Mars trilogy
Encyclopedia
The Mars trilogy is a series of award-winning science fiction
novel
s by Kim Stanley Robinson
that chronicles the settlement and terraforming of the planet Mars
through the intensely personal and detailed viewpoints of a wide variety of characters spanning almost two centuries. Ultimately more utopia
n than dystopia
n, the story focuses on egalitarian
, sociological, and scientific advances made on Mars
, while Earth
suffers from overpopulation
and ecological disaster.
The three novels are Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993), and Blue Mars (1996). The Martians (1999) is a collection of short stories set in the same fictional universe
. The main trilogy won a number of prestigious awards. Icehenge
(1984), Robinson's first novel about Mars, is not set in this universe but deals with similar themes and plot elements.
of the planet and its future relationship to Earth. The two extreme views on terraforming are personified by Saxifrage "Sax" Russell, who believes their very presence on the planet means some level of terraforming has already begun; and Ann Clayborne, who stakes out the position that humankind does not have the right to change entire planets at their will.
Russell's view is initially purely scientific but in time comes to blend with the views of Hiroko Ai, the chief of the Agricultural Team who assembles a new belief system (the "Areophany") devoted to the appreciation and furthering of life ("veriditas"); these views are collectively known as the "green" position, while Ann's naturalist stance comes to be known as "Red." The actual decision is left to the United Nations Organization Mars Authority (UNOMA), which greenlights terraforming, and a series of actions get underway, including the drilling of "moholes" to release subsurface heat; thickening of the atmosphere according to a complicated formula that comes to be known as the "Russell cocktail" after Sax; and the detonation of nuclear explosions deep in the permafrost. Additional steps are taken to connect Mars more closely with Earth, including the insertion of a geosynchronous asteroid "Clarke" to which a space elevator
cable is tethered.
Against the backdrop of this development is another debate, one whose principal instigator is Arkady Bogdanov of the Russian contingent. Arkady argues that Mars need not and should not be subject to Earth traditions, limitations, or authority. He is to some extent joined in this position by John Boone, famous as the "First Man on Mars" from a preceding expedition and rival to Frank Chalmers, the technical leader of the American contingent. Their rivalry is further exacerbated by competing romantic interest in Maya Katarina Toitovna, the leader of the Russian contingent. (In the opening of the book, Frank instigates a sequence of events that leads to John being killed; much of what follows is a retrospective examination of what got things to that point.)
Earth
meanwhile increasingly falls under the control of transnational corporations (TransNats) that come to dominate its governments, particularly smaller nations adopted as "flags of convenience." As UNOMA's power erodes, the Mars treaty is renegotiated in a move led by Frank Chalmers; the outcome is impressive but proves short-lived as the nations of Earth clash over limited resources, expanding debt, and population growth as well as restrictions on access to a new longevity treatment developed by Martian science -- one that holds the promise of lifespans into the hundreds of years. In 2061, with John Boone dead and exploding immigration threatening the fabric of Martian society, Arkady launches a revolution against what many now view as occupying TransNat troops operating only loosely under an UNOMA rubber-stamp approval. Initially successful, the revolution proves infeasible on the basis of both a greater-than-expected willingness of the Earth troops to use violence and the extreme vulnerability of life on a planet without a habitable atmosphere. A series of exchanges sees the cutting of the space elevator, bombardment of several martian cities (including the city where Arkady is himself organizing the rebellion; he is killed), the destruction of Phobos and its military complex, and the unleashing of great flood of torrential groundwater freed by nuclear means.
By the end, most of the First Hundred are dead, and virtually all who remain have fled to a refuge established years earlier by Hiroko and her followers. (One exception is Phyllis Boyle, who has allied herself with the TransNats; she is on Clarke when the space elevator cable is cut and sent flying out of orbit to a fate unknown by the conclusion of the book.) The revolution dies and life on Mars returns to a sense of stability under heavy TransNat control. War breaks out on Earth but cease-fire arrangements are reached when the TransNats flee to the safety of the developed nations, which use their huge armies to restore order. But a new generation of humans born on Mars holds the promise of change. In the meantime, the remaining First Hundred -- including Sax, Ann, and Nadia -- settle into life in Zygote, hidden under the South Polar ice.
, a number of whom live in Hiroko's second secret base, Zygote.
As unrest in the multinational control over Mars' affairs grow, various groups start to form with different aims and methods. Watching these groups evolve from Earth, the CEO of the Praxis Corporation sends a representative, Arthur Randolph, to organize the resistance movements. This culminates into the Dorsa Brevia agreement, in which nearly all the underground factions take part. Preparations are made for a second revolution beginning in the 2120s.
The book follows the characters across the martian landscape, which is explained in detail. As Sax Russell's character infiltrates the transnat terraforming project, the newly evolving martian biosphere is described at great length. A mainstay of the novel is a detailed analysis of philosophical, political, personal, economical, and geological experiences of the characters. The story weaves back and forth from character to character, providing a picture of Mars as seen by them.
One major event is a sudden, catastrophic rise in Earth's global sea level
s, which is caused not primarily by any greenhouse effect
but by the eruption of a chain of volcano
es underneath the ice of west Antarctica, disintegrating the ice sheet and displacing the fragments into the ocean.
water
can exist on the planet's surface, forming river
s and sea
s. It follows from the end of Green Mars and has a much wider scope than the previous two books, covering an entire century after the second revolution. As Earth is heavily flooded by the sudden melting of the Antarctic ice cap, the once mighty Metanats are brought to their knees; as the Praxis Corporation paves a new way of "democratic businesses". Mars becomes the "Head" of the system, giving universal healthcare, free education, and an abundance of food. However, this sparks illegal immigration from Earth, so to ease the population strain on the Blue Planet, Martian scientists and engineers are soon put to the task of creating asteroid cities; where small planetoids of the Belt
are hollowed out, given a spin to produce gravity
, and a mini-sun is created to produce light and heat.
