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Red Mars
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 23 hrs and 51 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel, Red Mars is the first book in Kim Stanley Robinson's best-selling trilogy. Red Mars is praised by scientists for its detailed visions of future technology. It is also hailed by authors and critics for its vivid characters and dramatic conflicts.
For centuries, the red planet has enticed the people of Earth. Now an international group of scientists has colonized Mars. Leaving Earth forever, these 100 people have traveled nine months to reach their new home. This is the remarkable story of the world they create - and the hidden power struggles of those who want to control it.
Although it is fiction, Red Mars is based on years of research. As living spaces and greenhouses multiply, an astonishing panorama of our galactic future rises from the red dust. Through Richard Ferrone's narration, each scene is energized with the designs and dreams of the extraordinary pioneers.
Critic Reviews
- Nebula Award, Best Novel, 1993
"Generously blending hard science with canny insight into human strengths and weaknesses, this suspenseful sf saga should appeal to a wide range of readers." (Library Journal)
"The ultimate in future history." (Daily Mail)
Featured Article: The Best Audiobooks for Fans of Dune
Ever since its publication in 1965, Frank Herbert's Dune has set the bar high for epic science fiction. In fact, Herbert's beloved novel is considered to be one the best sci-fi books of all time. Dune was the recipient of multiple awards, including the inaugural Nebula Award for best novel in 1966. And in October 2021, more than 50 years after the novel's initial release, fans of Dune are being treated to a film adaptation, directed by Denis Villeneuve.
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What listeners say about Red Mars
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Paul
- 01-05-09
If you like books with DETAIL not much Action
I can see why the book won awards. The thought that went into this work is VERY good. It kept me listening to the end but it was just so that I could get to the end. It is a detailed look at what colonization would truly be like with all the good and bad points. If you want an action book this is probably NOT for you.
64 people found this helpful
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- JLM
- 08-21-12
Old School Hard Sci Fi, but softly
What made the experience of listening to Red Mars the most enjoyable?
Science, yes, but also relationships, pathos and politics interact to make this a pretty fun listen. I like these long intertwined stories of science, world building, yet not necessarily space opera-y. Not so far in the future that you can;t imagine it ...kinda...
But you have to be interested in the science to enjoy this, it is an integral part of the story.
37 people found this helpful
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- David
- 05-17-14
The first Mars colony
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy is well-regarded by SF fans, but it didn't really live up to the hype for me, though it's an excellent entry in the hard SF genre. Robinson's prose is not as lyrical as Ray Bradbury's, but it's not as dry as Ben Bova's either. Red Mars seems to synthesize elements from all of Robinson's predecessors — it's a Heinleinesque adventure at times, with hard SF infodumps, but actual characters, and shout-outs to every author who's ever touched Mars, including Burroughs.
Red Mars is the tale of the first Martian colony, and covers a couple of generations of history. The "First Hundred" who established the original settlement become larger-than-life, almost mythical figures to those who follow after them, but as Mars begins to be taken over by political and economic factions bringing old issues of exploitation and oppression (followed by resistance and terrorism) from Earth, the Hundred are just as conflicted and prone to squabbling and working at cross-purposes as all the other settlers.
Early on, there is a huge debate over terraforming Mars, eventually becoming a conflict between the "Reds" and the "Greens." Eventually other cultures arrive on Mars and have their own ideas of what it means to be a Martian settler. Muslims make up a substantial segment of the population, as do Russians and other nationalities, all wanting to have an equal stake in Martian society.
The ending shows the surviving members of the Hundred witnessing what happens after decades of emigration and development on Mars, with much of what has been built up brought down by an uprising among the children of Mars.
If you are a space exploration geek, and especially if you are one of those who still dreams of a Mars expedition in our lifetime, then Red Mars may fire you up with a realistic view of what emigration to Mars might actually look like. It is almost certainly not an accurate picture of what will actually happen, should we ever get that far, but it's a realistic picture of what could happen.
I give this book 4 stars for being one of the best Mars books out there, but not 5 stars, because the story and the characters just did not grab me enough to wonder, "What happens next?"
44 people found this helpful
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- Evanlee
- 12-29-14
I wish there was a different narrator. :(
It's necessary to explain how I listen to my audio books right now. I play them at night, when I lay down and play my games, and during the night. I hear a lot more of the books than one might think.
With that explained, RED MARS begins as a 100 person trip to Mars of the best (insert here), to live on Mars. Sounds simple? Ain't.
