Review: The Martians
Adrian Hon reviews Kim Stanley Robinson’s collection of short stories, The Martians. This anthology serves as a wonderful companion to his award-winning Mars trilogy and also has a number of standalone short stories.
The Martians is a collection of short stories, poems and semi-factual pieces by Kim Stanley Robinson that serves as companion to his original Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy.
I should point out first that your enjoyment of this book will be greatly increase if you have read (and of course enjoyed) his Mars Trilogy; over half of the stories refer one way or another to people or events that occurred in the ‘main sequence’ of the trilogy. I’m sure that some of the short stories would still be relatively good without a prior knowledge of the main sequence but many others (e.g. Jackie on Zo, Coyote Remembers, etc.) just wouldn’t make any sense. I’ve read negative reviews from people complaining about this, but you can hardly blame Robinson; the back cover blurb does say that it is a companion to the series.
If you did enjoy the Mars Trilogy, as I did, then you’ll definitely enjoy The Martians. It sheds a great deal of light on some of the events and relationships that were going on during the main sequence, but the stories that struck me most were those that were ever so slightly different from the ‘true’ events. Almost like an alternate history of a future history. At the risk of spoiling the first story for you, I have to admit that the ending really threw me - it wasn’t anything that I was expecting.
In some ways, the alternate future histories in The Martians are even more… disturbing probably isn’t the right word for it, but it’ll have to do… than the alternate histories you generally see these days (Germany winning WW2 is a common alternate history premise); after reading the Mars Trilogy you feel that you really do know that characters and the place, and it’s as if you have a omniscient perspective over Robinson’s future history - nothing like the confused and badly recorded history that we have in reality. So it’s all the more disconcerting to see things skewed just so.
Enough about that - there aren’t that many alternate future histories in the collection anyway. A lot of the stories in the collection are simply 10 to 20 page long snippets written about the characters in the main sequence during events that we never really got to read about; with some of them you get the feeling that they were supposed to be in the trilogy but never made it. That doesn’t detract from their general quality though. Perhaps the most interesting story is one that features two of the antagonists from the main sequence… they provide an interesting insight into how they felt they were justified in what they did.
Newcomers to Robinson’s Mars trilogy will still have a good reason to read this book as there are still some great short stories that are unrelated to the main sequence storyline. For example, a significant chunk of the collection is taken up by a completely new thread of short stories (Exploring Fossil Canyon, Green Mars and A Martian Romance) set on a Mars where the terraforming process has gone drastically wrong. Rather perversely I ended up reading the last story in this thread by mistake since it was included in another collection of short SF stories I’ve bought recently; however they are standalone so it probably doesn’t matter too much. All three stories are excellent and centre largely on Robinson’s interest in the geology and feel of Mars.
Something that will please people who have a particular interest in Mars exploration/advocacy scene is the full text of Robinson’s Martian Constitution - it was talked over at the start of Blue Mars but never detailed in full. It makes a fair bit of sense but I’m not really an expert on these matters. However, I did very much appreciate the fact that rather than a set of cast-iron rules, never to be violated, it was instead supposed to serve as a structure for debate in the knowledge that as circumstances change, laws must also change. This is one of the things that irritates me about the American Constitution - yes, you can amend it but there’s the overwhelming feeling that it Must Not Be Violated - I generally get this feeling when I listen to propaganda from opponents of gun-control.
In addition there’s also a short commentary on the Martian Constitution by a minor character from the trilogy which raises a few intriguing points. It seems to me that Robinson’s Martian Constitution could serve as a great point for discussion among space and Mars advocates on the Internet - not necessarily as a ‘real’ constitution but as something that might point the way forward for what want and hope to do in the future. As some New Mars readers will be aware of, there is already a discussion thread on the forums about the Constitution and true to form, it almost immediately became embroiled in arguments and misunderstandings. Robinson would be proud of us.
Another standalone story in the collection is called Arthur Sternbach Brings The Curveball To Mars - this is a pleasant, folksy feel-good tale about how baseball is introduced on Mars. Since the horizon on Mars is only three miles away and you can hit balls so far with the lower gravity, the baseball diamond ends up being as far as the eye can see. Those who enjoyed Allen Steele’s Zwarte Piet’s Tale of Santa Claus on Mars should definitely read this. A rather different story is ‘Purple Mars’, the last piece in the collection. While not explicitly spelling it out, ‘Purple Mars’ is an autobiographical story set when Robinson had just finished his book. When reading this story, you get an incredible sense of wonder and you think, ‘Is Kim Stanley Robinson really like this? It seems like he’s on Mars already!’
He provides all sorts of interesting and amusing points in this last story and it brings the collection to a happy conclusion. It’s very pleasing to see that Robinson himself was happy with the trilogy. I haven’t mentioned everything in the collection; there’s a series of poems about Mars and in fact there are twenty eight different stories in the book, even if you group together all the poems. I felt a few of the stories weren’t up to Robinson’s usual standard, and some are far too short to be fulfilling, even if they are meant to be discarded snippets from the main trilogy sequence.