With a vast increase in sciences, technologies, and spacecraft manufacturing, this begins the "Accelerendo"; where humankind spreads its civilization throughout the Solar System, and eventually beyond. As Venus, Jovian moons, Saturnian moons, and eventually Triton
are colonized and terraformed in some way, Jackie Boone (the granddaughter of John Boone, the first man to walk on Mars from the first book) takes an interstellar vessel (made out of an asteroid) to another star system twenty light-year
s away, where they will start to terraform the planets and moons found there.
that takes place over the timespan of the original trilogy of novels, as well as some stories that take place in an alternate version of the novels where the First Hundred's mission was one of exploration rather than colonization. Buried in the stories are several hints about the eventual fate of the Martian terraforming program.
that they have sufficient economic power to take over or strongly manipulate national governments, initially only relatively small third-world
governments, but later, larger developed governments too, effectively running whole countries. In Robinson's future history
, the metanational corporations become similar to nation-state
s in some respects, while continually attempting to take over competitors in order to become the sole controller of the interplanetary market
. As the Mars trilogy draws to a close in the mid-22nd century, the metanational corporations are forced by a global catastrophe
to concede more democratic powers to their workforces.
Although there are many transnational and metanational corporations mentioned, two play an active role in the development of the plotline. Praxis, a largely benevolent and relatively democratic firm, and Subarashī, which plays a large role in the maltreatment of the citizens of Mars.
s in the solar system
, and include descriptions of settlements or terraforming efforts on Callisto
, Mercury
, Titania
, Miranda
, and Venus
. Toward the end of the last novel, humans are taking sub-light colony ships to other stars, taking advantage of the longevity treatments to survive the trip to their destinations.
A great portion of Blue Mars is concerned with the effects of extreme longevity on its protagonists, most of whom have lived over two hundred years as a result of repeated longevity
treatments. In particular, Robinson speculates on the psychological
effects of ultra-longevity including memory loss, personality change, mental instability, and existential boredom.
, and the first man on Mars, he returns a public hero and uses his considerable influence to lobby
for a second mission, this time one of colonization. Boone received a large amount of radiation
on his first trip to Mars, more than the recommended dosage according to medical regulations. However, his celebrity status allows him to skirt this. On the second voyage, Boone is one of the "First Hundred" colonists sent to permanently colonize Mars. His accomplishments and natural charm yield him an informal leadership role. In the first chapter of Red Mars, John Boone is assassinated in a plot instigated by Frank Chalmers. The narrative then steps back to the First Hundred's voyage to Mars aboard the spaceship Ares. His ideas continue as a point of reference for the remainder of the trilogy. Boone's character portrayal is complex; in one light, Boone is a stereotypically simple, heroic figure, an everyman hero: his first words on his first trip to Mars are "Well, here we are." He is almost uniformly cheerful and good-natured, and approaches everything he undertakes with hale bonhomie. But later in Red Mars, Robinson switches to Boone's point of view
, and it is in this section that it is revealed that late in life, Boone is addicted to omegendorph, a fictional drug that is based on endorphin
s in the human brain
. In addition, it reveals that at least some of his seeming simplicity might simply be an act designed to further his political goals. Overall, Boone is presented as larger-than-life.
in his use of power. However, his cynicism is later shown to be a form of self-defense; Chalmers is at least partly driven by a hidden idealistic side. Early in the voyage to Mars, he becomes romantically involved with Maya Toitovna, the leader of the Russian contingent of the mission. During the second-half of the voyage, Maya becomes involved with John Boone. Already bitter that John was allowed to join the colonization mission despite his manipulations, Frank further despises John because of Maya's affection. His dislike culminates in his involvement in a plot to assassinate John, which ultimately succeeds. In the final chapters of Red Mars, Frank flees with Maya and other members of the First Hundred to join the hidden colonists at the polar ice cap but dies along the way when he is caught outside their vehicle during an aquifer
flood.
n contingent. The novels hint that she used both wit and seduction to rise through the ranks of the Russian space agency to become the leader of the first colonization mission. After the first revolution, she flees with other members of the First Hundred to the hidden colony in the pole. She becomes a school teacher of the children of the hidden colonists but later becomes a powerful political force. After the deaths of Chalmers and Boone, she falls in love with Michel Duval. She suffers heavily from bipolar disorder
and from memory related psychological disorders with growing age.
, during the voyage and initial exploration of Mars, she does her best to avoid the squabbles of the other members of the First Hundred. Instead, she busies herself by building the first permanent habitation of Mars, Underhill, using programmed automated robots. She also helps to construct a new and larger habitat, and research facility in a nearby canyon. In the later books, she becomes a reluctant politician. Nadia is in love with Arkady Bogdanov and is devastated when he is killed in an attack by anti-revolutionary forces associated with UNOMA, the transnationals, and Phyllis Boyle during the first Martian revolution. In retaliation for Arkady's murder, she activates his hidden weapon system, built into Phobos
, which causes the entire moon (a UNOMA/transnational military base) to decelerate in orbit and destructively aerobrake in Mars' atmosphere, utterly destroying it. In Green Mars, she falls in love with Art Randolph, with whom she eventually starts a family. After Martian independence, she grudgingly becomes the first president of Mars.
leanings, possibly based on Russian futurists
, Alexander Bogdanov
(the character's ancestor) and Arkady Strugatsky, he is regarded by many other members of the First Hundred, particularly Boyle, as a troublemaker. He leads the team which establishes an outpost on the moon Phobos
, and leads an uprising against the transnational corporation towards the end of first novel. Like Boone, his political ideas (later known as Bogdanovism) weigh heavily on characters later in the series. In love with Nadia Chernyshevski, he is killed during the first Martian revolution in 2061.
, he is a brilliant and creative scientist, and is greatly respected for his intellectual gifts. However, he is socially awkward and often finds it difficult to understand and relate to other people. Russell is a leader of the Green movement, the goal of which is to terraform
Mars. During Green Mars, Sax suffers a stroke while being tortured by government security forces and fellow member of the First Hundred, Phyllis Boyle. He subsequently suffers from Broca's aphasia and has to relearn how to speak. Originally apolitical, this event and a growing attachment to Mars itself leads Russell to become the physical architect of the second revolution. He is also secretly in love with Ann Clayborne, who cannot stand him at first but, after decades on Mars, eventually reconciles. Saxifrage
means "stonebreaker" and is the name for an Alpine plant that grows between stones.