I don't like to knock people at their jobs. This fellow shouldn't give up his day job. There are SO many opportunities in this book for a good narrator, or group of narrators. The characters are so rich and diverse. Even among the Americas, there's not really much in the way of differentiation. But even KNOWING there were Russians, Iranian, Iraqi, Shiite, Egyptian, Japanese, Chinese, German, and on and on--my memory is lacking--when I listen to this book I FORGET that Sasha and Nadya are Russian, cause they sound like everyone else. The only group he accented were Southern, and he didn't get us right. The way he reads the book is like all the countries had a prerequisite, and only one. If you go to Mars, you have to speak darn good English--unless you're Southern!
I'm sorry I''ve rambled, but one more thing. He keeps mispronouncing words!
This is a decent book. What a shame to do that to a book.
48 people found this helpful
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- Bill W.
- 06-29-14
A great book, but a poor reading
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
I have read the book before and enjoyed listening to it as an Audiobook.
What other book might you compare Red Mars to and why?
There are a number of sci fi books that cover similar territory, such as Mars, Moving Mars, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Would you be willing to try another one of Richard Ferrone’s performances?
I would look for other narrators before listening to another book read by Richard Ferrone. This book, with a large international cast of characters, calls for someone who could do at least basic accents to differentiate the characters. Ferrone doesn't attempt this. Even if you forgive that, he often puts emphasis in strange places that obfuscate the meaning of the words. He also clearly does not have a background in the sciences and much of his technical vocabulary is mispronounced. For a book with as much technical vocabulary as this, that gets really annoying.
Do you think Red Mars needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
It has one (Green Mars). It also as a prequel (Antarctica), which is unfortunately not available as an audio book.
10 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Anonymous User
- 10-09-09
A true masterpiece
Red Mars (and The Mars Trilogy in general) asks big questions: How can we start over and recreate society, taking out the bad stuff and saving the good stuff? Can we escape history and remake ourselves into something that overcomes oppression of women, slavery, racism, greed, militarism, environmental destructiveness? Can we turn our society into a means for giving every member of that society a chance to achieve his or her own potential? These are big questions; they can't be answered with bumper sticker slogans. It takes a lot of detail and careful, thoughtful discussion to address them. So while a lot happens in this series, it isn't Star Trek. Problems aren't easily resolved. Situations are never black and white. The characters change, grow, and even forget how they got to the present.
For readers who like a lot of meat to chew over, these books are probably among the greatest written in the 20th century - obsessively researched, thickly layered with meaning and analysis; the whole series is something that you can listen to time and again, and hear something different every time. The characters are archetypes; even their names express who they are - but they are also real people, with real emotions, amazingly and skillfully brought to life. The issues discussed are both a comment on the present (and history) and, in the best tradition of science fiction, an analysis of future possibilities. I can't recommend the entire series more highly for the reader who enjoys this sort of thing. But be forewarned - there are bad reviews here, and I'm guessing they are from people who were looking for something different - lots of plot and action, perhaps a little less analysis. I enjoy those books too, so I'm not saying that as a criticism of those who didn't find this to their liking. I'm just saying that there are plenty of other books that fill this role. The Mars Trilogy is something else entirely.
24 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-25-19
The first 80% was the worst book I've ever read.
The only reason I kept reading was that I love Mars books. But it was brutal to keep listening to this book. The story was poorly written and the plot was all over the place. the book didnt get interesting until the very end and even then it was mediocre at best. I wouldn't waste your time.
6 people found this helpful
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- Odd
- 03-29-17
Attempts to be deep, ends up superficial
Struggles between hyper realism and juvenile attempts at philosophy. I have seen several people complain about shallow or flat characters, but here I disagree. The characters are not flat, rather they are pretty realistic, which I guess is not common in literature, simply because real people ARE kinda shallow and boring and flat (which makes for boring reading). Capable characters with interesting personalities? You'll find none of these in this book. Here they are all idiots and in the end I was just wishing all the characters already introduced would be killed off. I almost got my wish...
Science was ok for the most part, engineering seems to be the authors strong suit. The tangents into philosophy, history, psychology and political theory was on the level of drunken conversations between 18-year-olds.
In the end you don't care about the story (the little of it there is) because you actively hate the characters. The only part of the book that I enjoyed was the first third or so when they built the initial colony. No story to talk of here, but good descriptions of problem solving and novel solutions to the Martian environment. It's a shame really that the author decided to cram in a boring political drama and a love-triangle. The author does drama about as well as an elephant flies.
12 people found this helpful
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- Kindle Customer
- 05-03-08
Epic, brilliant
I've read these books twice and was thrilled to see them come out as audio books. They are a committment, not a quick sci-fi fix, but they are truly amazing in the scope, detail, character development and realistic approach the author takes in developing a society on Mars. I can say this is my favorite sci-fi series of all time - and I have read many. There are a lot of characters and I must admit I'm sure it helps I've read the books in print, but if you're used to really listening to complex books these will definitely be worth your time. The narrator is fine, steady and unobtrusive in his reading. I highly recommend this series if a major work of amazing sci-fi is what you are looking for.
