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Using the last 200 years of American history as his template for Martian history, Robinson projects his tale of Mars’s colonization from the 21st century, in which settlers successfully revolt against Earth, into the next century, when various interests on Mars work out their differences on issues ranging from government to the terraforming of the planet and immigration. Sax Russell, Maya Toitovna and others reprise their roles from the first two novels, but the dominant “personality” is the planet itself, which Robinson describes in exhaustive naturalistic detail. Characters look repeatedly for sermons in its stones and are nearly overwhelmed by textbook abstracts on the biological and geological minutiae of their environment. Not until the closing chapters, when they begin confronting their mortality, does the human dimension of the story balance out its awesome ecological extrapolations.

Last week I finally finished “Blue Mars,” the final book of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. It picks up immediately after the end of “Green Mars” and spans another 100 (Earth) years on the colonized (and now terraformed) planet.

The first portion of the novel covers the aftermath of the second revolution and the formation of the new Martian government, free of Earth/United Nations Transitional Authority control and complete with its own court system and political parties (the old revolutionary branches like the Reds, Greens, MarsFirsters, Free Mars, etc. etc.).

The terraforming effort continues throughout the book: the sea of shattered ice wrapping around the northern hemisphere of the planet has started to melt into the great Northern Sea. Eventually there are islands, boats, canals, sea life, even coastal towns.

In the middle portion, we are finally taken back to see the situation on Earth first-hand. Nirgal, the Martian native and son of Coyote, visits the “home” planet for the first time along with Maya, Sax, and Michel in an show-of-goodwill ambassadorial mission. They want to be able to help Earth with the overpopulation issue (made critical by the rising sea levels) without flooding Mars with immigrants and making the political, social, and environmental issues there any worse. It was cool to “see” Earth through Nirgal’s eyes (so much water, so much sun, so HOT!).

It’s evident to everyone that Mars is not the ultimate solution to Earth’s population problems. Continued advances in technology allow the human race to explore out even further in the solar system (which Robinson calls “the Accelerando”). One chapter takes place on Miranda, a moon of Uranus, where Ann tries to escape to the primal beauty of a landscape (as of yet) untouched by human endeavors.

Finally, the remaining First Hundred are now over 200 years old, thanks to the longevity treatments. But old age is finally starting to catch up with them and there are a few quick deaths in succession. Facing their own mortality, Sax is determined to find a cure for the “quick decline” which plays out across a few chapters on memory and brain research.

As with the prior two books, Robinson tells each part of the story from a single character’s point of view and uses the quick introductory text of each portion to move the story along (sometimes by a few weeks, sometimes by decades), which is necessary when telling a story that covers more than 100 years. I found it difficult sometimes to remember what (Earth) year it was in relation to the other books, trying to grapple with just how much time had passed. Having three or four generations’ worth of characters didn’t help either, but the breadth of detail Robinson has created was just amazing and fascinating . Overall, I really enjoyed this series start to finish, and will probably read “The Martians” just to be complete.

Next, though, I’m about 30 pages into Neal Stephenson’s 1008-page “Anathem.” It’s going to be another long ride …

Wiz Zumwalt, ex-Cupertino programmer and now mighty wizard in a sword-and-sorcery world, must contend with the need to act as a leader in the Council of the North, the need to teach his new magic programming system to others, and the need to rewrite his spell compiler system. He also learns of incredibly destructive ends his spell compiler is being put to, as well as growing resentment of humans by the magical creatures of the World, which may culminate in war.

I just finished “Wizardry Compiled” by Rick Cook, which like the first book in the series I downloaded for free from the Baen Library. I started reading this book in iSilo format on my Treo, but switched to an iPhone in the middle so ended up finishing it in Stanza. While I never had any problem with reading e-books on my Treo, I have to admit the e-book experience on the iPhone is a lot better!

“Wizardry Compiled” takes place about two years after Wiz defeated the Dark League in “Wizard’s Bane.” Having earned his place among the Mighty and a seat on the Council, Wiz finds himself mired in bureaucracy, typical of large committees. The other Mighty are skeptical of his new magic and his attempts to teach them magical “programming” are going frustratingly slow (partially due to his poor instructional skills). His work on the compiler is progressing, but he soon discovers that someone has modified his ‘ddt’ spell (for safely dispersing magic) into a “hacked” version called ‘demon_debug’ that simply erases anything magical from existence. The humans along the Fringe of the Wild Wood are using demon_debug to move back into the forest, simply nullifying anything in their way … which will shortly cause an out-and-out war with the magic creatures who live there. On his way back from a trip to see the effects of demon_debug first-hand, Wiz is captured by the remnants of the Dark League who still inhabit the shattered City of Night.

