Tastes differ. I read the first two books for the Mars trilogy and--a rarity, for me--decided against reading the last. While I enjoyed the hard sci-fi approach to the mega-scale engineering issues, I found Robinson's grasp of social institutions utterly implausible. In particular, his weakness in matters economic fairly well ruined the story line for me. A planet-wide barter system? One based on gifting? Feh. Perhaps not every sci-fi author needs to master the basics of economics, but those who, like Robinson, tackle the topic need to get it right.
Additionally, Robinson's hard sci-fi largely ignores some of the most interesting issues to Extropians: computational advances and nanotech. His is a very old-fashioned sort of sci-fi, both in terms of technology and "rule of the experts" economics. I found it unconvincing and out-of-date.
Tom
In a message dated 8/27/98 8:29:26 PM, Brian wrote:
> For anyone out there looking for something to Extropian to read,
>I'd like to recommend the trilogy Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars
>by Kim Stanley Robinson.
>
> I'm just a liitle over a third of the way in book two (Green Mars)
>and would already rank them as amongst my very favorites.