Opposite sides of the coin lately.

Since I have hit a brief respite from my reading in my short novel class I own my nights again as far as reading is concerned.  One of the guilty nerd pleasures that I have is Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Mars’ Trilogy.  It’s a fictional story of the terraforming of Mars.  The three books represent the three major shifts in terraforming towards an earth like planet.  The books are Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars.  I have been reading this series off and on for about six months now.  It has been on my night stand for so long it’s nice to be able to pick up where I left off. 

This story is amazing.  It starts as the first person is setting their feet on the Martian surface.  It moves from there through the process of setting up a base, and center of operations and goes on from there. 

What is so engrossing in this story is how the reader gets a first-hand look of how the culture on Mars might evolve.  Again it starts as humans are just landing on Mars.  The First Hundred people from earth land on mars and begin operations.  It grows and grows and the mars planet takes on a whole other worldly feel as cultures, governments, ecologies, and relationships change throughout the process.  In the story the brilliant minds on mars and a many who follow on to mars synthesize a treatment, when if administered at correct intervals a person can live on indefinitely.  The whole story takes place over the course of 150 years or so, a large amount of the story focusing on the First hundred. 

So it has been nice to get back into the politics of mars and its government and see how it transforms.   Like I said a total nerd indulgence. 

The great thing about this story is how it encompasses so much and envisions the world so clearly.  Robinson’s ability to convey every aspect of science that goes into the terraforming of mars as well as the gravity of the culture is stunning.  

One of the other books I have been able to come back to is The Bible According to Mark Twain, it never ceases to amaze me the brilliance of Mark Twain in everything he does.  I am still in the beginning, looking over the different versions of the Diaries of Adam and Eve; starting with the very short beginning pieces to the much longer stories, much more in detail and more complex.  An excellent look at Twain’s process, which I find fascinating.