39 people found this helpful
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- Dana
- 07-17-08
very long
This is a strange book. The writing is very competent. The aim seems to be to give a hyper-realistic account of what the colonization of Mars might be like, and some of the descriptive passages are startlingly evocative despite the audio narrator's relentless efforts to conceal the meaning of the sentences. The passages about science and technology are interesting even though most of them fail to advance the plot an inch. The plot is for all practical purposes nonexistent. There is a determined effort to shape realistic characters, but overall they are little different from soap opera people. There are long summary passages that sound like back story from notebooks. The characters argue and fight about things that might be important, but in their mouths sound trivial. Most action scenes come off as eighth-grade bullies' scuffles. Despite the intent to realism, I found it hard to believe that the first shipload of Martian colonists would be debating whether to completely throw out the colonization plans made on Earth (which by that time would have been decades in preparation) and with no replacement plans of their own, just naive political and social abstractions. Anyone with a disposition to disrupt the plans would have been screened out by NASA years before. The audio narrator is barely listenable; he is one of those readers with no ear for the rhythms and stresses of English, and who seems to believe words have no inherent meaning or feeling and he has to inject it, mostly resulting in relentlessly mis-stressed words and phrases to the disruption of the feeling that does reside there. The story being slow, the characters adolescent, and the reading poor, what allowed me to listen to this for the full 24 hours were that Robinson's workmanlike feel for English is usually strong enough to override the reader's misrepresentation of the sentences, and that occasionally a passage describing Mars arises vividly, worth waiting for over long, long stretches.
63 people found this helpful
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- AHeath
- 08-01-18
Epic, intelligent, hard sci fi
Amazing, ambitious book covering humans' first colonisation of Mars and dealing in a highly plausible way with all the challenges they face in first surviving and then deciding what to do to the planet. Very strong character development and intriguing characters struggling with big questions in science and economics which are all meticulously researched. Only occasionally let down in the descriptions of the environment where it's sometimes hard to work out quite what's going on. Good narrator performance albeit not very varied. Also the book is quite 'serious' and the characters are not a barrel of laughs. Overall though a very impressive achievement.
8 people found this helpful
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- James
- 07-01-18
Fantastic read
The narrator seems odd initially, but asit goes on, you realise he's a perfect fit!
3 people found this helpful
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- N. Price
- 08-12-10
Epic scope, pedestrian delivery
Let's start with the positives: the audio production of this recording is excellent and the narrator is top notch.
The book itself is epic in scope and tells the story of the settlement and terraforming of Mars in great detail. As far as I can ascertain, the author's research is impeccable and the descriptions of Martian geography and scientific processes are inspired.
So, what's the problem?
Well, there's the length, and there's the pace of the story. Even if it were only half its current length, this would be a big book. To sustain such a long narrative, you would hope for interesting characters, lively prose and plenty of incident and excitement. Sadly, all of these ingredients are absent.
The story unfolds at a glacial pace and the author studiously avoids anything approaching adventure. There are storms, but everyone survives them without too much difficulty. There are many journeys, all of them long, during which little or nothing happens. A mystery is solved in a dull and perfuctory fashion.
Events do finally take a more interesting turn in the final third of the book, but even so, there is too little danger and too much talk.
The prose is functional and competent but nothing more. The characters are flat and two-dimensional and given to delivering set speeches on scientific and political topics. Many of the minor characters seem to be there solely to provide information dumps.
There is plenty of New Age philosophising and cross-cultural apologetics along the way, all of which is no doubt very worthy, but this listener soon tired of it and longed for something interesting to happen. Some sections of this book sound like an attempt at dramatising whole articles from Wikipedia.
So: a long book which is well read and which has some fascinating scientific detail, but which offers little in the way of excitement or interesting characterisation.
I love science fiction, but I'm afraid that I found 'Red Mars' very dull.
20 people found this helpful
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- Tatiana / @TCLinrow
- 03-05-21
Just not for me
I tried, I slogged through it, but never managed to get into the story or find it in myself to give a dman about the characters. It was clearly well researched, but that's all the praise I can give it.
1 person found this helpful
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- M Bruce - Roberts
- 01-16-21
Excellent book terrible audio editing
The book was great, took some time to get into and get going. Not dissimilar to an ursula le guin book, which you could expect from Kim as she was his mentor. What took a lot of persevering was the audio editing, the audio chapters are only broken up into 8 chapters, even though you can clearly hear the pauses where a chapter began & ended but wasn't edited to include it as such. This makes chapters several hours long making it awkward to dip into a chapter here and there.
1 person found this helpful
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- Jason
- 04-23-09
Boring
I note that it is highly rated by many people but I found it over-long with stereotypical characters one couldn't empathise with. The book is often commended for its well researched detail but the amount of detail acts as padding and gets in the way of the story - an encyclopaedia may have lots of well researched detail but that doesn't make it a good novel.
