Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

At one moment you’re in the tram/metro/train/in the park and the next one you’re in space or on Mars trying to figure out what to do so you won’t die. The world building of KSR is amazing, and unfortunately, this is also the demise of the book. Sometimes the intricate details are just beautiful and difficult to break off from. You just go over pages and pages and times just flies by. But sometimes there are just so many tiny things that get in the way of the story - or it’s just a lengthy description of some rocks or some philosophical discussion about the rights of people that the story - at least for myself - becomes just unbearable.

Another pet peeve of mine, with the 2 books from the trilogy, is that there are lots of moments where you can imagine some tension building to particular events, just to be, in the end, a complete let down in the story - in the sense that nothing happens. It was just describing how they built a wall, or how the temperature got warmer by 3 degrees.

The book is rather lengthy, but besides a hiccup after the first third of the book, it was a great read overall. Unfortunately, I don’t think I will finish any of the other 2 books :)