Blue Mars

The final book in the trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson was a fitting end to the series. Blue Mars find the first one hundred settlers a smaller group, but they’re still going even though they are all well over 200 years old. It also finds Mars continuing to change as the terraforming and changes humans bring change the planet’s atmosphere and climate.

I wasn’t sure how KSR would wrap this up, the other two books are about conflict, over terraforming, over what type of government they want, and over how to handle the relationship with Earth. But in this final book I was pleasantly surprised. The few that are still alive from the first one hundred are beginning to feel the effects of being so old, they’re often called The Ancient Ones, and the rest of the people of Mars look to them for guidance, especially in times of strife. But they themselves are battling with memory problems, how does one keep all of one’s life in their memory when you are so very old?

I really enjoyed the entire series, but I especially enjoyed the way in which KSR wrapped it up. The focus on characters I’d come to know well and who were changing as they were living these amazing long lives was fascinating. And the idea of memory and not being able to handle 200 years worth of them had me thinking, wondering, and talking about it with G.