I recently finished reading the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. The trilogy, consisting of the books Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars takes place primarily on Mars (d’oh) and describes the development of a community on Mars. Starting with the early settlers, primarily scientists, the books describe the political, ethical and practical problems faced when terraforming (or not?) an entire planet and building a new community consisting on people from all the countries of the world in a world where giant corporations have more power than the sorry remains of a U.N. unable to make and enforce policy.

While reading the books I was very impressed with the fact that Mr. Robinson seems to be fluent in biology, geology, physics, psychology and economics. The books seems to be a very well researched. Long passages describe discussions and thoughts the characters have on one or several of these topics, at times this was even a bit excessive and tiring. Overall the books very very enjoyable, science fiction books providing food for thought on the societies of the future – but they are not easy read action books.