Red Mars

Thoroughly enjoyable; detailed and precise; no whizz-bang technobabble. Just a very realistic (given when it was written) dense story about the colonisation of Mars. Entirely believable without the need to turn off the brain as many Sci-Fi stories require, not that that is wrong but KSR doesn't go in that direction

I'm a sucker for all things Mars, and this was a *hard* book to read. The characters are flat, with little distinguishing features, despite the author's valiant efforts to give them more personality. Hundreds of pages are wasted on long descriptions of natural features that don't do anything to advance the plot. The whole story can be compressed to about one tenth of the book. In fact, reading the plot synopsis on Wikipedia is a better way of figuring out what the author is trying to say. I wish SciFi nerds would stop raving about mediocre literature just because it says "Mars" on it, or it happens "in space".

Amazing hard SciFi of Martian colonisation, a not-so distant future endeavour of mankind. Knitty-gritty science of all types, alongside moments of mystery, suspense, and drama. An insight into poignant dilemmas of space travel and settlement, science and (some) politics.