The Martians by Kim Robinson

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The Martians by Kim Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy is one of science fiction's most honored series, withRed Marswinning the distinguished Nebula Award, and bothGreen MarsandBlue Marshonored with the Hugo. A modern-day classic of the genre, this epic saga deftly portrays the human stories behind Earth's most ambitious project yet: the terraforming of Mars. Now, following the publication of his acclaimed adventure novel,Antarctica, Robinson returns to the realm he has made his own, in a work that brilliantly weaves together a futuristic setting with a poetic vision of the human spirit engaged in a drama as ancient as mankind itself. From a training mission in Antarctica to blistering sandstorms sweeping through labyrinths of barren canyons, the interwoven stories ofThe Martiansset in motion a sprawling cast of characters upon the surface of Mars. As the planet is transformed from an unexplored and forbidding terrain to a troubled image of a re-created Earth, we meet men and women who are bound together by their experiences on Mars and with each other. Among them are Michel, a French psychologist dazzled by the beauty around him; Maya, a woman whose ill-fated love affairs lead to her first voyage to Mars; and Roger, a tall Martian-born guide who lacks social skills but has the courage to survive on the planet's dangerous yet strangely compelling surface. Beginning with the First Hundred explorers, generations of friends, enemies, and lovers are swept up in the drama that is Earth's tenuous toehold on Mars. International exploration turns into world building; world building degenerates into political conflict, revolution, and war. Following the strands of these lives and events, in an age when human life has been extended for decades,The Martiansbecomes the story of generations lived on the edge of the ultimate frontier, in a landscape of constant man-made and natural transformation. This new masterpiece by Kim Stanley Robinson is a story of hope and disappointment, of fierce physical and psychological struggles. Both deeply human and scientifically cutting edge,The Martiansis the epic chronicle of a planet that represents one of humanity's most glorious possibilities. A Letter from Kim Stanley Robinson: "When I finishedBlue Mars, I realized I wasn't done with Mars yet.  There were things I still wanted to say about the place, and about my characters from the trilogy, and there were a number of sidebar stories and characters that had found no place in the trilogy's structure.  I also had a couple of precursor Mars stories that did not fit the trilogy's history--'Exploring Fossil Canyon' and 'Green Mars'--and I had held these out of my earlier story collections thinking they belonged with the Mars group." So all this material was there, and as I wroteAntarctica, I found myself drawn back into the matter of Mars repeatedly, by the discovery of possible life in meteorite AHL8004 and by the Pathfinder landing.  I decided to make a collection of Martian tales, and as I put them in roughly chronological order, I saw that they seemed to be adding up to their own larger story, functioning as the trilogy's 'unconscious' or 'secret history'.  Using all kinds of modes, from folk tales to scientific articles, from personal accounts to the full text of a constitution, I arranged things so that the book altogether tells the story of an underground and hard-to-see resistance to the terraforming described in the trilogy proper.  I had a great time doing these stories, and hope they add up to my own version of aMartian Chronicles."
Robinson, Kim Stanley: - KIM STANLEY ROBINSON is an American science fiction writer. He is the author of more than 20 books, including the international bestselling Mars trilogy: Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars, and more recently Red Moon, New York 2140, and 2312, which was a New York Times bestseller nominated for all seven of the major science fiction awards--a first for any book. 2008 he was named a Hero of the Environment by Time magazine, and he works with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, the Clarion Writers' Workshop, and UC San Diego's Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy awards. In 2016 he was given the Heinlein Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction, and asteroid 72432 was named Kimrobinson. In 2017 he was given the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society.
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9780553801170
ISBN 10 0553801171
Title The Martians
Author Kim Robinson
Series Bantam Spectra Book Ser
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Hardback
Publisher Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc
Year published 1999-09-01
Number of pages 336
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.