, one of the first areologists, and the original Red. She believes that Mars should be preserved in its pristine state. She becomes a leader of the Red movement, which is dedicated to the goal of preserving Mars as it was before human colonization. She is frequently seen as bitter and prefers to live in solitude on extensive trips while exploring Mars. She has a hate-love relationship with Saxifrage "Sax" Russell, an American physicist and leader of the Green Mars movement, which wants to terraform Mars. After she shows signs of aging and her death seems imminent, Russell has the longevity treatment administered to her while she is comatose. She develops a more complex personality afterward — sometimes remaining close to her isolationist position, and at other times appreciating the treatment and Mars in its terraformed state.
ese expert on biology
, agriculture
, and ecological
systems, it was Hiroko who smuggled Desmond "Coyote" Hawkins onto the Ares (the two were friends and lovers as students in London). She is the charismatic leader of the farm team, one of the important work groups and cliques among the First Hundred. She thus becomes the focus of many of the trilogy's central themes. Most importantly, she teaches the importance of maintaining a respectful relation with one's planet. On Mars, this is called the Areophany. In the secret colony Zygote, which Hiroko established, the first generation of children of the First Hundred, the ectogenes, are all the product of artificial insemination outside of any human body. Hiroko uses the ova of the female members of the First Hundred as the female genetic material and uses the sperm of the male members of the First Hundred to fertilize the ova. Although Hiroko is seldom at the center of the narrative, her influence is pervasive. She disappears for the final time in Green Mars. Her ultimate fate is left unresolved. In Japanese, ai means love
.
psychologist
assigned to monitor the psychological welfare of the First Hundred, first in Antarctica and later on Mars, he is often treated as an observer rather than as a member of the group. His aloof personality enforces this ostracism and also subverts his relationships with others. During the first disappearance of the farm team, he is invited by Hiroko to flee with the farm team and establish Zygote, the first hidden colony. He desperately wants to return to Provence
as he remembers it, although after visiting as a part of the Martian diplomatic mission to Earth, he becomes even more homesick. Michel falls in love with Maya Toitovna and dies after she displays signs of very heavy temporary memory loss.
with Ursula and Marina, the exact nature of which is never resolved.
-American geologist who favors corporate control of Mars, her harsh personality does not win her many friends among the First Hundred. She eventually sides against most of the First Hundred with the increasingly authoritarian United Nations Office of Mars Affairs (UNOMA), its successor - the corporate/quasi-fascist United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTA), and the transnational corporations. She was in charge of Clarke, an artificially captured asteroid that was the counterweight of the First Space Elevator
until members of the first revolution in 2061 sent it spinning off into the outer Solar System. She survived and was able to bring the crew of the station back to the inner systems. She engaged in a brief sexual relationship with Saxifrage Russell, who despised her, while he was living under an assumed identity. Boyle is killed by Maya Toitovna during the rescue of Russell from Kasei Vallis after Maya discovered that Phyllis was torturing Sax. Later, it is revealed by Russell that, immediately prior to her death, Phyllis had been opposed to his torture and demanded that he be released.
ian stowaway, he is a friend and supporter of Hiroko, and a fervent anarchist communist. Present in Red Mars only as a shadowy figure who blends effortlessly into the Martian background, he is not even identified as anything more than the Coyote until the beginning of Green Mars. He becomes a leading figure in the underground and an unofficial coordinator of a developing gift economy
.
The Martians use the same terminology for different generations as Japanese Americans. People who immigrated from Earth are called issei, the first generation born on Mars are nisei
, and the second-generation Martians are sansei.
Kasei: Kasei
is the son of Hiroko and John Boone and the father of Jackie Boone. Kasei is the leader of the Kakaze, a radical Red faction. His name is Japanese for the planet Mars. He dies during the second revolution, after an unsuccessful attack on the second space elevator.
Nirgal: The son of Hiroko and the Coyote, he is raised communally by Hiroko and her followers in Zygote. He is a good-natured wanderer who eventually becomes a political leader advocating ties with Earth. He is one of the founders of the Free Mars movement and is famous for his running technique that allows him to run all day for days on end. As Nadia's assistants, he and Art are instrumental in getting the Martian constitution
written. Later he is sent on a diplomatic mission to Earth but nearly dies from an infection. His name is ancient Babylonian for Mars.
Jackie Boone: The granddaughter of Hiroko and John Boone (raised with Nirgal), she emerges as a leader of the Free Mars movement, but is seen to change her platform based on whatever keeps her in power (e.g. changing from banning Earth immigration to allowing almost unlimited immigrants). After her daughter Zo's death, she retires in grief and joins an one-way expedition to an extrasolar planet
near Aldebaran
.
Peter Clayborne: Peter Clayborne is the son of Ann Clayborne and Simon Frazier, being one of the first children born on Mars. Peter holds a position of older brother to all of the following first generation. Many revolutionary and later political decisions of the Mars First movement are influenced by his opinions and judgment. He works part-time as an engineer and a green politician.
Zoya "Zo" Boone: Jackie's daughter; she has feline traits (purring) inserted into her genome via the gerontological longevity treatment. In Blue Mars, she travels the solar system running political errands for Jackie, although the two do not get along particularly well. Her character is portrayed as hedonistic and explicitly nihilistic
, making sexual satisfaction a priority and seemingly having little regard for the feelings of others. On the other hand, she apparently has a conscience, risking her life to rescue a man on Mercury and later dying in an attempt to save a distressed flier.
Nikki: The daughter of Nadia and Art.
mission in an attempt to create a system of ecological capitalism based on democratic corporations. Like the other metanationals, it takes on intensive economic and political ties with governments, but Praxis aims for partnerships rather than exploitive relationships.
Zeyk Tuqa and his wife Nazik: They are Bedouin
nomads who originally emigrated from Egypt
and respected figures in the Arab
Martian community. Zeyk is a close friend of Chalmers. His eidetic memory
becomes a minor plot point.
William Fort: He is the founder of Praxis, one of the huge multinational corporations. He embraces a fusion of Eastern and Western lifestyles.
, who planned a five-hour miniseries to be directed by Martha Coolidge
, but he passed on the option. Later Gale Ann Hurd planned a similar mini-series for the Sci-Fi Channel
, which also remained unproduced. Then, in October 2008, it was reported that AMC and Jonathan Hensleigh
had teamed up and were planning to develop a television mini-series based on Red Mars.
, a NASA
lander that successfully touched down on Mars in May 2008. The First Interplanetary Library is intended to be a sort of time capsule
for future Mars explorers and colonists.
series bears remarkable similarity to the Mars trilogy, with a similar overarching storyline (the martian revolution) and many of the same techniques were used to change the surface.
, French
, German
, Polish
, Hebrew
, Japanese
, and Romanian
, among others.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s by Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer known for his award-winning Mars trilogy. His work delves into ecological and sociological themes regularly, and many of his novels appear to be the direct result of his own scientific fascinations, such as the fifteen years of research...
that chronicles the settlement and terraforming of the planet Mars
Terraforming of Mars
The terraforming of Mars is the hypothetical process by which the climate, surface, and known properties of Mars would be deliberately changed with the goal of making it habitable by humans and other terrestrial life, thus providing the possibility of safe and sustainable colonization of large...
through the intensely personal and detailed viewpoints of a wide variety of characters spanning almost two centuries. Ultimately more utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
n than dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
n, the story focuses on egalitarian
Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...
