Red Mars
- 592
- Pages
- about 11 h
- Reading time
- Nebula Award for Best Novel
- BSFA Award for Best Novel
- Ignotus Award for Best Foreign Novel
- Seiun Award for Best Translated Long Work
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Our view
“Red Mars” treats the settling of another planet as a slow, collective undertaking. Engineering, politics and quarrels among the first hundred colonists matter more here than action. For some readers that slowness is the point; others find the book drawn-out and its protagonists hard to like, and some object to the way national groups are portrayed. It suits readers who enjoy watching a society take shape step by step.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel • Discover the novel that launched one of science fiction’s most beloved, acclaimed, and awarded trilogies: Kim Stanley Robinson’s masterly near-future chronicle of interplanetary colonization. “A staggering book . . . the best novel on the colonization of Mars that has ever been written.”—Arthur C. Clarke For centuries, the barren, desolate landscape of the red planet has beckoned to humankind. Now a group of one hundred colonists begins a mission whose ultimate goal is to transform Mars into a more Earthlike planet. They will place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light onto its surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels drilled into the mantle will create stupendous vents of hot gases. But despite these ambitious goals, there are some who would fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.
Reading order · Mars trilogy
Full order & progress →- Red MarsThis book
7.77.7 / 10 - Green Mars
7.97.9 / 10 - Blue Mars
7.87.8 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.5 across 710 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 83% of the weight and the score stays at 7.7 — the Science fiction average of 7.8 barely moves it. A further +0.10 comes from the small bonus for major awards.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.3 | 76 | 11% |
| Hardcover | 7.5 | 634 | 89% |
Frequently asked
How long is Red Mars?
It has 592 pages — longer than 77% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Science fiction — with scores between 7.6 and 7.7, closest to this book.
