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Red Mars is well-written, hard science fiction. Unfortunately, it lacks story and plot. I found myself struggling to get through this book, and I only did so because I was hoping for some redeeming quality that would prove to me why this won BSFA and Nebula awards. In the end, I couldn't find the redeeming quality.

I can only assume the author had a collection of notes he had made concerning what terraforming Mars might look like, and he wanted to turn it into a novel, but he couldn't come up with a cohesive, coherent story to make it work, so he pieced it together using vignettes from the lives of the First Hundred people to colonize the planet.

There are many details made to seem important but which never come to bear on any aspect of the action, and then there are details glossed over and mentioned in passing that are important to the overall political background, but the author decides not to focus on these.


The author begins the novel with the assassination of John Boone, instigated by Frank Chalmers. Then, we flashback to learn how the First Hundred colonizers arrived on Mars and began setting up their camps, equipments, experiments, etc.

I had hoped at some point to learn more about Chalmers's motivation for having Boone killed, but we learn only two reasons for this early in the narrative: Boone is viewed as the de facto leader being the First Man on Mars, and Chalmers resents this (though Chalmers is the technical leader of the American contingent), and Maya chose to pursue a relationship with Boone rather than Chalmers, and Chalmers hates this.

However, neither of these issues are enough to help me understand what it is that made Chalmers feel the need to have Boone killed. In fact, while this is the most important plot point at the beginning of the book, it rarely plays into the rest of the story. It only returns as a minor issue late in the book, when Chalmers worries that others might be aware of his involvement, but even that seems like a minor worry to him.

Sure, Boone had different political views and aspirations, and he was open to listening to various sides of the arguments for a free Mars, while Chalmers was much more orderly and diplomatic, wanting to work within the system to bring about change, but I saw no reason that their political differences were so divergent that Chalmers would consider Boone a big enough threat to end his life.

In the end, Chalmers is a bitter old man who dies quite unexpectedly, while trying to help the last remaining survivors of the First Hundred escape from the UN, UNESCO, and the transnationals who saw them as a threat. His death is rather meaningless to the story. He doesn't "get what he deserved," nor does he die a hero's death. He's just gone.

If neither Boone nor Chalmers had died, the story could have ended in the same exact way. If Maya did not have a relationship with either, the story could have ended in the same way. All other storylines presented are unimportant—in my opinion, they merely serve as a vehicle for themes the author wished to convey.

These three main themes are:

- Capitalism and corruption (Earth, UN/UNESCO, transnationals)
- Environmentalism (Ann vs. Sax)
- Socialism & communal living (Arkady and Hiroko)

Without these characters and conflicts, there would be no story, and yet these characters and organizations primarily operate in the background of the main conflict, while the main conflict, in my opinion, is utter rubbish. If the main characters were teenaged high-school students, their interactions would make more sense.


I rarely write reviews, but I was so mad at this book, I felt the need to write out my thoughts and share them.

There are some great themes in this book.

My favorite is viewing it as a coming-of-age story, where Meg realizes her father is fallible and cannot save them. But Meg also learns that she has the strength within herself to save them.

There’s so much to this book. It’s for all ages. There are themes in here that kids won’t understand. There are themes about spirituality. L’Engle has elements of space and time travel, alien life, and evolution of humanity.

My only problem with the story is the overt introduction of Christianity through quotations from the Bible. The quotations are spoken so matter-of-factly, even by alien beings on a different planet, so I found that jarring to my willing suspension of disbelief.

The three women who start the children on their journey are reminiscent of Shakespearian witches, but they’re really stars, or maybe angels, or maybe something else. It’s hard to tell. They have been granted permissions, but it’s not clear from whom, and the children’s visit to the first planet reads almost like it’s straight from Ezekiel or Isaiah.

I read into it a light vs. darkness or good vs. evil struggle, and I’m sure that’s present, but it seemed more nuanced than that, and L’Engle’s granddaughter confirms this in her afterword.

I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.