, sociological, and scientific advances made on Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
, while Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
suffers from overpopulation
Overpopulation
Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth...
and ecological disaster.
The three novels are Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993), and Blue Mars (1996). The Martians (1999) is a collection of short stories set in the same fictional universe
Fictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....
. The main trilogy won a number of prestigious awards. Icehenge
Icehenge
Icehenge is a science fiction novel by Kim Stanley Robinson.Though it was published almost ten years before Kim Stanley Robinson's acclaimed Mars trilogy and takes place in a different version of the future, Icehenge contains elements that should be familiar to readers of the Mars series...
(1984), Robinson's first novel about Mars, is not set in this universe but deals with similar themes and plot elements.
Red Mars—Colonization
Red Mars starts in 2026 with the first colonial voyage to Mars aboard the Ares, the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built (interestingly, from space shuttle external fuel tanks which, instead of incinerating in the atmosphere, have been boosted into orbit until enough had been amassed to build a ship) and home to a crew who are to be the first hundred Martian colonists. The mission is a joint Russian-American undertaking, and the First Hundred are mostly drawn from these countries (excepting one Michel Duval, a French psychologist assigned to observe their behavior). The book details the trip out, construction of the first settlement on Mars (eventually called Underhill) by Nadia Chernyshevski, debates among the colonists regarding both the terraformingTerraforming
Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
of the planet and its future relationship to Earth. The two extreme views on terraforming are personified by Saxifrage "Sax" Russell, who believes their very presence on the planet means some level of terraforming has already begun; and Ann Clayborne, who stakes out the position that humankind does not have the right to change entire planets at their will.
Russell's view is initially purely scientific but in time comes to blend with the views of Hiroko Ai, the chief of the Agricultural Team who assembles a new belief system (the "Areophany") devoted to the appreciation and furthering of life ("veriditas"); these views are collectively known as the "green" position, while Ann's naturalist stance comes to be known as "Red." The actual decision is left to the United Nations Organization Mars Authority (UNOMA), which greenlights terraforming, and a series of actions get underway, including the drilling of "moholes" to release subsurface heat; thickening of the atmosphere according to a complicated formula that comes to be known as the "Russell cocktail" after Sax; and the detonation of nuclear explosions deep in the permafrost. Additional steps are taken to connect Mars more closely with Earth, including the insertion of a geosynchronous asteroid "Clarke" to which a space elevator
Space elevator
A space elevator, also known as a geostationary orbital tether or a beanstalk, is a proposed non-rocket spacelaunch structure...
cable is tethered.
Against the backdrop of this development is another debate, one whose principal instigator is Arkady Bogdanov of the Russian contingent. Arkady argues that Mars need not and should not be subject to Earth traditions, limitations, or authority. He is to some extent joined in this position by John Boone, famous as the "First Man on Mars" from a preceding expedition and rival to Frank Chalmers, the technical leader of the American contingent. Their rivalry is further exacerbated by competing romantic interest in Maya Katarina Toitovna, the leader of the Russian contingent. (In the opening of the book, Frank instigates a sequence of events that leads to John being killed; much of what follows is a retrospective examination of what got things to that point.)
Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
meanwhile increasingly falls under the control of transnational corporations (TransNats) that come to dominate its governments, particularly smaller nations adopted as "flags of convenience." As UNOMA's power erodes, the Mars treaty is renegotiated in a move led by Frank Chalmers; the outcome is impressive but proves short-lived as the nations of Earth clash over limited resources, expanding debt, and population growth as well as restrictions on access to a new longevity treatment developed by Martian science -- one that holds the promise of lifespans into the hundreds of years. In 2061, with John Boone dead and exploding immigration threatening the fabric of Martian society, Arkady launches a revolution against what many now view as occupying TransNat troops operating only loosely under an UNOMA rubber-stamp approval. Initially successful, the revolution proves infeasible on the basis of both a greater-than-expected willingness of the Earth troops to use violence and the extreme vulnerability of life on a planet without a habitable atmosphere. A series of exchanges sees the cutting of the space elevator, bombardment of several martian cities (including the city where Arkady is himself organizing the rebellion; he is killed), the destruction of Phobos and its military complex, and the unleashing of great flood of torrential groundwater freed by nuclear means.
By the end, most of the First Hundred are dead, and virtually all who remain have fled to a refuge established years earlier by Hiroko and her followers. (One exception is Phyllis Boyle, who has allied herself with the TransNats; she is on Clarke when the space elevator cable is cut and sent flying out of orbit to a fate unknown by the conclusion of the book.) The revolution dies and life on Mars returns to a sense of stability under heavy TransNat control. War breaks out on Earth but cease-fire arrangements are reached when the TransNats flee to the safety of the developed nations, which use their huge armies to restore order. But a new generation of humans born on Mars holds the promise of change. In the meantime, the remaining First Hundred -- including Sax, Ann, and Nadia -- settle into life in Zygote, hidden under the South Polar ice.
Green Mars—Terraforming
Green Mars takes its title from the stage of terraforming that has allowed plants to grow. It picks up the story from Red Mars, following the lives of the remaining First Hundred and their children and grandchildren. Hiroko Ai's base under the south pole is attacked by UN Transitional Authority (UNTA) forces, and the survivors are forced to escape into a (less literal) underground organization known as the Demimonde. Among the expanded group are the First Hundred's children, the NiseiNisei
During the early years of World War II, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes in the Pacific coast states because military leaders and public opinion combined to fan unproven fears of sabotage...
, a number of whom live in Hiroko's second secret base, Zygote.
As unrest in the multinational control over Mars' affairs grow, various groups start to form with different aims and methods. Watching these groups evolve from Earth, the CEO of the Praxis Corporation sends a representative, Arthur Randolph, to organize the resistance movements. This culminates into the Dorsa Brevia agreement, in which nearly all the underground factions take part. Preparations are made for a second revolution beginning in the 2120s.
The book follows the characters across the martian landscape, which is explained in detail. As Sax Russell's character infiltrates the transnat terraforming project, the newly evolving martian biosphere is described at great length. A mainstay of the novel is a detailed analysis of philosophical, political, personal, economical, and geological experiences of the characters. The story weaves back and forth from character to character, providing a picture of Mars as seen by them.
