Red Mars [Turtleback]

"We're in a war between democracy and capitalism..." (John Boone, from RM.) A false dichotomy; there's no inherent conflict between "democracy" and capitalism. KSR should've said, "we're in a war between socialism and capitalism," a more believable conflict. However, it's clear that KSR believes his socialist fantasy IS democracy.

"There was no obvious reason why they [the Martian underground] should all want to become one single thing. Many of them had been trying specifically to get away from dominant powers - transnationals, the West, America, capitalism - all the totalizing systems of power. A central system was just what they had gone to great lengths to get away from." (Green Mars.)

Note this list - the evil "transnationals," "the West," "America," "capitalism" - your agenda is showing, Kim. Yet KSR has the inhabitants of Mars - basically, frontiersmen from earth, whose politics would logically be scattered across the spectrum - vote overwhelmingly to establish a socialist system that's inherently a centralized government. It bans private ownership of land, controls businesses' sizes, forces them to be employee-owned, limits companies to 1000 employees, and bans people from passing on wealth to their children beyond a certain amount, so people can't "accumulate capital." (This leads to a discussion between Sax and Coyote, where Sax notes, quite rightly, that from a biological standpoint, parents want to take care of their children. Whereupon Coyote, with typical socialist elitist arrogance, says, "Maybe there should be a minimum inheritance allowed... enough to satisfy that animal instinct, but not enough to perpetuate a wealthy elite." And who determines "what's too much?" Yep, you guessed it - the ruling socialist oligarchy, who'll enforce their will at the point of a gun.)

In "Green Mars," KSR presents the character of Nadia (Russian ancestry) condemning people who want minimal government on Mars: "...Especially since most minimalists want to keep exactly the economic and police system that keeps them privileged. That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves!" This statement, issued without rebuttal or debate, seems to show KSR's true colors: that anyone who wants limited government is an "anarchist." Nonsense! (KSR then seems to completely miss the irony of having Nadia, who becomes Mars' first president, turn into a petty, despotic ruler, despite dozens of pages explaining all the "benefits" of Mars' socialistic system over Earth's. This plot point is simply dropped in "Blue Mars" as inconvenient.)

There were other bizarre anti-capitalist, quasi-Marxist rants sprinkled throughout the book. KSR repeatedly attacks business owners and "managers" as "not doing any real work." This is the typical Marxist mindset - to KSR's type of socialist/statist thinking, it's always 1864, where all "workers" are noble peasants or guys who toil with their hands on assembly lines, while "managers" are fat-cat burghers who sit in their offices, getting up occasionally only to crack the whip. Kim, if I "work" at any profession that earns me money - whether I'm laying bricks or managing a Fortune 500 company - then I am a "worker." This is another false dichotomy - as if those who work with their "hands" are superior to those who sit in offices working only with their "brains." Kind of a hypocritical notion coming from someone who makes his living writing SF stories about Martians, don't you think?

Other weird rants: KSR's idea of "ecologic economics" - a concept that smacks of the ex-Soviets' mantra of "scientific" communism. This theme also recurred throughout the book - that human activities can be reduced to a "scientific" model, and that if only dumb humanity agreed to have scientists plan our society, then everything would be fine. Activities that fail to pay off their value in required "caloric intake" are worthless? (There's that elitist socialist oligarchical arrogance again.) And, what are we to make of the "Red Mars" section heading called "What is to be Done?" - the title of one of Lenin's political pamphlets - and Frank Chalmer's characterization of people as "useful idiots?" (An apocryphal phrase attributed to Lenin of westerners who would stupidly assist the Communists in the West's own destruction.) Could KSR's Communist/socialist apologia be any more clear?

The bottom line is the issue of literature vs. propaganda. As Anthony Burgess stated , a fiction writer should always be in service to the story, first and foremost. If you're presenting a didactic agenda, regardless of whose side you're on, then your work is propaganda, not literature. If the socialist system depicted in the "Red Mars" trilogy had developed organically out of the various characters and situations presented in the books, then if would've been believable. However, KSR forces the characters to become nothing more than ranting mouthpieces for his fantasy ideology.

This agenda then succeeds in committing the worst sin in fiction. Halfway through "Green Mars," I was so worn out by the humorless characters that I realized I didn't care about any of them or their plight (with the exception of Sax, the only sympathetic character in the entire damn trilogy.) Towards the end of "Green Mars," I realized that not only did I not care, I actually wanted most of the characters to be killed, have their revolution fail, and have the transnationals take over. When your political agenda succeeds in actually turning your readers against your protagonists and their struggles, then your story has failed.

"There was no obvious reason why they [the Martian underground] should all want to become one single thing. Many of them had been trying specifically to get away from dominant powers - transnationals, the West, America, capitalism - all the totalizing systems of power. A central system was just what they had gone to great lengths to get away from." (Green Mars.)

Note this list - the evil "transnationals," "the West," "America," "capitalism" - your agenda is showing, Kim. Yet KSR has the inhabitants of Mars vote (unrealistically, too) to establish a socialist system that's inherently a centralized government. It bans private ownership of land, controls businesses' sizes, forces them to be "employee-owned" (as if shareholders in a corporation don't help determine company policy), limits companies to 1000 employees, and bans people from passing on wealth to their children (beyond a certain amount, so people can't "accumulate capital." This leads to a discussion between the characters Sax and Coyote, where Sax notes, quite rightly, that from a biological standpoint, parents want to take care of their children. Whereupon Coyote, with astonishing arrogance, says, "Maybe there should be a minimum inheritance allowed... enough to satisfy that animal instinct, but not enough to perpetuate a wealthy elite." And who determines "what's too much?" Yep, you guessed it - the Almighty State. KSR also seems to completely miss the irony of having Mars' first president become a despotic ruler, in spite of all the utopian socialism he desperately spends hundreds of pages trying to justify.

Mix all this laughable, and illogically-presented propaganda with endless discussions of Martian geography, irritating and unappealing characters, and plot points that are introduced, then dropped, and you have one of the most overrated SF series in recent memory. Don't buy it -- pick up Dan Simmons' "Hyperion" or John Varley's "Titan" books instead.