The book splits into two separate narratives at this point. While Wiz is a fugitive in the City of Night trying to evade re-capture, Moira (the hedge witch, and Wiz’s wife), travels back to our world to recruit a team of programmers to work on the spell compiler. Soon, there’s a whole managed project going on as the team attempts to understand the workings of magic and Wiz’s new programming language. Can the team complete the compiler, and can Wiz escape from the City of Night, in time to prevent war?

Like the first book, I enjoyed the juxtaposition of programming and code with the world of fantasy and magic. In addition to the technical programming concepts, Cook adds the team and aspects of managing a large software development project (another area I’m familiar with due to my consulting background). Also, in a reversal of roles from the first book, Moira travels to California and gains a better understanding of Wiz’s world (and gets to try pizza!).

I’m going to continue the series, so I’ve already purchased the next volume (“Wizardry Cursed and Consulted“) from webscriptions.net for a mere $4.

The sequel to Red Mars details an early 22nd-century Mars controlled by Earth’s metanationals, gigantic corporations intent on exploiting Mars. Debate among the settlers–some native-born, some the surviving members of the First Hundred–is divided between the minimalist areoformists, who have come to love Mars in all its harshness, and the terraformists, who want to replicate Earth. As the surface of Mars warms and is seeded with genetically altered plants, the settlers await Earth’s self-destruction, which they hope will give them a chance to claim their independence.

It took almost two months since finishing the prior book (I haven’t had a lot of free reading time lately) but I just finished “Green Mars,” the second installment of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy.

“Green” starts roughly 14 (Earth) years after the end of “Red.” To the new generation of native-born children, Mars is the only home they’ve known, and due to the effects of growing up in the lower gravity of Mars, they’ll never be able to go there. But they don’t care about Earth … these children (the ectogenes) are splintering off into more semi-political groups like the Reds or Marsfirsters as the planet continues to struggle with the metanational corporations back home. Meanwhile, the terraforming efforts continue to change the face of the red planet: algaes, lichen, and moss are being joined by stunted trees, shrubs, and flowering plants. The surface temperature, atmospheric pressure, and oxygen levels are slowly rising, as the CO2 levels are getting lower. Pumps all over the planet continue to fill the lower basins with water from below the surface. It’s all broken ice now, but eventually it will melt and become the new Martian seas.

Jumping forward about 50 years, the majority of the book takes place in the early 2120s, and the reader is reunited with several of the First Hundred who originally landed on Mars nearly 100 years earlier. The space elevator is back, and the latest massive construction project is the soletta: a 10,000 kilometer wide “magnifying glass” orbiting halfway between the sun and Mars, intensifying the sun’s rays providing more light and heat.

Some things never change, though. The remaining members of the First Hundred are still in hiding, as fugutives since the first attempt at revolution. Political and cultural pressures continue to pull everyone in different directions. Will the future see an independent Mars? Or will history repeat itself with another deadly revolution like ‘61? Read the wiki article for a better summary.

Robinson’s writing is incredibly detailed, both at the scientific, cultural, and political levels. Just like in the first book, each major part of the story is seen from a particular character’s point of view. Even though I read these two books back-to-back, it was like being reunited with old lost friends from the first novel: Maya, Nadia, Sax, or Ann. I’m looking forward to starting the final book, “Blue Mars” over the upcoming holiday.

It all began when the wizards of the White League were under attack by their opponents of the Black League and one of their most powerful members cast a spell to bring forth a mighty wizard to aid their cause. What the spell delivers is master hacker Walter “Wiz” Zumwalt. With the wizard who cast the spell dead, nobody can figure out what the shanghaied computer nerd is good for — because spells are not like computer programs.

“Wizard’s Bane” by Rick Cook was my latest iSilo/Treo e-read, which I downloaded for free from the Baen Library.