One major event is a sudden, catastrophic rise in Earth's global sea level
Sea level
Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...
s, which is caused not primarily by any greenhouse effect
Greenhouse effect
The greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated in all directions. Since part of this re-radiation is back towards the surface, energy is transferred to the surface and the lower atmosphere...
but by the eruption of a chain of volcano
Volcano
2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...
es underneath the ice of west Antarctica, disintegrating the ice sheet and displacing the fragments into the ocean.
Blue Mars—Long-Term results
Blue Mars takes its title from the stage of terraforming that has allowed atmospheric pressure and temperature to increase so that liquidLiquid
Liquid is one of the three classical states of matter . Like a gas, a liquid is able to flow and take the shape of a container. Some liquids resist compression, while others can be compressed. Unlike a gas, a liquid does not disperse to fill every space of a container, and maintains a fairly...
water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
can exist on the planet's surface, forming river
River
A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...
s and sea
Sea
A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...
s. It follows from the end of Green Mars and has a much wider scope than the previous two books, covering an entire century after the second revolution. As Earth is heavily flooded by the sudden melting of the Antarctic ice cap, the once mighty Metanats are brought to their knees; as the Praxis Corporation paves a new way of "democratic businesses". Mars becomes the "Head" of the system, giving universal healthcare, free education, and an abundance of food. However, this sparks illegal immigration from Earth, so to ease the population strain on the Blue Planet, Martian scientists and engineers are soon put to the task of creating asteroid cities; where small planetoids of the Belt
Asteroid belt
The asteroid belt is the region of the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets...
are hollowed out, given a spin to produce gravity
Centrifugal force
Centrifugal force can generally be any force directed outward relative to some origin. More particularly, in classical mechanics, the centrifugal force is an outward force which arises when describing the motion of objects in a rotating reference frame...
, and a mini-sun is created to produce light and heat.
With a vast increase in sciences, technologies, and spacecraft manufacturing, this begins the "Accelerendo"; where humankind spreads its civilization throughout the Solar System, and eventually beyond. As Venus, Jovian moons, Saturnian moons, and eventually Triton
Triton (moon)
Triton is the largest moon of the planet Neptune, discovered on October 10, 1846, by English astronomer William Lassell. It is the only large moon in the Solar System with a retrograde orbit, which is an orbit in the opposite direction to its planet's rotation. At 2,700 km in diameter, it is...
are colonized and terraformed in some way, Jackie Boone (the granddaughter of John Boone, the first man to walk on Mars from the first book) takes an interstellar vessel (made out of an asteroid) to another star system twenty light-year
Light-year
A light-year, also light year or lightyear is a unit of length, equal to just under 10 trillion kilometres...
s away, where they will start to terraform the planets and moons found there.
The Martians—Short stories
The Martians is a collection of short storiesShort story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
that takes place over the timespan of the original trilogy of novels, as well as some stories that take place in an alternate version of the novels where the First Hundred's mission was one of exploration rather than colonization. Buried in the stories are several hints about the eventual fate of the Martian terraforming program.
Corporations
Trans-national Corporations, nicknamed "Transnats", are extremely powerful multinational corporations that first emerge in the mid-21st century. Robinson tracks the evolution of the transnats into what he terms "Metanats" (metanational). These multinational corporations have grown so large as a result of globalizationGlobalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
that they have sufficient economic power to take over or strongly manipulate national governments, initially only relatively small third-world
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
governments, but later, larger developed governments too, effectively running whole countries. In Robinson's future history
Future history
A future history is a postulated history of the future and is used by authors in the subgenre of speculative fiction to construct a common background for fiction...
, the metanational corporations become similar to nation-state
Nation-state
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
s in some respects, while continually attempting to take over competitors in order to become the sole controller of the interplanetary market
Market
A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...
. As the Mars trilogy draws to a close in the mid-22nd century, the metanational corporations are forced by a global catastrophe
Disaster
A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment...
to concede more democratic powers to their workforces.
Although there are many transnational and metanational corporations mentioned, two play an active role in the development of the plotline. Praxis, a largely benevolent and relatively democratic firm, and Subarashī, which plays a large role in the maltreatment of the citizens of Mars.
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering is first mentioned in Red Mars, it takes off when Sax creates an algae to withstand the harsh Martian temperature, and convert its atmosphere into breathable air. Eventually this is put on a massive scale, with thousands of types of GE algae, lichen, and bacteria being created to terraform the planet. In Green Mars, GE animals began to be created to withstand the thin Martian atmosphere, and to produce a working planetary-biosphere. By Blue Mars, GE is commonly being done on humans, willingly, to help them better adapt to the new worlds; to breathe thinner air (e.g.Sax), or to see better in the dimmer light of the outer planets.Other themes
The books also speculate on the colonization of other planets and moonMoon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
s in the solar system
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
, and include descriptions of settlements or terraforming efforts on Callisto
Callisto (moon)
Callisto named after the Greek mythological figure of Callisto) is a moon of the planet Jupiter. It was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei. It is the third-largest moon in the Solar System and the second largest in the Jovian system, after Ganymede. Callisto has about 99% the diameter of the...
, Mercury
Mercury (planet)
Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits...
, Titania
Titania (moon)
Titania is the largest of the moons of Uranus and the eighth largest moon in the Solar System at a diameter of 1578 km. Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, Titania is named after the queen of the fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream...
, Miranda
Miranda (moon)
-External links:* at * at The Nine8 Planets* at Views of the Solar System* * from the...
, and Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...
. Toward the end of the last novel, humans are taking sub-light colony ships to other stars, taking advantage of the longevity treatments to survive the trip to their destinations.
A great portion of Blue Mars is concerned with the effects of extreme longevity on its protagonists, most of whom have lived over two hundred years as a result of repeated longevity
Longevity
The word "longevity" is sometimes used as a synonym for "life expectancy" in demography or known as "long life", especially when it concerns someone or something lasting longer than expected ....
treatments. In particular, Robinson speculates on the psychological
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
effects of ultra-longevity including memory loss, personality change, mental instability, and existential boredom.
