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RGB Mars audiobook
Jul. 8th, 2007 11:34 amI finished up Blue Mars (by KSR) about a month ago and never mentioned it here. I went through all three (Red, Green and Blue Mars) on unabridged audiobook.
I tried reading Red Mars in plain old text (on the Palm) and it was just impossible. I was never going to get through it. However, in audiobook form it works well, if you're doing something else (like riding to work every day for a couple of months, mowing the lawn, etc). There are huge sections of all three books that are just establishing character transitions. Thanks to the gerontological treatments, some of the main characters (the original 100 settlers on Mars) are still alive at the end of the 3rd book, some 200 years later (can't remember exactly, but ISTR that several of them are > 250 years old at that point). One of the interesting points of the book is what happens to society and the individual when you live many times a "natural" lifespan. Most of the characters feel that from time to time they're "reborn" into entirely new sets of interests. KSR uses long passages where a character that had previously been a politician is chronicled through a few years of being a farmer, and not interested in much more than the latest crop failure. It's effective, and if it's being read to me, just fine, but I couldn't make it past the first couple when I was reading it.
This is one series that I think is worth the time, but only in audiobook format. I wouldn't recommend it in text format.
I tried reading Red Mars in plain old text (on the Palm) and it was just impossible. I was never going to get through it. However, in audiobook form it works well, if you're doing something else (like riding to work every day for a couple of months, mowing the lawn, etc). There are huge sections of all three books that are just establishing character transitions. Thanks to the gerontological treatments, some of the main characters (the original 100 settlers on Mars) are still alive at the end of the 3rd book, some 200 years later (can't remember exactly, but ISTR that several of them are > 250 years old at that point). One of the interesting points of the book is what happens to society and the individual when you live many times a "natural" lifespan. Most of the characters feel that from time to time they're "reborn" into entirely new sets of interests. KSR uses long passages where a character that had previously been a politician is chronicled through a few years of being a farmer, and not interested in much more than the latest crop failure. It's effective, and if it's being read to me, just fine, but I couldn't make it past the first couple when I was reading it.
This is one series that I think is worth the time, but only in audiobook format. I wouldn't recommend it in text format.