Computer programmer Walter “Wiz” Zimwalt is mysteriously transported from his job in California to a different world, summoned by a powerful spell cast by the wizard Patrius with the assistance of Moira the hedge witch. Patrius is killed during the summoning so no one knows why Wiz was chosen by Patrius. Stuck on a world with no computers, no technology, no pizza, caffeinated sodas, or even coffee, Wiz is completely out of his element. But the dark wizards of the South don’t realize Wiz is powerless and will stop at nothing to capture him and prevent him from helping out the League of the North.

As the story progresses, Wiz begins to learn that magic is similar to coding: anyone can really do it, but without proper training it can cause serious problems (or, in the case of a miscast spell, be deadly). Using his analytical and programming skills, Wiz begins to build a framework for writing spells as if he were writing code … a programming language for magic! Can he really use his spell-casting programs to take on the dark League? Or is he putting everyone, even the whole world, in danger by messing with a power he doesn’t completely understand?

Being a programmer myself, this book was a fun “fish out of water” story. I could relate to Wiz’s situation (what would I do if there were no computers?) and the programming, coding, and development references were cool. It’s not exactly Tolkien-level fantasy, but a good leisurely read.

For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny.

John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic “alchemists, ” Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life…and death.

While traveling last weekend I finally finished “Red Mars,” the first book in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. While first and foremost an SF novel (it is about Mars colonization after all, and even includes an incredible space elevator) it broaches some interesting scientific, technological, environmental, cultural, and political subjects. The novel follows the first colonists on Mars and over a span of 40 years tells the story of how the small scientific expedition becomes embroiled in a miasma of  issues they did not expect.

The problems begin shortly after The First Hundred arrive on the red planet. It becomes quickly apparent that everyone did and said what they had to in order to pass through the rigorous process back on Earth to get selected for the expedition to Mars. Three different factions begin to emerge: those who think Mars should be left in its pristine state for study and research (the Reds), the terraformers who want to start transforming Mars into a human-habitable planet as quickly as possible (without regard for the current environment), and the “new Martians” who believe that a new culture, religion, and way of living in harmony with the planet needs to be established.

As the years pass, more and more people start arriving on the planet as conditions back on Earth continue to worsen. Most are sent by the huge transnational corporations back on Earth who want to exploit the planet (in blatant disregard of the international treaty set by the United Nations) for its wealth of natural resources that are running out back home. Mars becomes the new frontier with towns and cities being established all over, but due to the environmental constraints of having to live inside domes and tents, they quickly become overcrowded and start to exhibit the same problems as Terran cities. Shortly, whole groups of people start disappearing, supposedly joining a faction of the First Hundred known as the Areophany that are living somewhere in a hidden colony.

Will human history repeat itself on Mars, or can the First Hundred manage to keep the peace on their new home? Can a middle ground be found for all interests involved, or will revolution and war consume the red planet?

I really enjoyed this first book of the trilogy and have already started the second book, “Green Mars.”

It’s only natural that Alan, the broadminded hero of Doctorow’s fresh, unconventional SF novel, is willing to help everybody he meets. After all, he’s the product of a mixed marriage (his father is a mountain and his mother is a washing machine), so he knows how much being an outcast can hurt. Alan tries desperately to behave like a human being–or at least like his idealized version of one. He joins a cyber-anarchist’s plot to spread a free wireless Internet through Toronto at the same time he agrees to protect his youngest brothers (members of a set of Russian nesting dolls) from their dead brother who’s now resurrected and bent on revenge.

After reading the Publisher’s Weekly plot summary of Cory Doctorow’s “Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town” above, you’re probably wondering the same thing I did: WTF? It took me a little bit to get comfortable with the characters and the backstory, and even then I was still scratching my head (figuratively), not sure of what exactly was going on. As with the other Doctorow stories I’ve completed recently, I read this one on my Treo in iSilo format (you can download it for free here in a wide variety of formats).

The main characters are named alphabetically, but this is never clearly explained. So you start out reading about Alan (the protagonist), but then in one sentence it suddenly refers to him as “Art” and then goes back to “Alan.” This confused me because the previous Doctorow story I read was “Eastern Standard Tribe” and the main character in that book is Art. I figured, at first, this was just a publishing error. But then he (Alan) introduces himself to his neighbors as “Adam.” Eventually it became clear that Alan was being called by any name starting with A. His brothers are then (in order), Billy (who can see the future), Charlie (who is an island, yes, an actual island), Davey (an evil undead sort of thing and the main antagonist), and then Ed, Frank, George who are the nesting dolls (George inside Frank inside Ed). Now, remember that all of their names change constantly throughout the text, only the first letter stays the same. Then throw in that their mother is a washing machine and their father is a mountain and they were raised by stone golems and you start to see how messed up this story is. But messed up in a good way.

