Mars Trilogy (1992-1996) Kim Stanley Robinson
The Mars Trilogy1 is a colossal effort at fictional world-building that concerns itself with imagining and chronicling a possible expansion of humankind beyond Earth (or ‘Terra’, as it is called in the novels) onto Mars, the Solar System and beyond2. Beginning with the arrival of the first colonizing mission to Mars in 2026, the three novels3 follow the exploits of an extended cast of characters over approximately 200 years, while they dramatise an impressive array of issues. These include the ethics and aesthetics of geo-engineering, the corporate takeover of states and international bodies, the extension of biological life through genetic treatments, the patriarchy, climate change, massive immigration movements, alternative economic arrangements, the making of new political orders or the inner working of history and capitalism.
The trilogy’s plot and themes thus being almost impossible to summarize here, it is probably more appropriate to try and concentrate on those aspects of the trilogy which may be of more interest for the AesThiCo project and the definition of an Aesthetic of Care (AoC). They are to be found in the controversy between so-called ‘Greens’ and ‘Reds’ and, more specifically, in the complex relation between physicist Saxifrage (‘Sax’) Russell and geologist Ann Clayborne, who are both among the first colonizers of Mars (the so-called ‘First Hundred’) but represent opposed positions in the ‘terraforming’4 debate. Not long after arriving on Mars, the First Hundred start considering what to do with the planet in order to make it more amenable to human life. Eventually, they assemble for a formal conference on the issue (pp. 229-234 of the Red Mars e-book edition). There, Russell argues for a Green Mars, meaning one where the conditions for biological life have been created through the unfolding of planetary-scale geoengineering projects. When needing to address what negative effects those projects might have on Mars’ landscape and environment, he justifies his positions as follows:
The beauty of Mars exists in the human mind … Without the human presence it is just a collection of atoms … It’s we who understand it, and we who give it meaning … All those nights of watching it through the telescopes … That’s what makes Mars beautiful. Not the basalt and the oxides.
Anthropocentrism and idealism (‘it is we … who give it meaning’) as well as conventional aesthetic categories (‘beauty’) run through his argument. He then presses his point even further, adding solutionism to the mix:
[c]hanging it [Mars] won’t destroy it. … We can transform Mars and build it … as a monument to humanity … We can do it and so we will
Ann Clayborne then speaks for the Reds, that is to say those among the First Hundred who would like to keep Mars as they originally found it:
I think you value consciousness too much, and rocks too little. We are not lords of the universe. We’re one small part of it. We may be its consciousness, but being the consciousness of the universe does not mean turning it into a mirror image of us. It means fitting into it as it is, and worshipping it with our attention.
In Clayborne’s case, aesthetics is constructed as a matter of sensory perception (‘attention’) that includes a concern for the non-human and a predisposition to care, albeit one that is 4 ‘Terraforming’ can be defined as ‘a process of planetary engineering by which the extant environment of a planet is manipulated so as to produce an Earth-like ecosystem’ (Schwartz 2013, 31).referred to as ‘worship’; a connection with issues that are arguably linked with a possible AoC can thus be made5.
Eventually, the Greens carry the day and Mars begins to be terraformed along the lines of Russell’s program, which includes ‘giant orbiting mirrors, reflecting sunlight onto [Mars] … [and] carbon distributed over the [planet’s] polar caps’ for thickening its atmosphere (p. 252 of the Red Mars e-book edition). Together with such massive enterprises, more nuanced visions of a terraformed Mars arise: one is so-called ‘ecopoiesis’, built on the idea that ‘biological processes alone, aided by a minimum of ecological engineering‘ might be enough for terraforming Mars while leaving substantial areas of it untouched (p. 293 of the Green Mars e-book edition).
But the path towards a terraformed Mars is not going to be a smooth process: conflict (violent and non-violent) with Terra, along with three revolutions and internal strife among Greens and Reds will ensue as the planet goes both greener and bluer, acquiring a genetically-engineered flora and fauna as well as seas and lakes complete with fiords, port towns and islands. Interestingly, both Russell and Clayborne progressively move towards more balanced positions. While Russell ends up objecting to some of the most extreme terraforming projects (going as far as to sabotaging one of them; pp. 559-565 of the Green Mars e-book edition), Clayborne comes to reject some of the most extreme views on the Red side, since ‘her objection to terraforming [is] a rational scientific thing … [or] … a defensible ethical or aesthetical position’ (p. 178 of the Green Mars e-book edition). By the end of the trilogy, this intricate arrangement of Green and Red has been carried from Mars to the wider Solar System, and humans colonizing Uranus are described ‘praising the planet’s subtle beauties’ as they invent ‘an aesthetic to appreciate it, even as they [plan] to modify everything they [can]’ (p. 668 of the Blue Mars e-book edition).
- All references to the three works included in the review below will be to the ebook versions.
- Blue Mars ends with an expedition to a ‘Mars-like planet’ near Aldebaran (p. 793 of the Blue Mars e-book edition).
- The Martians, a volume of short stories published in 1999, is considered a companion to the trilogy, offering additional insight into the different storylines, characters and themes in the three novels. It has not been included for consideration in this review.
- ‘Terraforming’ can be defined as ‘a process of planetary engineering by which the extant environment of a planet is manipulated so as to produce an Earth-like ecosystem’ (Schwartz 2013, 31).
- See my reviews of Thompson’s ‘Towards an AoC’ and Saito’s ‘Body Aesthetics’.
Antonio Fornet Vivancos
Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena
Robinson Stanley, K.. Red Mars. London: Harper Voyager, 1992.
Green Mars. London: Harper Voyager, 1993.
Blue Mars. London: Harper Voyager, 1996.