18 people found this helpful
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- Daniel
- 11-11-16
Epic. very long but worth it!
very long but worth it! Thought provoking while being enjoyably. so many different aspects, philosophies and ideas combined into one great narrative.
2 people found this helpful
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- Danielle
- 09-07-09
Big Snooze
The books flits about from one (of the many characters) to another without going into depth and allowing you the chance to empathise. This makes their petty squabbles as to how the planet should be handled irrelevant to the reader. You never really get to understand the reasoning behind each characters stand point only their actions as to what they will do to protect their way of thinking. I also bought the sequels Green and Blue - and it doesn't get any better or more interesting.
8 people found this helpful
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- Deborah Fitz-Gibbon
- 06-17-22
A masterful story with excellent narration
This first book in Robinson's Mars trilogy tells the story of the first settlers to the red planet. I first read this book over 30 years ago and have returned to it several times over the years. The writing, as with all Robinson's work, is full of wonderful detail and his cast of characters are well rounded. Ferrone's narration complements Robinson's words admirably. This novel deserves it's place in any list of the greatest science fiction stories. Highly recommended.
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- Kippax
- 05-21-22
Greatest Hard SciFi Story hampered by narrator
A little research by the narrator would have fixed so many pronunciation issues. Elysium pronounced Allyszhum is really annoying
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- Allan
- 09-05-19
What?
This book is all over the place and explains nothing about its characters. So confusing avoid at all costs.
1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 10-12-18
Stopped listening one hour in
After one hour in, I found the story tedious, characterisation thin and narrator dull. Made me think of academic infighting - yawn.
Maybe it has a longer ramp up before getting good - I'll never know. So many other great books that will have hooked readers in by the 1 hour mark, whereas I wasn't invested in this one at all.
Hard sci-fi is all well and good, but I prefer a good story.
1 person found this helpful
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- Scott
- 03-22-17
Very interesting take on life on another planet.
Very interesting take on life on another planet. Seems that a whole lot of research was done and I loved that it dealt with so many aspects I had never thought about. It wasn't the best "story" I found in regards to entertainment value.
1 person found this helpful
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- michael
- 11-29-16
Not a good audiobook
If this book wasn’t for you, who do you think might enjoy it more?
this story sounded good and I was looking foward to listening to this but the narrator is just dull and my mind kept driffting of a listen to the start 3 times and still have no idea what the book is about as i just cant concentrate
Has Red Mars put you off other books in this genre?
no but it will be awhile before I spond money on a mars book
How could the performance have been better?
yes did they even audition this narrator or just picked some old man from the nursing home.
What character would you cut from Red Mars?
didnt even get that far
Any additional comments?
plot sounded good will give another go if another narrator read this.
5 people found this helpful
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- YU LIU
- 03-23-22
best Mars sci fi ever
there are a lot of sci fi books about Mars, mostly focus on the plot and storyline. This one put a great deal to creat a extremely detailed Mars life. listen to this book, I felt like seeing Mars with my own eye. the book was unique and different from common space opal style. maybe not for everyone, but definitely impressed me
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- Anonymous User
- 09-17-21
great story, bad narrator
science, social commentary and a compelling story. unfortunately the narrator is dead flat and emotionless. which is fine for the descriptive bits but guts the dialogue.
hopefully this story will one day be re-recorded by an actor.
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- Josephine Scott
- 04-18-21
Highly anticipated but greatly disappointed.
I tried a few times and I might eventually finish this but the last part wasn't enough to interest me to spend more hours on this book. A different narrator might have carried this through for me and I am disappointed because someone I regard highly endorsed this book. I might have to try any more Kim Stanley Robinson without audio or perhaps just not this narrator. It helped to speed the narrator up to 1.2 speed but not by much. such a shame.
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-20-20
red mars
I HAVE previously read the book but the audio gave a better feeling of emotions
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- HodsonClarke
- 08-18-19
Rereading an old favorite
I read these books as a teenager and still have concepts from it come into my brain. I loved the attempts at predicting the future of science and that no character is so central to the story that they are “safe”.
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- Brett Agnew
- 07-23-19
this should definitely be a TV series
this is a amazing book , and it should definitely be a TV series if done by the book however I feel the first chapter of the book would be deemed as islamophobic and would be cancelled after the first chapter .......... but hope it oneday becomes a TV series because I'm hooked and love the problem solving and mystery and humanity problems ...... one thing that confuses me is the part 1,2 ,3 ,4, 5 and so on time line .......... its something you really need to concentrate on if you zone out for 5 minutes you'd better rewind because you've missed something great or important....... bought the other 3 books before finishing the first