Alan has left the mountain (his father) and moved to Toronto where he is trying to blend in with normal people, like  his next door neighbors (alphabetically named Krishna, Link, Mimi, and Natalie but their names don’t change and Doctorow inexplicably skipped the letters H, I, and J). Alan’s brother Davey, who they killed some six years before, is back and hunting down the brothers one by one.

There’s another plotline running through “Someone” that involves Alan and Kurt (a dumpster-diving, anarchist techno-punk) trying to blanket their area of the city with free wi-fi (open access to information via technology is a typical plot element in many of Doctorow’s stories). This whole technology thread (describing wireless access points, routers, network traffic, etc.) stands in stark contrast the fantasy elements of Alan, his family, and neighbor Mimi, who Alan discovers has her own secret: she has wings.

The narrative jumps back and forth between the present (Alan living in Toronto helping Kurt with his ParasiteNet project) and the past (Alan and the brothers growing up on the mountain and eventually killing Davey). Eventually, both story lines come together in the climatic, if not somewhat confusing, conclusion.

It’s a good read … check it out.

In the midst of a series of unexplained plagues and famines, two teenage girls are heavily pregnant, despite being virgins. According to the sacred prophecies of Fatima, one will bear the child of Christ and the other, the spawn of Satan. Both Anne Fitzgerald, a former nun turned private detective, and the Vatican’s Father Rosetti are sent to investigate. But which girl carries which child?

So I just finished James Patterson’s “Cradle and All” and, well, I was unimpressed. Patterson originally published this story in 1980 as “Virgin” and then updated it and re-published it more recently under the new title.

In a nutshell, there are two teenage, virgin, girls who are almost 9 months pregnant: one rich and well off in Rhode Island and the other a poor country girl in Ireland. Meanwhile, all around the world there have been outbreaks of disease, terrible droughts, and other signs of a pending apocalypse (if you’ve ever seen “The Seventh Sign” you’ll get the picture). The book jumps back and forth between third- and first-person narratives (which apparently Patterson does a lot in his writing). The chapters in first-person are told by Anne, the former nun turned private investigator who is asked to investigate Kathleen, the pregnant girl in Newport. Meanwhile, Father Rosetti, from the Vatican, checks out Colleen in Ireland. Eventually Anne’s and Rosetti’s paths will cross as both investigators try to determine which girl is carrying the supposed savior and which will give birth to evil.

Have read other semi-religious thrillers like Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons” or “The DaVinci Code,” or even more recently Patrick Tilley’s “Mission,” I just wasn’t that thrilled or intrigued by “Cradle and All.” It was easy enough to read, so I finished it (I hate not finishing a book once I start it), but it was nothing fantastic or riveting.

I’m going back to hardcore SF for my next few reads: Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy.

A courageous federal agent, a powerful and resourceful woman lawyer–only they can possibly stop the unspeakable from happening. New York City is under siege by a secret militia group–and that’s just the beginning of the relentless terror of Black Friday. While Patterson’s thriller is slightly out-of-date with its Cold War setting, it remains dramatically contemporary in its vision of a stock market thrown into chaos when a group of saboteurs blows up several Wall Street institutions.

Taking a break from my recent run of science fiction and fantasy books, I found an old (but unread by me) copy of James Patterson’s novel “Black Friday” (originally titled “Black Market”) on my bookshelf and decided to give it a go. Like the excerpt I included above mentions, the Cold War setting is a bit outdated, but considering Patterson wrote this book in the mid-80s, before 9-11 and the current economic crisis, it still seems timely and feasible.

The story opens with terrorists threatening to destroy a large swath of Wall Street in New York City that Friday evening. At first I figured the bulk of the novel would be about trying to stop the bombings (and find out who was behind them) but just pages in, *boom* the buildings of major financial companies (banks, etc.) in the Manhattan financial district are gone. With the threat of the collapse of the entire Western economic system hanging above their heads, anti-terrorist agent Archer Carroll and SEC investigator Caitlin Dylan find themselves traveling around the globe trying to unravel the mystery of Green Band: who are they and what do they really want?