The First Hundred
The initial colonists from the Ares who established a permanent colony. Many of them later become leaders or exemplary figures in the transformation of Mars or its new society. The "First Hundred" actually consisted of 101, with Coyote being smuggled aboard the Ares by HirokoJohn Boone
An American astronautAstronaut
An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
, and the first man on Mars, he returns a public hero and uses his considerable influence to lobby
Lobbying
Lobbying is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by various people or groups, from private-sector individuals or corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or...
for a second mission, this time one of colonization. Boone received a large amount of radiation
Radiation
In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...
on his first trip to Mars, more than the recommended dosage according to medical regulations. However, his celebrity status allows him to skirt this. On the second voyage, Boone is one of the "First Hundred" colonists sent to permanently colonize Mars. His accomplishments and natural charm yield him an informal leadership role. In the first chapter of Red Mars, John Boone is assassinated in a plot instigated by Frank Chalmers. The narrative then steps back to the First Hundred's voyage to Mars aboard the spaceship Ares. His ideas continue as a point of reference for the remainder of the trilogy. Boone's character portrayal is complex; in one light, Boone is a stereotypically simple, heroic figure, an everyman hero: his first words on his first trip to Mars are "Well, here we are." He is almost uniformly cheerful and good-natured, and approaches everything he undertakes with hale bonhomie. But later in Red Mars, Robinson switches to Boone's point of view
Point of view (literature)
The narrative mode is the set of methods the author of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical story uses to convey the plot to the audience. Narration, the process of presenting the narrative, occurs because of the narrative mode...
, and it is in this section that it is revealed that late in life, Boone is addicted to omegendorph, a fictional drug that is based on endorphin
Endorphin
Endorphins are endogenous opioid peptides that function as neurotransmitters. They are produced by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus in vertebrates during exercise, excitement, pain, consumption of spicy food, love and orgasm, and they resemble the opiates in their abilities to produce...
s in the human brain
Human brain
The human brain has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times larger than the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size. Estimates for the number of neurons in the human brain range from 80 to 120 billion...
. In addition, it reveals that at least some of his seeming simplicity might simply be an act designed to further his political goals. Overall, Boone is presented as larger-than-life.
Frank Chalmers
Head of the American contingent, he is MachiavellianMachiavellianism
Machiavellianism is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct", deriving from the Italian Renaissance diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, who wrote Il Principe and other works...
in his use of power. However, his cynicism is later shown to be a form of self-defense; Chalmers is at least partly driven by a hidden idealistic side. Early in the voyage to Mars, he becomes romantically involved with Maya Toitovna, the leader of the Russian contingent of the mission. During the second-half of the voyage, Maya becomes involved with John Boone. Already bitter that John was allowed to join the colonization mission despite his manipulations, Frank further despises John because of Maya's affection. His dislike culminates in his involvement in a plot to assassinate John, which ultimately succeeds. In the final chapters of Red Mars, Frank flees with Maya and other members of the First Hundred to join the hidden colonists at the polar ice cap but dies along the way when he is caught outside their vehicle during an aquifer
Aquifer
An aquifer is a wet underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock or unconsolidated materials from which groundwater can be usefully extracted using a water well. The study of water flow in aquifers and the characterization of aquifers is called hydrogeology...
flood.
Maya Toitovna
An emotional woman who is at the center of a love triangle between Boone and Chalmers, she begins as head of the RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n contingent. The novels hint that she used both wit and seduction to rise through the ranks of the Russian space agency to become the leader of the first colonization mission. After the first revolution, she flees with other members of the First Hundred to the hidden colony in the pole. She becomes a school teacher of the children of the hidden colonists but later becomes a powerful political force. After the deaths of Chalmers and Boone, she falls in love with Michel Duval. She suffers heavily from bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...
and from memory related psychological disorders with growing age.
Nadezhda "Nadia" Chernyshevski
A Russian engineer who started out building nuclear reactors in SiberiaSiberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, during the voyage and initial exploration of Mars, she does her best to avoid the squabbles of the other members of the First Hundred. Instead, she busies herself by building the first permanent habitation of Mars, Underhill, using programmed automated robots. She also helps to construct a new and larger habitat, and research facility in a nearby canyon. In the later books, she becomes a reluctant politician. Nadia is in love with Arkady Bogdanov and is devastated when he is killed in an attack by anti-revolutionary forces associated with UNOMA, the transnationals, and Phyllis Boyle during the first Martian revolution. In retaliation for Arkady's murder, she activates his hidden weapon system, built into Phobos
Phobos (moon)
Phobos is the larger and closer of the two natural satellites of Mars. Both moons were discovered in 1877. With a mean radius of , Phobos is 7.24 times as massive as Deimos...
, which causes the entire moon (a UNOMA/transnational military base) to decelerate in orbit and destructively aerobrake in Mars' atmosphere, utterly destroying it. In Green Mars, she falls in love with Art Randolph, with whom she eventually starts a family. After Martian independence, she grudgingly becomes the first president of Mars.
Arkady Bogdanov
An engineer with anarchistAnarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
leanings, possibly based on Russian futurists
Russian Futurism
Russian Futurism is the term used to denote a group of Russian poets and artists who adopted the principles of Filippo Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism"...
, Alexander Bogdanov
Alexander Bogdanov
Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov –7 April 1928, Moscow) was a Russian physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and revolutionary of Belarusian ethnicity....
(the character's ancestor) and Arkady Strugatsky, he is regarded by many other members of the First Hundred, particularly Boyle, as a troublemaker. He leads the team which establishes an outpost on the moon Phobos
Phobos (moon)
Phobos is the larger and closer of the two natural satellites of Mars. Both moons were discovered in 1877. With a mean radius of , Phobos is 7.24 times as massive as Deimos...
, and leads an uprising against the transnational corporation towards the end of first novel. Like Boone, his political ideas (later known as Bogdanovism) weigh heavily on characters later in the series. In love with Nadia Chernyshevski, he is killed during the first Martian revolution in 2061.
Saxifrage "Sax" Russell
An American physicistPhysicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
, he is a brilliant and creative scientist, and is greatly respected for his intellectual gifts. However, he is socially awkward and often finds it difficult to understand and relate to other people. Russell is a leader of the Green movement, the goal of which is to terraform
Terraforming
Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
Mars. During Green Mars, Sax suffers a stroke while being tortured by government security forces and fellow member of the First Hundred, Phyllis Boyle. He subsequently suffers from Broca's aphasia and has to relearn how to speak. Originally apolitical, this event and a growing attachment to Mars itself leads Russell to become the physical architect of the second revolution. He is also secretly in love with Ann Clayborne, who cannot stand him at first but, after decades on Mars, eventually reconciles. Saxifrage
Saxifrage
Saxifraga is the largest genus in the family Saxifragaceae, containing about 440 species of Holarctic perennial plants, known as saxifrages. The Latin word saxifraga means literally "stone-breaker", from Latin + ...
means "stonebreaker" and is the name for an Alpine plant that grows between stones.
