The Greening of Mars

"The Greening of Mars" is an interesting story written by scientist James Lovelock in the form of a fictional future "Martian" (meaning a descendant of colonists from Earth) describing the history, process, and nature of both Martian society and the terraforming (transformation from a lifeless to life-bearing surface) of Mars. The subtitle for this book was a claim that this was how Mars could be terraformed by using the technology we have today. This is an exaggeration, although not a bad one - Lovelock describes the spaceship that his protagonist travels in, as well as the technology used to support Martian society, in plausible detail using technologies that do not violate any laws of physics. These represent the best, and most fascinating parts of "The Greening of Mars". Lovelock describes a Martian society that adapted to the conditions it lived in with plausible habits, such as vegetarianism (due to the restrictions and difficulties involved in raising animals in the confined quarters of the first settlers), heavily automated economies, and details such as transportation (airships, since airplanes are too fragile and difficult to fly in the thin Martian air even after a significant degree of terraformation). The weakness of the book is that it was written in 1985, and is clearly showing some dating (for example, he describes a role played by the Soviet Union). Some technologies seem slightly anachronistic, although largely the technology does not appear to be outdated and representative of a different era. Occasionally, Lovelock's optimistic side shows through, such as when he describes how the space colonization venture to colonize a terraforming Mars becomes the instrument to world-peace, nuclear and overall disarmament, and so forth, to the detriment of realism. Moreover, Lovelock introduces some views that have come to characterize his current scientific position in a mixed manner, such as his idea of world-wide response by ecosystems to preserve homostasis, and his focus on "naturalistic" methods of terraforming Mars ("greening" it) as opposed to "engineering" a transformation of Mars. Nonetheless, it is a very interesting work, and Lovelock does a good job in keeping the reader's attention pulled into his description of this society that has emerged. I strongly recommend it to any with an interest in what the terraforming and colonization of Mars might be like, as well as those interested in speculative but fairly realistic fiction.