Why Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars is still a classic 34 years later

The year 2026 marks the dawn of a momentous era: humanity is taking its first steps towards colonizing Mars.

Later this year, NASA’s ESCAPADE probes will fly to the red planet’s surface and take advantage of that proximity to Earth and pave the way for manned flights in the near future.

Settlers may one day build a series of self-sustaining cities that will transform the barren surface of Mars and allow humans to flourish away from Earth. This will have the convenient side effect of extending the lifespan of the collective human consciousness.

It is the scenario presented by Elon Musk (who in 2024 published on about his plans to land on Mars within two years—though his company SpaceX has since turned its sights to the moon) and one of the most acclaimed science fiction novels of the last century: 1992 Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Set in the then-future year 2026, the book doesn’t rely on alien conflict or improbable technology. Instead, we focus on the struggles that occur between people who believe that intelligent life is sacred and should spread, and those who argue that the solar system must remain largely undisturbed.

When it comes to accurate visions of the future, author Robinson makes some lucky guesses. According to his novel, the Earth in 2026 will be dominated by the “transnational corporation,” all-powerful corporations that control all aspects of human activity. The United Nations is limited to playing second fiddle to them: “It could not succeed against their wishes and probably never would have tried because it was their instrument,” writes Robinson.

His vision shares features with an earlier prediction made by Pulitzer Prize winner David Dietz. When requested describe the year 2026 back in 1926Dietz envisioned widespread and rampant over-cultivation of resources and warned that “competition will be stronger, prices higher and luxuries less”.

Robinson used Red Mars to show future people who use the environment and each other. Climate change is described as one of the drivers that drove humanity away from Earth, with protagonist Ann Clayborne seeing Mars as a new beginning – not just another resource to be drained. “You can’t just wipe away a three-billion-year-old planetary surface,” he remarks as the landing party discusses terraforming.

Another settler, Frank Chalmers, recalls the death of Earth’s coral reefs and the panicked attempts to fertilize the Antarctic Ocean. His descriptions resemble the “climate megaprojects” proposed today, such as efforts to stabilize glaciers and re-green the Sinai Peninsula.

Red Mars continues a trend seen in older speculative fiction such as HG Wells Time machine of 1895 through the depiction of a divided population. The “Hundred” sent to the Red Planet argue over how best to cultivate their new homeland, a topic further explored in the book’s two sequels, Green Mars and Blue Mars.

Ann expresses concern about making Martian air breathable, fearing harm to any potential undiscovered natural life: “It’s unscientific, and worse, it’s immoral,” she notes.

Her character’s very human approach to a fantastical dilemma is one of the reasons Red Mars is held in high esteem today. The book won both the Nebula and British Science Fiction Association awards, and at various times never fully realized TV adaptations were announced (Terminators and Titanic director James Cameron he was at the head of one before working on his instead Avatars universe).

red mars’ prequel novella – also called Green Mars – was even included on a CD placed aboard NASA’s Phoenix lander on its way to the red planet in 2006, well into pleasure Robinson himself.

In his writing, the author made other substantiated estimates of the future outside of it Mars trilogy. He also warned of danger autocratic politics as well as tracking technologies in ways that are not inclusive.

In 2012 he published 2312a novel that imagines an overheated Earth, catastrophic sea-level rise, and the rejection of our own era as “Dithering,” in reference to humanity’s slow response to the current climate crisis.

In the same year he he spoke in San Francisco Humanities+ A conference that addresses the excitement of using cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence to overcome our problems. “[It] maybe it has to be All People Plus,” he said, suggesting that the tension between the haves and have-nots is another potential challenge – much closer to home than our neighboring planet, 225 million kilometers away.

The New Scientist Book Club is currently reading a book by Kim Stanley Robinson Red Mars. Log in and read with us here.

topics: