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11th out of 96 books
—
109 voters
Moving Mars (Queen of Angels #3)
by
Greg Bear
Moving Mars is a story of human courage and love set within the greater saga of a planetary liberation movement. Mars is a colonial world, governed by corporate interests on Earth. The citizens of Mars are hardworking, but held back by their lack of access to the best education, and the desire of the Earthly powers to keep the best new inventions for themselves. The young...more
Paperback, 448 pages
Published
May 1st 2007
by Orb Books
(first published 1993)
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One of the slowest burns, but with a very bright ending. You could say the majority of the book (400 pages) is all backstory and character development, if not the entire thing. All so the last 100 hundred pages can stitch up the story nicely with emotion, action and all--even a little nostalgia (it's a long book). The main character was nicely set up over time. Very epic. She made a few leaps in skill level that could be a little unbelievable but the author kept her humble enough. Same could be...more
I'd probably place Moving Mars right next to Blood Music as my favorite novels by Greg Bear. The story is set in the same universe as Queen of Angels, Slant, and Heads - some 130-140 years after the events of QoA and Slant, about 50 years after the events of Heads. The story references the events of Heads, and Jill (the first self aware AI and a main character in QoA and Slant) puts in a brief appearance, but like the other three novels, the plot of Moving Mars stands on its own.
The story follo...more
The story follo...more
An amazing surprise: A few years ago I came off Kim Stanley Robinsons Mars Trilogy with an appetite for more Mars. Walking into a bookstore there was a book called Moving Mars by Greg Bear. I knew off him, but had never read any of his work.
I was mesmerized by the far thinking plot of political struggle of the Martians as they try to seperate themselves from the domination of the Earth/Moon system. It actually made for good "continuation" of Robinsons colonization trilogy, because when we meet t
...more
I have very mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, the author's vision of the Mars landscape and his back story about the planet's former life forms really grabbed me. On the other hand, the characters seemed like robots, and the (long) narrative felt plodding, without a sense of rising crisis (even though the actual events are cataclysmic).
I tend to prefer minimalist scifi, where everything flows from a few premises about future technology or society. MOVING MARS, on the other hand,...more
I tend to prefer minimalist scifi, where everything flows from a few premises about future technology or society. MOVING MARS, on the other hand,...more
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This is supposed to be a hard science fiction novel, but its characters move Mars 10,000 light-years just by the force of thought about quantum logic. Quantum logic is an actual field of study in physics; unlike classical logic, it allows one to reason about such propositions as "The electron is less than 1nm from the proton" and "The speed of the electron is less than 1km/s"; the truth of both propositions cannot be determined at the same time. Thinking hard about it (or about anything else) wo...more
Sep 05, 2010
Brianna
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
sci-fi fans, poli-sci majors
Shelves:
books-i-bought-used
This has been one of my favourite sci-fi novels since I discovered sci-fi as a teenager. (It took me 3 reads to stop forgetting the implications of the title before I got to the last half of the book.)
The story is a reluctant politician's coming-of-age during a colonized Mars' coming-of-age. Bear paints Earth as the British tyrant to Mars' own "American Revolution", and it works very well.
There's hard science here too, but not so much that the storyline was lost. I've read some reviewers saying...more
The story is a reluctant politician's coming-of-age during a colonized Mars' coming-of-age. Bear paints Earth as the British tyrant to Mars' own "American Revolution", and it works very well.
There's hard science here too, but not so much that the storyline was lost. I've read some reviewers saying...more
I'm giving two stars for some interesting ideas about science and technology.
The "tell don't show" style of the author really detracted from my enjoyment of the story. The first part of the story seemed like a list of barely related events. The main character, who wasn't the most interesting person in the story by far, always seemed to be irritated about something. It was rarely clear what she had to be so mad about.
This same story told in third person about the main scientist in a more detaile...more
The "tell don't show" style of the author really detracted from my enjoyment of the story. The first part of the story seemed like a list of barely related events. The main character, who wasn't the most interesting person in the story by far, always seemed to be irritated about something. It was rarely clear what she had to be so mad about.