Nevertheless, the larger part of the collection is certainly worth reading, especially for fans of his work. Even so, I hope that The Martians will be the last we see from him about his Mars Trilogy - Robinson has created a wonderfully rich future history of Mars that is unrivalled right now; three books and a collection of short stories is good enough and no-one should want him to keep on churning out more at the expense of quality (not that any great science fiction writers ever do that, of course…)
Filed under: Reviews on December 30th, 2001
I read The Martian when it was published (I think two years ago). I like very much some of the stories like the one about mountainering around the biggest volcanoes, but frankly I was very disapointed by the fact that most of the book was mad of “old” stories already part of the trilogy. I felt cheated. With his talent, KSR could have contributed only new stories even though located in the context of his own world.
Contrary to Perre’s assertion, I’m quite sure that none of the material in “The Martians” was included in the trilogy. Many of the stories used characters who had appeared in the trilogy, but the stories themselves were new. As Adrian mentioned the stories were often part of an alternate Universe from that of the trilogy.
My favorite stories were “Coyote Makes Trouble” because it so well revealed the spirit of this character. I also liked the Coyote/Maya behind the scenes love affair- was there anyone on Mars she didn’t sleep with? ;-)
I think my favorite part of the book was a single-page chapter about the music that inspired the characters. I thought this provided a unique glimpse into KSR’s creative process.
I think that even if you really don’t like the Mars trilogy stories, there’s still more than enough to keep any SF reader interested in the ‘failed terraforming’ short story series. As I mentioned, ‘Exploring Fossil Canyon’, ‘Green Mars’ and ‘A Martian Romance’ comprise quite a substantial few pages (154 pages, in fact, with ‘Green Mars’ having 98 of those pages).
Perhaps a good way to describe the book is that it is a collection of Mars short stories which also happens to have a number of notes and stories based around the Mars trilogy; you don’t have to like the Mars trilogy stories - you could just regard them as an extra.
Just out of interest, if anyone wants to read yet *more* of Kim’s Mars writing, then track down a copy of his novel ICEHENGE; part of it is set on a future Mars darkly different to the one painted in his other books…
I have to say I’m a big fan of THE MARTIANS, I really think it both complements the existing Trilogy and offers tantalising glimpses of several “What Might Have Beens”. Particularly fascinating is the opening story’s “alternative timeline”… Won’t give the ending away for people yet to read it, but the last line sent shivers up my spine!
I think it will be a long, long time until another author brings Mars to life as vividly as Kim has done with his books. They will influence a whole new generation of writers, engineers and explorers, and I have no doubt that signed copies of his books (*real* books, not CDs or DVDs!) will be seen floating around the cabin of the first expedition ship as it enters Mars orbit.
Stu
The order in which I read Kim’s Martian books was, Blue Mars, The Martians, Red Mars, Green Mars. Not that anyone cares, I just think that these books can be read out of order without being too confused about things, which really makes Kim’s books stand out.
While Joel’s correct that all the main sequence Mars Trilogy stories in ‘The Martians’ is original, the first two stories set on Roger and Eileen’s Mars-’Exploring Fossil Canyon’ and ‘Green Mars’ were originally published in 1982 and 1985 respectively.
In addition to picking up a copy of ‘Icehenge’ as Stu suggests, may I recomend Robinson’s ‘Memory of Whiteness,’ which is a concert tour/mystery from on end of the solar system to the other.
Finally, those interested in alternate history ought to know that is another area Robinson has dabbled in, with a couple of short stories under his belt as well as the soon to be published novel-’The Years of Rice and Salt’
THE CITY WHICH IS INSIDE YOU
You live in your own inner city, which you bought in a
silent auction.
You were again unable to cancel your debts.
Under your blackening eyelids you try to feel certain
things.
Without noticing your withdrawal from self, you leave for
distant parts
by using your ropes of thought like a ski-lift.
Your shudders increase as you touch the numberless elements.
In your screams at the moment when you feel the jolts
from the echoes
of your words crossing the threshold of your thought,
you send birds fleeing before you. As you breathe, your
roses wither.
In your moments of madness, crystals fall from your roof.
As your field of thought shrinks, your city expands. You
exhaust yourself
from running down the streets and avenues.
As the lamps of your voltage machines alight upon your
nights,
your humans robotize themselves.
The toads in your dirty waters frighten even the crocodiles.
Your inner journey makes you grow older.
Your internal cries amplify themselves.
You manifest difficulties with forty paws.
The auxiliary cells of your laboratories do not give you
the opportunity to live any pleasurable moments.
While the fear indicator inside you slackens you through
and through, you
have not
even the possibility of speaking. With each movement of
the clock,
the seasons rip themselves out of your heart.
Your solitude traverses your spirit without cease.
by
I want to disagree with Adrian Hon one one item: I WANT MORE MARS!! Kim, Please write another Mars book! Purple Mars . . . Pink Mars . . . Black Mars . . . what ever the color! I want to know what happened next! Maybe even follow Jackie to her new home?
The Martians confused me for a while: WHO IS ROGER CLAYBORN! But I like the meeting of Roger and Peter.