I really like Airframe even with its clunky writing.
Though it’s somewhat ironic that his Norton Aircraft and its quest for perfection is based very much on the shambolic McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing).
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That is why Hollywood loves him, I guess.
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I recently read the nonfiction book A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith (of SMBC webcomic fame) which made for a pretty thorough and compelling breakdown of why near-to-medium-term interplanetary settlements are both technologically infeasible and potentially dangerous to humanity’s survival. They, like KSR, started researching the topic with all the zeal of a couple of tech nerds who wanted to believe in humanity’s potential to explore and settle the cosmos, but the more they learned the less it looked like a good idea even if we could pull it off.
Even things like programs to redirect deadly asteroids start to lose their luster when you consider that any civilization that has the technology to redirect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth also has the technology to put an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
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Red Mars stands out as one of my top favorite books. I won’t give it a rank, but it was amazing.
Some of the non-spoilery things that I learned from it include Greimas’ semantic square, and Arkady’s viewpoint that structures should be beautiful as well as functional. This last one has really shaped how I work and live.
Re-reading it many years later, I was struck by the accuracy of his first-person narrative viewpoint of a person with crushing depression. On my first read, I was like, “yawn, what a pointless chapter”. But then - “Yikes, I’m surprised I missed it”.
And some of the science stuff - the moholes, the algae delivery systems, the space elevator. Very, very cool stuff!
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I highly recommend KSR’s most recent book, The Ministry for the Future, about attempts to mitigate climate change (think of it as terraforming Earth). The first chapter describes a ‘wet bulb’ event, where the temperature and humidity go beyond the level that humans can survive, and is absolutely fucking harrowing.
I think it might be his best work.
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That’s what I liked so much about The Martian.
But then I read Project Hail Mary, also by Andy Weir, and I realized The Martian’s saving grace is that there is so little dialog, because man, that guy cannot write convincing dialog to save his life.
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And virtually nobody depicts the fact that Mars has only 40% of Earth’s gravity. Making terraforming impossible. One can’t produce a rich enough atmosphere for most Terran life without sufficient gravity to hold it in.
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I kept wondering how the same guy had such bad luck… twice. “Isn’t this just The Martian again, but in space?”
I own the trade paperback of KSR’s Mars trilogy from when they were recent, and tried picking it up again… and put it down. I could not get past the soapy dynamic and how much I genuinely disliked the three primary characters in Red. Either I’d forgotten, I’ve grown grumpy with age (true), or I expect more now. I remember loving the hard(er) science and the rise of the new generation of Martians, but could not will myself to get through Red again.
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I read the trilogy a few years ago on @hecep ’s general recommendation and was blown away by the characterization. It’s a great exploration of generations of brilliant, flawed people. Definitely skimmed the geological/aerological sections and don’t feel like I missed anything.
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