Red Mars?

[ppnl]

Am I the only person in the world that simply could not finish even the first book of the Red Mars trilogy?

Well, ok some may have bogged down in the level of detail. But I generally like detail. I just couldn't buy many of the details. For example I remember them using wind powered heaters to warm the planet. The first problem is the pitifully small amount of energy this represents. The second problem is that a wind mill actually does not add any energy to the system. The energy in the wind is already in the system and will thermalize all by itself thank you. A case where entropy is your friend.

There also seemed to be a perverse and improbable amount of political strife. I found this unpleasant. There also seemed to be a mystical component to the political differences that was jarring.

So am I being unfair here? It has been a very long time since I tried reading it. Is it time to give it a second chance?

[hitmouse]

Have not read the book so don't know the details, but theoretically perfectly OK to use wind to generate heat, if practically difficult on a planetary scale: kinetic energy of air molecules converted to A.N.Other form of energy. Lots of homes where I live have wind-generated power. Indirectly this is solar power. Wind mills do not add energy to the whole system, but they do convert one form of energy to another for storage or utilisation (increasing the energy of one system e.g. a battery at the expense of another e.g. the atmosphere), as do water turbines, solar panels, internal combustion engines etc.

[ppnl]

Originally Posted by hitmouse

Have not read the book so don't know the details, but theoretically perfectly OK to use wind to generate heat, if practically difficult on a planetary scale: kinetic energy of air molecules converted to A.N.Other form of energy. Lots of homes where I live have wind-generated power. Indirectly this is solar power. Wind mills do not add energy to the whole system, but they do convert one form of energy to another for storage or utilisation (increasing the energy of one system e.g. a battery at the expense of another e.g. the atmosphere), as do water turbines, solar panels, internal combustion engines etc.

Heat energy is just kinetic energy of air molecules anyway. The only difference is that with heat the direction is random for each molecule while the wind is directional. But the directional low entropy energy in the wind will quickly be converted to high entropy random heat without any help from windmills.

Yes it is all driven by solar power but you are not increasing the total solar heat at all since it all ends up as heat anyway. A hundred square feet of black plastic would have far more of an effect than a big clanking windmill.

Also the windmill will reduce the wind speed and reduce the amount of heat transported to the north and south pole. The result would be cooler poles and warmer equator. The greater thermal radiation from the equator would over power the lesser radiation from the poles resulting in a cooler planet on average.

That is if you could have enough windmills to make any difference at all.

[The Judge]

I couldn't finish it either -- after about 50 pages I started skimming, then I started faster skimming, then I was jumping pages, then I ended up opening the book at random to see if there was a page, any page, anywhere, I wanted to read... All the science stuff went over my head, but it was so badly delivered and the characters were so unpleasant and so improbable I had no hope of engaging with it.

[Fried Egg]

I'm not educated enough to have spotted any scientific flaws but I enjoyed the book. The political problems were just as interesting and it would have been unrealistic to say the least if it were to only focus on the scientific/technical problems. Why do you think that such political strife would be improbable in the establishment of colony on another planet?

I was quite surprised how resentful the first colonists were of feeling like they owed anyone on earth anything as if they weren't shipped to Mars and sustained there for many years at a huge cost to those back on Earth.

[Stephen Palmer]

I couldn't finish it either. Got about half way through volume 1 before giving up.

[clovis-man]

I thought it was a great read. Some of which had to do with the terraforming details. But the characters and the social situations were also interesting. The next two books in the series were also just fine by me, although not as focused as the first one.

[Fried Egg]

I still haven't made up my mind whether I'm going to read the other two...

[ppnl]

Originally Posted by Fried Egg

I'm not educated enough to have spotted any scientific flaws but I enjoyed the book. The political problems were just as interesting and it would have been unrealistic to say the least if it were to only focus on the scientific/technical problems. Why do you think that such political strife would be improbable in the establishment of colony on another planet?

I didn't read far enough to know how things played out but it was the way the political problems were depicted. And again I didn't read very far but what was with the mystical motif that seemed to be building?

Originally Posted by Fried

I was quite surprised how resentful the first colonists were of feeling like they owed anyone on earth anything as if they weren't shipped to Mars and sustained there for many years at a huge cost to those back on Earth.

Yeah, it isn't like they were forced to pay a tea tax or something! You have got to have some Common Sense about these things and try not to be a big Pain.

[iansales]

I've read all three and I thought they were excellent. I found the science was fascinating.

[ppnl]

Originally Posted by iansales

I've read all three and I thought they were excellent. I found the science was fascinating.

Ok but can you defend the use of windmills and electric heaters to warm the planet?

[Venusian Broon]

Originally Posted by ppnl

Ok but can you defend the use of windmills and electric heaters to warm the planet?

I've read all three as well, and I remember being captivated by the main theme and journey - the colonisation & terrafoming of the planet. It was about 15 years ago since I've read them, so my memories a little hazy about them and I'm not sure they would be the same read for me today.

As for the defence of the above, one of the tensions KSR develops between the colonists is a 'tech' faction that wants to terraform at all costs and a 'red' faction that wants to keep Mars pristine. Both sides do some extreme things - and I remember the windmills being secretly dropped by observation balloons or something by the tech faction - so you could perhaps view it as a 'gesture of intent' by those that wanted the terraforming to race ahead and change the environment no matter what.

EDIT - oh just getting flashes back! Was the main purpose of the windmills not to change the atmosphere, but provide a safe haven for microbes to breed then hopefully spread into the soil and beyond. I would have to re-read it to see...

[iansales]

Originally Posted by ppnl

Ok but can you defend the use of windmills and electric heaters to warm the planet?

Not without rereading the books. But, iirc, the windmills powered small heaters, so the action of the wind raised the ambient temperature of each windmills' surroundings. As the temperature rose, so the climate began to stabilise which in turn allowed greater changes to take place. It doesn't need to add energy to the system - the sun does that every day.

[Venusian Broon]

ok I had a quick look, couldn't resist!

The 'green' faction (I had labelled them 'tech' before) had unbeknownst to everyone else genetically breed algae that they thought might be able to survive in the conditions they found Mars at the start and they wanted them to take root in the soil. They then put samples of the algae into the base next to electronic heaters, hoping that they would thrive in the heated environments of the windmills and maybe cross over into the soil and adapt to the colder conditions and start a much deeper terraforming of the planet. They then scattered hundreds of thousands of the windmill all over the place. From memory I think the scheme doesn't work, but it's to highlight from the start what the 'green' faction is willing to do.

(The 'red' faction I think get in on the act and do something quite spectacular with a space elevator later on, but it might be the martian colonists as a whole that do that...)

Anyway the official reasons for scattering windmills all over the place (heating the surface, extracting energy from the wind etc...), I believe therefore, may have just been a cover for their deeper motives. (I think it was illegal - or at least they just went off and did what they wanted to do without consulting anyone else). Although I expect to be corrected as I'd have to re-read the books to see if that view was valid.

[Spade]

I've read Part 1 twice. I simply can't get into the story once they've actually set up civilization there.