And yes, the Earth would continue to be a progressive mess as population and climate issues push the fault lines between the last vestiges of traditional government and the corporate rise of metanationals. Yes, social factors would immediately mess with Earth's pristine plans for colonization and new technologies would develop on Mars where they're necessary and build on the technologies they already have. I'm thinking of three or four off the top of my head present in Aurora and another five in Years of Rice and Salt. I think it's typical KSR to throw in five 'big ideas' where other story arcs explore only one. I don't think this is because he's enamored with the Hundred. So what did y'all think about the trilogy?īut he is so enamored with his first batch of characters that he makes them functionally immortal and turns what should've been a multigenerational saga into a centuries long soap opera about the personal bullshit of the First Hundred The research done for the terraforming must have been absolutely insane so props to that.

On the macro scale I thought everything was pretty good with the metanats and the relationship between earth and mars, save perhaps to the end of blue mars. that part threw me off for real.Īlso Hiroko and her spiritual traits.(if you know you know). Also that scene where (spoilers!) Nirgal is having altitude sickness while on earth and is borderline unconscious and this girl gets on top of him while he's trying to sleep and he's all like 'welp, I'm feeling like shit but I guess we gettin some' and a whole chapter is dedicated to this. Like sure, it is supposed to be utopian or whatever but the writer makes it seem like everyone is up for casual sex in public communal baths 24/7 (that seem to be everywhere in the planet). Also explanations or descriptions that went on for up to 3 pages when they could be summarised in 2 paragraphs tops (although this might be on me cause I'm a bit of a lazy reader).īut by far my biggest critisism of the novels is the representation of sex. It often felt inconsistent super engaging moments followed by super lame exposition followed by engaging moments again, specially in the 2nd and 3rd books. Some chapters and characters were great while others not so much. So I read the books because the idea of watching the terraforming of a planet from beginning to end was right up my alley, and I had read Aurora a couple of years ago and thought it was cool.

Ksr mars trilogy