Re: Middleton/ecology

From: Beth Middleton (bmiddleton@PLANT.SIU.EDU)
Date: Tue May 06 1997 - 07:16:04 PDT


Dear Britt-Inger

This trilogy is being passed around my plant ecology lab now by one of my
grad students. So much of the terraforming actually is engineering and
physics that I don't know if I could judge it. Much of the science is
dependent on the nature of Mars, and that isn't something I'm familiar with.
The ecology/plant science info is believable though. Also, the pioneer
scientists seem to fit the psychological profile. Overall, I find the
reading a little slow, but there is a neat feminist twist at the end with
the women creating an alternate settlement.

Beth

At 07:17 PM 5/4/97 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi Beth,
>
>being a plant ecologist you should, if you haven't, read Kim Stanley
>Robinson's Mars trilogy (Red, Green and Blue Mars) recently published where
>terraformation plays a big part with vivid descriptions of how biomes and
>biotopes are created from the simplest to the most complicated ones. And I
>would be very interested if you would share your professional comments on
>his plot from an ecological and biological perspective. Being an art
>historian I don't know enough to say whether its gibberish or a plausible
>development, but am interested in finding out.
>
>Britt-Inger.Johansson@konstvet.uu.se
>Research Assistant
>Dept. of Art History
>Uppsala slott, Soedra tornet H:0
>752 37 Uppsala
>Uppsala University
>
>
Dr. Beth Middleton
Department of Plant Biology, 411 Life Science II
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois 62901
618-453-3216 FAX: 618-453-3441
Sabbatical Phone and FAX: 618-457-6760
bmiddleton@plant.siu.edu



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