i don't know how a series can be both so good and so painfully boring at the same time. but KSR succeeded in both!

I had the same feeling, but I'm curious which parts you found good and which painfully boring.

Personally I enjoyed the politics and the society building and didn't care much for endless descriptions of rocky landscape.

Likewise, there aren't that many works of fiction that deal with anarchist societies and they are always fascinating to me. In hindsight, perhaps the endless descriptions of the landscape would be more entertaining if I'd tried to hand-draw a map from the descriptions. Well, I haven't read Blue Mars yet.

i found almost every part simultaneously both. absolutely agree about the politics, revolutions, the trans-nats politics, i even loved Ann's geology/rocks stuff as i'm a climber and enjoying looking at rocks myself.

to me, the hilariously boring part was the convention where they deliberated over the constitution. too accurate. also the constant repetition of people getting lost in the wilderness and having a vision of Hiroko...

it took me almost a year and a half of quitting blue mars before i finally finished. he just really needed a more judicious editor.

hah, just noticed your username. i put off dune forever until finally watching the movie... half way through god emperor now. i think the politics and philosophy of dune are even more interesting than mars, though obviously different in scope/plausibility.

> also the constant repetition of people getting lost in the wilderness and having a vision of Hiroko [...] really needed a more judicious editor

Agreed. I also took some time to go through all the books and did it in the end partly out of a sense of duty.

> hah, just noticed your username

:D Initially it was meant to be a throwaway account, but I didn't want to go with the usual throwaway1234 pattern that is common on hn.

> the politics and philosophy of dune are even more interesting than mars, though obviously different in scope/plausibility.

Also agreed. It's not easy for me to say which of the two conveys more insight into the human condition and human societies. Dune is certainly grander and bolder in vision, with lots of surprising speculation. Otoh, Mars credibly captures the anarchic dynamics that would arise were we to ever actually colonize the planet.

In the end they both have something to offer, though for me Dune remains the greater series.

I first tried to read this over a decade ago and at the time (first chapter or so) I had the overwhelming impression that the book was based on cold-war era fear mongering.

I didn't continue. If that isn't the case I will gladly try again.

Too late, added to my want to read list :P