The last part of the Mars series. This book span a much larger length of time than the former ones. The terraforming of Mars is advancing. After initial discussions if it should go on or not – there is a sizeable minority who would like to preserve the natural Mars – the terraforming advances slowly until people and animals are able to live on the surface. At the same time, the ecological catastrophe on Earth is advancing and great numbers of immigrants want to move to Mars. Most of the Martians aren’t too happy about that, and partly to relieve that pressure they start to build asteroid cities and even terraforming of Venus is talked about. And the first starships with the intention of interstellar colonization are constructed.
The beginning of the book contained long discussion about political choices the Martians were facing. Some of that was even interesting. Towards the end, the book turned fragmentary and it was pretty hard and slow reading at places. The tendency of sightseeing was almost the same as in the previous instalments. There were several trips which apparently were done only to show the reader what different places look like. Well, the visit to Earth was actual interesting and it was perhaps one of the best parts of the book. This is probably my least favorite part of the series. The first third of this book was pretty good, possibly best of the series, but then everything went downhill and last parts were more or less struggle to get through. The world itself was extremely built with great detail (perhaps too great), but there might have been slightly more action. There has been talk about a miniseries based on these books – that would be something I would like to see, probably the events will be condensed in it for appropriate degree. As a whole interesting and well-written series, but probably this was below average among the Hugo winners.
And now I have just one novel to go before I have read all of them.
800 pp.
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