Cory Doctorow’s Eastern Standard Tribe is a soothsaying jaunt into the not-so-distant future, where 24/7 communication and chatroom alliances have evolved into tribal networks that secretly work against each other in shadowy online realms. The novel opens with its protagonist, the peevish Art Berry, on the roof of an asylum. He wonders if it’s better to be smart or happy. His crucible is a pencil up the nose for a possible “homebrew lobotomy.” To explain Art’s predicament, Doctorow flashes backward and slowly fills in the blanks.

My latest e-book read was Cory Doctorow’s “Eastern Standard Tribe” (actually I finished his group of short stories, “A Place So Foreign and Eight More” a while back but I guess I forgot to post about it, oh well!).

“Eastern Standard Tribe” tells the story of Art, a UE (user experience) consultant and member of the EST tribe (meaning his loyalties are to those people living in the eastern standard time zone and he tries he schedules his life accordingly). One part of the story takes place in the “present” and is told in the first-person: this is Art currently in the mental institution. The other part of the story takes place in the “past” and is told in the third-person: this is Art and the series of events that culminate in his being placed into the asylum.

In this semi-futuristic world, some people are double agents pretending to be a member of a different tribe (say, GMT or PST) so they can slowly undermine the competiting tribe from the inside. In Art’s particular case, he is working for a client in London (GMT) and his proposal is not so off-target that the client won’t accept it, but off enough so that overall the project will fail and he can sell the better version to a different client back in his own EST tribe (trust me, Doctorow does a better job of laying this out than I do).

Each chapter alternates back and forth between the present Art in the nuthouse and the actions in the past that Art was involved in with his partner and girlfriend. Both storylines intertwine as we slowly put together the whole picture of Art’s fate. It was a good read.

Next up on my e-book list: Doctorow’s “Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town.”

Vicious Foxwolf, Urgan Nagru–a fox who long ago discovered the body of a wolf and skinned it to wear as his own–is holding the young Mariel and Dandin captive. The pair are at the mercy of the evil despot and have only one hope of survival. But can they really count on the legendary freedom fighter, Martin the Warrior, to come to their rescue?

On my flight to New York the other week I finished the next of Brian Jacuqes’ Redwall novels, “The Bellmaker.”

Mariel and Dandin, who were the central characters in “Mariel of Redwall,” along with Mariel’s father Joseph (the titular Bellmaker) make a re-appearance in this book, along with some other characters from that story. Whereas the previous book, “Martin the Warrior” took place in the farth north of Jacques’ world, most of this one takes place in a new area to the south known as Southsward.

Some seasons have passed since Mariel and Dandin left Redwall in search of adventure and Joseph is worried about what has become of them. In a dream, Martin the Warrior instructs Joseph (through the typical set of riddles) to leave the Abbey with a few companions and search them out to the south.

Meanwhile, Mariel and Dandin have become entangled in a siege of Castle Floret. Once ruled by the squirrel king Gael, it has been taken over by the foxwolf Urgan Nagru and his vermin horde (sound familiar?). Mariel, Dandin, and the usual cast of hares, shrews, mice, otters, moles, etc. etc. attempt to drive the horde from the castle … but will Joseph and his crew arrive in time to help them?

I have to admit now that I’m seven books deep into this series that it’s starting to get a little tiresome and repetitive. As mentioned in the wiki article on the Redwall series (which closely mirrors what I have said before):

Many reviewers have also criticized the Redwall series for repetition and predictability, citing “recycled” plot lines and Jacques’ tendency to follow a “pattern to the dot.” Of course, other reviewers note that such predictable “ingredients” may be what “makes the Redwall recipe so consistently popular.” Although the series does not continue to break new ground, it does provide satisfying adventures with “comforting, predictable conclusions for its fans.”

J.K. Rowling did the same thing with her Harry Potter books, but they were a lot more intriguing for some reason. I started reading the series with my daughter just over a year ago and continued reading it so we had something shared to do. We don’t read them together out loud anymore, and she hasn’t really waited for me to catch up any longer, so by the time I finish a book she’s already read a few more beyond it. It’s still fun to discuss them with her (and she still loves reading them over and over), but I’m feeling less of a desire to continue reading them myself (we’re not even halfway through the entire series!). I’ve already started “Outcast of Redwall” but I think that might be my last foray into the world of Redwall for a time.