Blue Mars by Kim Stanley RobinsonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
The final book in the trilogy continues the themes already established, elaborating on the aspects of terraforming necessary to allow blue skies and open seas on Mars. The political themes are also expanded as well, particularly the challenges posed by the Earth reaching the absolute limits of its native population which continues to grow as more people take the treatments that potentially extend life by hundreds of years.
This book covers a longer time span than the previous two, and hence the plot, such as there is, is rather stretched. In places it almost seems like reading a historical account rather than a novel, but it maintains interest by being scrupulously detailed in descriptions of the science and geography of Mars. One memorable sequence returns to a flooded Earth suffering the after effects of catastrophic climate change, and this could have made a decent novel in its own right, I think.
All in all, a worthy picture of the sort of future that could be in our grasp if we take the necessary steps to colonise our solar system.
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