The story admittedly starts out slowly. The reader is left wondering exactly what a student revolt at a Martian University has to do with anything. The first 100 pages, while far from boring, don't give you a glimpse of the marvels in the rest of the book. However, once you pass that mark, their is no going back. Cancell all of your appointments and call in sick at work, you will not be able to put this book down.

Greg Bear masterfully weaves together a plot full of political intrigue, character interests, imaginative future technology (that actually makes sense when explained! ), and of course the threat of total armaeggedon.

I don't want to give away too much, but by the end you will no doubt consider yourself a Red Rabbit (Martian) and be so wrapped up in the lives of the characters that you will almost forget that we are still confined to this lonely planet Earth.

Bear's portrayal of the not-so-distant future is truly monumental. I have read a great many hard sci-fi novels and this one outshines them all, with the possible exception of Forge of God (also by Greg Bear).


Wow, what a future . . . !   September 16, 2002
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

A desert planet with an ancient history of very un-Earth-like life, a frontier world that mixes social conservatism and radical experimentation, this is Mars in the late 22nd century. Casseia Majumdar is, she thinks, an ordinary person just trying to find her niche in life, beginning with student rebellion against Statism and progressing through her emergence as a key leader in a redesigned Martian political system. Parallelling her own development is the rise of Charles Franklin, her first lover and theoretical physicist extraordinaire. In its theme and style, this story reminds me most of John Varley's _Steel Beach_ and Heinlein's _The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress_ -- but while it has all the exciting detail and deep, rich texture of the former, it's far more subtle and sophisticated than anything Heinlein ever managed. The feel of the world's overwhelming strangeness and almost unimaginable complexity 175 years from now is accomplished very smoothly, almost sneakily, without ever overexplaining things. The physics "feels" right. And the characterization is always spot-on. And the title of this thing should be taken literally. Putting it simply and baldly, this is a perfectly marvelous book. It is by far the best thing of Bear's I've read and it's one of the best sf novels I've read by *anyone* in several years.


Not Bear's best work, in fact it's downright awful   March 18, 2002
 8 out of 18 found this review helpful

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 easily converted into energy or moved across immense distances. The inhabitants of Mars decide the solar system is no place for them and move Mars 10,000 light years away. The plot is somewhat reminiscent of Poul Anderson's risible Future History (beginning with HARVEST OF STARS) in which Earth is evil and oppressive and only the libertarian spacers can save humanity.

Prior to the publication of MOVING MARS Greg Bear was an excellent writer. His 1985 work EON and its wild sequel ETERNITY were innovative, well-written classics of science fiction. In MOVING MARS, on the other hand, none of Bear's talent is visible. The characters are unrealistic, and the writing is as bad as a mass-market paperback you'd find in an airport. Two of the most crushing blows concern the plot and the science behind it. The plotting is badly done. It is one thing for a writer to develop a plot and then introduce a surprise ending, but Bear doesn't even expose the plot until the last 100 pages, meaning that the reader has been forced to waste his time for three hundred pages. Bear's physics are also loopy, rather odd considering that he is trained in physics and his former novels wielded this training well. In MOVING MARS, however, the basics of Bear's science are not necessarily implausible, but the physicists go from discovery to implementation in an unrealistic amount of time.

There are a number of nonsensical developments in the book. Why is being bound to Earth necessarily bad? The Martians rebel against a Terran government that shows itself only benevolent, How can Casseia find herself VP of Mars at the age of 30, especially when she has no legitimate political experience? Also, how could Bear write a novel about Mars and hardly mention its landscape and the issue of terraformation?

MOVING MARS is a juvenile work that can't stand up against science fiction classics. For an excellent work on Mars, check out Kim Stanely Robinson's epic Mars trilogy (RED MARS, GREEN MARS, and BLUE MARS). Robinson's superb prose describes the beauty of the landscape like a Gary Snyder poem. If you want to try a Greg Bear novel, try EON and ETERNITY instead of MOVING MARS


Thoughtful, intelligent book with parallels to real history   January 27, 2004
 8 out of 10 found this review helpful

Enjoying "Moving Mars" will depend on a number of things, particularly your attitude about how a science fiction novel "ought" to be. For instance, one of the below reviewers refers to the beginning of the book as being "fantasy," apparently for no other reason than Bear's emphasis on character development - fantasy novels, more often written for and about women, tend to spend a lot more time building their character's "back story" and emotional life. The payoff here is that Bear's careful development of his lead characters, and the strange yet familiar pioneer world of the Martian settlers, helps explain later choices.

More than with most books, the appeal of this work will depend on your own personality and interests. If you're the type of person who refers to him or herself as being "right-brained" or by contrast, essentially "scientific and logical," and tend to stick to one social sphere of people with similar bents, you may find half the book fascinating, and the other half cryptic or boring. Strictly hard SF readers who want nothing but science fact and science ideas may not like the strong social and emotional undertones; readers of historical, military and general fiction may find the heady physics of the latter half hard to digest.

If you like SF a lot but don't follow the news or read history, the many parallels here with real-life history may be lost on you. Frankly, I found another review quite amusing. The reviewer didn't like the lead character, stating that she was just another young woman with a lack of life experience, like herself, and how unrealistic it would be for such a person to ascend to the vice presidency. Actually, I think this is one of Bear's strongest points in the book! Reviewer, have you ever read about Harry S. Truman - you know, the ordinary guy thrust into the presidency (after FDR died suddenly) who unleashed the atomic bomb in 1945? By the way, he was left *much* more in the dark, as vice president, than most people realize, less prepared than the character in the book to use an "ultimate weapon". Not to mention that all of us generally start off as naive children and teenagers, whether we become great leaders or decent citizens with a smaller realm of impact. So yes, Casseia is believable.

Bear is pointing out that leaders often come about because of chance - being in the right place at the right time - not because they have been groomed from birth or have some special mutant power. It's also what makes him fresh as a SF writer, when so many writers in fantasy and SF still use the "Slan" mold. Here, even a genius like Charles Franklin is also an ordinary, decent man with issues and inadequacies, and smart but essentially normal ("high natural") Casseia transforms her world.

The day after re-reading "Moving Mars," I stumbled upon a terrific documentary about the 1989 protests in Tiannamen Square. One of the leaders who convinced students to stay at Tiannamen Square, knowing full-well that blood would be shed, was a mild-mannered young woman crying into a microphone, talking about freedom. She was a twenty-three year old psychology student, not some Superwoman. It's the belief that leaders must be superhuman that has retarded the political process and prevented real growth in our society.

If you love science and science fiction, but also love history and the humanities, you'll enjoy this. If you only like two out of four, some but probably not all of the book will appeal to you.