Ann Clayborne
Ann is an American geologistGeologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
, one of the first areologists, and the original Red. She believes that Mars should be preserved in its pristine state. She becomes a leader of the Red movement, which is dedicated to the goal of preserving Mars as it was before human colonization. She is frequently seen as bitter and prefers to live in solitude on extensive trips while exploring Mars. She has a hate-love relationship with Saxifrage "Sax" Russell, an American physicist and leader of the Green Mars movement, which wants to terraform Mars. After she shows signs of aging and her death seems imminent, Russell has the longevity treatment administered to her while she is comatose. She develops a more complex personality afterward — sometimes remaining close to her isolationist position, and at other times appreciating the treatment and Mars in its terraformed state.
Hiroko Ai
A JapanJapan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese expert on biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
, and ecological
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
systems, it was Hiroko who smuggled Desmond "Coyote" Hawkins onto the Ares (the two were friends and lovers as students in London). She is the charismatic leader of the farm team, one of the important work groups and cliques among the First Hundred. She thus becomes the focus of many of the trilogy's central themes. Most importantly, she teaches the importance of maintaining a respectful relation with one's planet. On Mars, this is called the Areophany. In the secret colony Zygote, which Hiroko established, the first generation of children of the First Hundred, the ectogenes, are all the product of artificial insemination outside of any human body. Hiroko uses the ova of the female members of the First Hundred as the female genetic material and uses the sperm of the male members of the First Hundred to fertilize the ova. Although Hiroko is seldom at the center of the narrative, her influence is pervasive. She disappears for the final time in Green Mars. Her ultimate fate is left unresolved. In Japanese, ai means love
Love
Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...
.
Michel Duval
A FrenchFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
psychologist
Psychologist
Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
assigned to monitor the psychological welfare of the First Hundred, first in Antarctica and later on Mars, he is often treated as an observer rather than as a member of the group. His aloof personality enforces this ostracism and also subverts his relationships with others. During the first disappearance of the farm team, he is invited by Hiroko to flee with the farm team and establish Zygote, the first hidden colony. He desperately wants to return to Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
as he remembers it, although after visiting as a part of the Martian diplomatic mission to Earth, he becomes even more homesick. Michel falls in love with Maya Toitovna and dies after she displays signs of very heavy temporary memory loss.
Vladimir "Vlad" Taneev
A Russian biological scientist, nearly sixty when arriving on Mars, he is the oldest of the First Hundred. Taneev is the head of all medical treatment and research projects on Mars. He became famous as the creator of the gerontological treatment to stave off death. He lived in Acheron on the Great Escarpment in the north of Mars before fleeing to the hidden colony after the First Revolution. He lived in a ménage à troisMénage à trois
Ménage à trois is a French term which originally described a domestic arrangement in which three people having sexual relations occupy the same household – the phrase literally translates as "household of three"...
with Ursula and Marina, the exact nature of which is never resolved.
Phyllis Boyle
A ChristianChristian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
-American geologist who favors corporate control of Mars, her harsh personality does not win her many friends among the First Hundred. She eventually sides against most of the First Hundred with the increasingly authoritarian United Nations Office of Mars Affairs (UNOMA), its successor - the corporate/quasi-fascist United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTA), and the transnational corporations. She was in charge of Clarke, an artificially captured asteroid that was the counterweight of the First Space Elevator
Space elevator
A space elevator, also known as a geostationary orbital tether or a beanstalk, is a proposed non-rocket spacelaunch structure...
until members of the first revolution in 2061 sent it spinning off into the outer Solar System. She survived and was able to bring the crew of the station back to the inner systems. She engaged in a brief sexual relationship with Saxifrage Russell, who despised her, while he was living under an assumed identity. Boyle is killed by Maya Toitovna during the rescue of Russell from Kasei Vallis after Maya discovered that Phyllis was torturing Sax. Later, it is revealed by Russell that, immediately prior to her death, Phyllis had been opposed to his torture and demanded that he be released.
Desmond "Coyote" Hawkins
A TrinidadTrinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...
ian stowaway, he is a friend and supporter of Hiroko, and a fervent anarchist communist. Present in Red Mars only as a shadowy figure who blends effortlessly into the Martian background, he is not even identified as anything more than the Coyote until the beginning of Green Mars. He becomes a leading figure in the underground and an unofficial coordinator of a developing gift economy
Gift economy
In the social sciences, a gift economy is a society where valuable goods and services are regularly given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards . Ideally, simultaneous or recurring giving serves to circulate and redistribute valuables within the community...
.
Their descendants
Since the trilogy covers over 200 years of human history, later immigrants and the children and grandchildren of the First Hundred eventually become important characters in their own right.The Martians use the same terminology for different generations as Japanese Americans. People who immigrated from Earth are called issei, the first generation born on Mars are nisei
Nisei
During the early years of World War II, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes in the Pacific coast states because military leaders and public opinion combined to fan unproven fears of sabotage...
, and the second-generation Martians are sansei.
Kasei: Kasei
Kasei
Kasei is a settlement in Kenya's Rift Valley Province....
is the son of Hiroko and John Boone and the father of Jackie Boone. Kasei is the leader of the Kakaze, a radical Red faction. His name is Japanese for the planet Mars. He dies during the second revolution, after an unsuccessful attack on the second space elevator.
Nirgal: The son of Hiroko and the Coyote, he is raised communally by Hiroko and her followers in Zygote. He is a good-natured wanderer who eventually becomes a political leader advocating ties with Earth. He is one of the founders of the Free Mars movement and is famous for his running technique that allows him to run all day for days on end. As Nadia's assistants, he and Art are instrumental in getting the Martian constitution
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
written. Later he is sent on a diplomatic mission to Earth but nearly dies from an infection. His name is ancient Babylonian for Mars.
Jackie Boone: The granddaughter of Hiroko and John Boone (raised with Nirgal), she emerges as a leader of the Free Mars movement, but is seen to change her platform based on whatever keeps her in power (e.g. changing from banning Earth immigration to allowing almost unlimited immigrants). After her daughter Zo's death, she retires in grief and joins an one-way expedition to an extrasolar planet
Extrasolar planet
An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System. A total of such planets have been identified as of . It is now known that a substantial fraction of stars have planets, including perhaps half of all Sun-like stars...
near Aldebaran
Aldebaran
Aldebaran is a red giant star located about 65 light years away in the zodiac constellation of Taurus. With an average apparent magnitude of 0.87 it is the brightest star in the constellation and is one of the brightest stars in the nighttime sky...