This same story told in third person about the main scientist in a more detaile...more
Moving Mars was a more modern take on mutually assured destruction that managed to be terribly entertaining without reminding me of all the other Cold War sci-fi novels. Bear smoothly integrates the sci-fi musts, new technology and environments, with the new political situation arising between a socially advanced Earth and relatively backward colony Mars. The main character is a likeable, realstic and strong female Martian interested in a career in studying Martian/Earth relations. The story fol...more
A few too many swear words in the beginning that almost made me put the book down. Then there was not a peep out of the flowery language field through the entire rest of the book. Then at the very end he had to drop the f-bomb. Ugh. My most hated swear word and of course it had to be at the end. I know this is not much of a review. The book was interesting with a little too much immersion into the world and technical lingo of physics and a laissez faire attitude toward traditions in intimacy whi...more
As a huge fan of Greg Bear, I was surprised and dismayed by how much I really did not dig this book. There's no shortage of interesting ideas about Mars and physics and human society in the next couple of centuries, and Bear hangs them on a plot and a character that stand a chance of being involving, but the effect for me nearly all the way through is dry, airless— it's framed as a memoir by someone late in life, but it reads like the kind of memoir that's ghostwritten by someone without much in...more
Very good science fiction! I didn't fully grasp the notion of 'Hard Sci-fi' until this book. I had heard the term but it didn't to describe sci-fi books I had read. After reading this book, I came to understand the term and realize that most or all of the sci-fi I have read up till now would be considered 'soft sci-fi'. WHile the story is pretty good, the science is what makes it great. It is rare that I feel awed at an authors depth and breadth of knowledge, but I often found myself feeling tha...more
As a fairly regular reader of science-fiction, I had seen many of Greg Bear’s novels on the shelves at my local library. I can be rather narrow-minded when it comes to exploring new authors. I vaguely recall having read at least one other Greg Bear novel; so long ago I don’t even remember the title. My local library has a very limited selection of science fiction available and I had pretty much exhausted all the novels by authors I regularly read. I’m glad I did choose the book; it was an enjoya...more
I actually read this book for the first time back in either middle school or early high school. I remembered liking it, so I bought it for my boyfriend when I saw it in a used bookstore many years later while in graduate school. I just reread it, and it is fascinating to me how much of it I didn't remember. What I had retained from the first reading was just a sense, a feel, an impression of what life would be like on Mars. I had grown up watching Star Trek and Babylon 5, so this was fun and int...more
http://nhw.livejournal.com/520887.html[return][return]This Nebula winner is the autobiography of Casseia Majumdar, Martian stateswoman, who is at the heart of an independence struggle that ends up with the entire planet escaping not just politically but physically from the rest of the solar system. All kinds of resonances in here from sf's history - the three that came immediately to mind were Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, also his Red Planet and Asimov's very early short story, "The...more
Greg Bear's MOVING MARS was nominated for the Hugo Award in 1993, sold well, and was acclaimed by some reviewers. I loved every word of Kim Stanely Robinson's Mars trilogy, and wanting to learn more about the Red Planet, I read MOVING MARS. I was nearly instantly disappointed.
MOVING MARS concerns a rebellion of the people of Mars against a hostile government on Earth. Central to this event is the discovery of a small team of Martian scientists that space-time is malleable and objects can be easi...more
MOVING MARS concerns a rebellion of the people of Mars against a hostile government on Earth. Central to this event is the discovery of a small team of Martian scientists that space-time is malleable and objects can be easi...more
This is one of the two novels by Bear that I have enjoyed. The other being "Blood Music."
This novel features a lot of interesting nano technology in action, and a re-used Bear idea that everthing can be reduce to information and therefore if you want to move Mars you actually can just by tweaking its location information.
The main plot is of a Martian colonist revolt, but it is not the highlight of the novel, the science fiction ideas are the main event.
This novel features a lot of interesting nano technology in action, and a re-used Bear idea that everthing can be reduce to information and therefore if you want to move Mars you actually can just by tweaking its location information.
The main plot is of a Martian colonist revolt, but it is not the highlight of the novel, the science fiction ideas are the main event.
The characters weren't that interesting; I like them eventually just because of the great familiarity and exposure to them.
The plot started thin, but got more and more interesting as it built.
The first 1/3 is mostly character introductions, which almost lost me. The middle 1/3 was interesting and intriguing, once the politics got more complex and the science got more fantastic. The final 1/3 was great.
The plot started thin, but got more and more interesting as it built.
The first 1/3 is mostly character introductions, which almost lost me. The middle 1/3 was interesting and intriguing, once the politics got more complex and the science got more fantastic. The final 1/3 was great.
