksonville.

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The main character in the book is not any of the obvious characters. The main character is humanity itself. Humanity is the character undergowing growth and change. Mars is the antagonist, creating the situation that forces the change. It is through the secondary characters that we witness the transformation of humanity.

This is a pretty standard theme in science fiction, that the future change humanity, so I''m not going to give Robinson special credit for using it here.

I would like to disagree with the idea that the characters in the novel lack depth. I would argue they have more depth than most characters. Why? Because unlike characters in most books, we see these characters from many viewpoints, none of which are the same.

Robinson is no William Faulkner. Just because a story is told from a stereotype's POV does not make him any less of a stereotype. I think these characters would have come across much better using a standard third person god-like narrator approach.

In a sense, this is a literary version of Kiwosawa's Ran.

Well, you've managed to top me in the hyperbole department.

[JohnT]

Bump?

[Imran Siddiqui]

We've exhausted discussion John .

We're ready for The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (and when I was done with that I read Rendevous with Rama ).

[JohnT]

MiaHM kinda, you know, blows chunks. Big, smelly, gooey chunks.

[SuperSneak]

While I think RM is an ok read, I'm surprised it won the Hugo or Nebula or whatever.
As Static points out, the writing is fairly poor and sloppy. The timeline is totally screwed up as well.
I am fairly disappointed in the rushed aspect of everything, the dropped concepts and plot points and so on. His handling of John's death was so poor I thought for sure it was a scam and he'd be back later as a surprise or something.
KSR just picks up and drops stuff as it suits him, which, as a "psuedo-writer" myself, really, really bugs me!
Don't know if I'll bother with Blue or Green.