.
Peter Clayborne: Peter Clayborne is the son of Ann Clayborne and Simon Frazier, being one of the first children born on Mars. Peter holds a position of older brother to all of the following first generation. Many revolutionary and later political decisions of the Mars First movement are influenced by his opinions and judgment. He works part-time as an engineer and a green politician.
Zoya "Zo" Boone: Jackie's daughter; she has feline traits (purring) inserted into her genome via the gerontological longevity treatment. In Blue Mars, she travels the solar system running political errands for Jackie, although the two do not get along particularly well. Her character is portrayed as hedonistic and explicitly nihilistic
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
, making sexual satisfaction a priority and seemingly having little regard for the feelings of others. On the other hand, she apparently has a conscience, risking her life to rescue a man on Mercury and later dying in an attempt to save a distressed flier.
Nikki: The daughter of Nadia and Art.
Other characters
Arthur "Art" Randolph: A representative of the Praxis corporation sent to contact the Martian underground movement on a quasi-diplomaticDiplomacy
Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...
mission in an attempt to create a system of ecological capitalism based on democratic corporations. Like the other metanationals, it takes on intensive economic and political ties with governments, but Praxis aims for partnerships rather than exploitive relationships.
Zeyk Tuqa and his wife Nazik: They are Bedouin
Bedouin
The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...
nomads who originally emigrated from Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and respected figures in the Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
Martian community. Zeyk is a close friend of Chalmers. His eidetic memory
Eidetic memory
Eidetic , commonly referred to as photographic memory, is a medical term, popularly defined as the ability to recall images, sounds, or objects in memory with extreme precision and in abundant volume. The word eidetic, referring to extraordinarily detailed and vivid recall not limited to, but...
becomes a minor plot point.
William Fort: He is the founder of Praxis, one of the huge multinational corporations. He embraces a fusion of Eastern and Western lifestyles.
Awards
- Red Mars won the BSFABSFA awardThe BSFA Awards are literary awards presented annually since 1970 by the British Science Fiction Association to honor works in the genre of science fiction. Nominees and winners are chosen based on a vote of BSFA members...
in 1992, NebulaNebula Award for Best NovelWinners of the Nebula Award for Best Novel, awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The stated year is that of publication; awards are given in the following year.- Winners and other nominees :...
Awards in 1993, and was nominated for the Hugo, Clarke, and Locus Awards in 1993. - Green Mars won the HugoHugo Award for Best NovelThe Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
and Locus Awards in 1994, and was nominated for the BSFA (1993) and Nebula Awards (1994). - Blue Mars won the HugoHugo Award for Best NovelThe Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
and Locus Awards in 1997, was nominated for a BSFA Award in 1996, and received nominations for the Campbell and Clarke Awards in 1997.
Screen adaptations
The Mars trilogy rights were at one point held by James CameronJames Cameron
James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...
, who planned a five-hour miniseries to be directed by Martha Coolidge
Martha Coolidge
Martha Coolidge is an American film director and former President of the Directors Guild of America. -Career:Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Ms. Coolidge first made her reputation by directing many award winning documentaries in New York before moving out to Hollywood in 1976. She spent several...
, but he passed on the option. Later Gale Ann Hurd planned a similar mini-series for the Sci-Fi Channel
Syfy
Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
, which also remained unproduced. Then, in October 2008, it was reported that AMC and Jonathan Hensleigh
Jonathan Hensleigh
Jonathan Blair Hensleigh is an American screenwriter and film director, working primarily in the action/adventure genre of films.-Early life:...
had teamed up and were planning to develop a television mini-series based on Red Mars.
On Phoenix spacecraft
The content of Green Mars and the cover artwork for Red Mars are included on the Phoenix DVD, carried onboard PhoenixPhoenix (spacecraft)
Phoenix was a robotic spacecraft on a space exploration mission on Mars under the Mars Scout Program. The Phoenix lander descended on Mars on May 25, 2008...
, a NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
lander that successfully touched down on Mars in May 2008. The First Interplanetary Library is intended to be a sort of time capsule
Time capsule
A time capsule is an historic cache of goods or information, usually intended as a method of communication with future people and to help future archaeologists, anthropologists, or historians...
for future Mars explorers and colonists.
Video games
The Red FactionRed Faction
Red Faction is a first-person shooter video game developed by Volition, Inc. and published by THQ. It was released for the PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows and Mac in 2001. A version for the Nokia N-Gage was developed by Monkeystone Games. The game was also re-developed as a top-down shooter for...
series bears remarkable similarity to the Mars trilogy, with a similar overarching storyline (the martian revolution) and many of the same techniques were used to change the surface.
Translations to other languages
The trilogy has been translated into SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
, Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, and Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, among others.
See also
- Colonization of MarsColonization of MarsThe colonization of Mars by humans is the focus of speculation and serious study because the surface conditions and availability of water on Mars make it arguably the most hospitable planet in the solar system other than Earth...
- KavaKavaKava or kava-kava is a crop of the western Pacific....
- The Mars Trilogy contains many references to kava and kavajava—kava mixed with coffee. The novels use kava as the social drink of choice for the human colonizers of Mars. - Mars in fictionMars in fictionFictional representations of Mars have been popular for over a century. Interest in Mars has been stimulated by the planet's dramatic red color, by early scientific speculations that its surface conditions might be capable of supporting life, and by the possibility that Mars could be colonized by...
- Red StarRed Star (novel)Red Star is Alexander Bogdanov's 1908 science fiction novel about a communist utopia on Mars. Set in early Russia during the Revolution of 1905 and on socialist Mars, the novel tells the story of Leonid, a scientist-revolutionary who travels to Mars to learn and experience their socialist system...
The 1908 utopian science fiction novel by Alexander BogdanovAlexander BogdanovAlexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov –7 April 1928, Moscow) was a Russian physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and revolutionary of Belarusian ethnicity....
about a technologically and socially advanced society on Mars. Referenced as an inspiration for the Mars Trilogy. - Terraforming of MarsTerraforming of MarsThe terraforming of Mars is the hypothetical process by which the climate, surface, and known properties of Mars would be deliberately changed with the goal of making it habitable by humans and other terrestrial life, thus providing the possibility of safe and sustainable colonization of large...