4.5 to 5.0 stars. This is a fantastic novel. Greg Bear gives the reader a very well rounded view of a future Mars (and Earth) and provides fascinating ideas about a variety of topics, including future politics (both Earth and Mars), artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and genetic engineering. I enjoyed the way Bear addressed each of these topics and made them both accessible and very interesting. All of the above is enough to highly recommend this book. However, when you add in the "major sc...more
From a very slow start, Moving Mars builds up to a surprising page turner when it comes to the final furlong. Steeped in intrigue, Bear has painted a very intelligent picture of the politics of the future which are still quite believable despite the time that has elapsed since this was written. My only major criticism would be that the main character is not particularly likeable in the first half of the book, although my sympathy towards her grew as the story evolved. The best thing in this book...more
Second Read:
Wow. I can still remember a lot of details about a lot of books I have read a long time ago. But I wouldn't have known I had read this already - I didn't remember much at all beyond the title concept.
Incredible technology ideas in this book. And Bear kept this one relatively clean; I have put more than one of his down due to graphic sexual themes.
I am not one to try to get deep messages out of fiction; I just read to enjoy. But I can imagine that the author could have been speculatin...more
Wow. I can still remember a lot of details about a lot of books I have read a long time ago. But I wouldn't have known I had read this already - I didn't remember much at all beyond the title concept.
Incredible technology ideas in this book. And Bear kept this one relatively clean; I have put more than one of his down due to graphic sexual themes.
I am not one to try to get deep messages out of fiction; I just read to enjoy. But I can imagine that the author could have been speculatin...more
Absolutely loved this book. The author does a great job of gradually introducing and advancing the complexities of the science and social and political future portrayed in the story. Very believable and smart. This is not a book for dummies. Well paced and often very exciting. I had to read the last 100 pages straight through. Excellent.
While Moving Mars may be acceptable for sci fi fans, for anyone with a sensitivity for decent prose and characterization it just won't clear the bar. The dialogue is terrible, characters flat, and unlike the Greg Bear novels which I did enjoy there just isn't enough in the way of description, world building, or Big Questions to make up for what it lacks.
Hugo Award nominee. This is a dense book, crammed with politics and theoretical physics that were often beyond me. The characters were approachable and interesting, and I’m glad I stuck with it, but this was no easy read. Especially recommended for folks who like hard sci-fi and the effects of same on politics/society.
Despite the resolution at the end and the upbeat view of our ability to innovate endlessly, it's a fairly bleak view of humankind's inability to avoid wars over control of resources. The early stages of the book got a bit too bogged down in describing and establishing the human relationships, but the ingenuity of the ideas around how we might live on an alien planet and how politics might play out in new colonies and across the vast distances of space made the second half much more readable.
A believable 23rd century combined with some cool super science, a few dramatic standoffs, and a compelling central character make this enjoyable to read. The book is less about mars than it is about the fiction of mars and about the possibilities for humans 200 years from now.
I agree with those who've said this book is a slow burn. The first two-thirds is full of a lot more politics and feelings than I would otherwise care for, but it all adds up to providing a compelling context for the race-to-the-finish final third. Pretty cool concept, but I do believe it could have been tightened up.
Enjoyable hard science fiction novel about the coming of age of the Mars colony both politically and scientifically and how Mother Earth reacts to the changes. Thought the main plot was very interesting and loved all the political machinations but did get a bit bogged down during the scientific explanations. Listened to the audio version read by Sharon Williams.
Hot damn Greg Bear knows what good is. Its not often I consciously love the protagonist of a first-person narrative. Casseia Majumdar was a very intriguing heroine, determined to lead Mars into its first actual government. Moving Mars details an arms race between two neighboring planets and that shit scares the fuck out of me.
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This is a great story set in a hard sci-fi universe, so be prepared for some high-level physics mixed in with intricate politics. Greg Bear is a great author, notorious for detail, whether it's in the characters, the environment, or the science.
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Greg Bear is one of the world's leading hard SF authors. He sold his first short story, at the age of fifteen, to Robert Lowndes's Famous Science Fiction.
A full-time writer, he lives in Washington State with his family. He is married to Astrid Anderson Bear. He is the son-in-law of Poul Anderson. They are the parents of two children, Erik and Alexandra.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/gregbear
More about Greg Bear...
A full-time writer, he lives in Washington State with his family. He is married to Astrid Anderson Bear. He is the son-in-law of Poul Anderson. They are the parents of two children, Erik and Alexandra.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/gregbear
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Aug 09, 2012 06:52pm