Thank you for your swift response Beth.
I agree that Robinson's Mars trilogy has a sort of Dickensian ackumulation
of facts, people, intrigues which sometimes makes the reader slightly
impatient. But I can't help being fascinated by the story none the less
with it's continued shift of focus between a macro and a micro level,
between the personal and the larger social field and the interaction. I
enjoy it's diversity as it addresses so many different topics,
philosophical, ethical, political, genderoriented etc, which gives much
food for thought. I'm currently reading the final "installment", valiantly
resisting the temptation to find out how it ends.
There is one hitch though, which makes me uncomfortable with it. I don't
know if it's just my way of reading it, but it does seem to me that almost
all the strong, purposeful women in it are described in a fairly a negative
way as unpleasant and self destructive in one way or another as if it would
be a *natural* result from their active personalities. Hiroko, Ann, Maya,
Jackie are uppermost in my mind, only Nadia is unreservedly portrayed in a
sympathetic way but then she also rejects power in the end to settle and
have a child instead. They are also strongly tied to sexuality/nature,
where as the men seem more conncted with intellect/civilisation. When Maya
and Jackie are politicking they're portrayed very much as intriguers using
their *promiscuity* for ulterior ends, but when Art and Nirgal are
politicking it is referred to in very positive, idealistic terms. Men
playing out women against each other in the way Jackie and Maya do with the
men just don't exist. The male counterparts (John Boone, Nirgal, Art, Sax,
Michel etc) are on the whole much more positively and sympathetically
depicted, sometimes often as not victims of the women intriguers. The only
truly unpleasant man is Frank Chalmers and some the UNTA representatives.
To me this definitely sours the *feminist twists* that it has been
sprinkled with, like Hiroko's community and the Dorsa Brevian women, and
sheds a doubt on them being anything more than just populistic attempts to
adapt to current trends. In short I believe I see a strange ambivalence.
Any thoughts about this out there?
Britt-Inger
>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
Britt-Inger.Johansson@konstvet.uu.se
Research Assistant
Dept. of Art History
Uppsala slott, Soedra tornet H:0
752 37 Uppsala
Uppsala University
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