Storyline: 2/5 
 Characters: 4/5 
 Writing Style: 3/5 
 World: 4/5 
 I liked the series first, Red Mars. A lot. Thus I feel something of an apostate in admitting that I struggled to enjoy and finish this one. In Red Mars the experience could have gone either way, up or down. The hail of geographical proper nouns could have been received as dry and technical, but I chose to accept it as exotic and informative. Similarly, the hard science fiction descriptions of chemistry and climatology could have been pedantic and unnecessary where I willed myself to take them as character-relevant and integral. Many readers undoubtedly found the discussions on alternative economics and political organization didactic, but I resolved to treat them as thoughtful and essential for the plot. The first in the Mars Trilogy, for me, then, was exotic, informative, character-driven, thoughtful, and full of minor details that compounded for a complex plot. My problem with this second Mars Trilogy book is that I wasn't as ready to will myself to the positive side of these antipodes. Green Mars was the account of the characters and parties whom were unhappy with the ending of book one, then it was 624 pages of their doing over again everything that had occurred in Red Mars, but with more planning and purpose. It was much more difficult to retain the enthusiasm and goodwill when so very little was new. 
 One of the aspects I liked most about book one was the broad view of intellectual and personal motivations. Red Mars was not a ringing endorsement of a specific academic theory or political ideology. In fact, it presented the competing motivations of the original 100 as a mish-mash mess of ideas and programs for action that were under-coordinated and incompatible. This description of colonization resonated with me as I could see something like this happening, and I enjoyed the frustratingly complicated picture of a situation that was beyond any single person's (or party's or organization's or government's) control. Robinson does the same thing here except that he zooms in on the revolution-leaning side of the spectrum and explores the ideological expanse within even that half of the divide. Thus it is the same technique but refocused and magnified. This is the story that Robinson wanted to tell all along, I think. Personally, I liked the wider focused and more neutrally observant view of the first better. Robinson's political preferences, even within the revolutionary left, were more evident here, and I was bothered by the lack of sympathy he had toward some of the factions. (view spoiler)[Even though intellectually, religiously, and politically I disagreed with Ann Clayborn's radical conservationism - where rocks and basins had rights over people - Robinson made me sympathetic to her and her cause in book one. I felt Ann's pain and sense of loss at what was being done to Mars, and I mourned with her. Here there is no sympathy for Ann. She is a menace to the more conservative revolutionaries, and Nadia threatens and cajoles Ann and the militant Reds in ways that were reminiscent of the methods of the multinats. (hide spoiler)] I think Robinson was aware of the antagonisms and contradictions and this was perhaps an honest account of what would be required of a revolution. I give Robinson credit for making it a murky, ethically compromised, coercive, unpredictable, dangerous, violent, two-faced enterprise. Yet Robinson did not give as fair of a view of the non-central characters as he had in book one. 
 There were character perspectives I really enjoyed (view spoiler)[ Nirgal's childhood and everything with Sax (hide spoiler)]. There were also gems of ideas scattered throughout that suggested a much richer and deep world (view spoiler)[human speciation, the green and the white, memory, the effects on a younger generation when their parents never die and pass on the mantle, hero-worship, charismatic leaders, historicity (hide spoiler)]. Unfortunately not a single one of these promising ideas were developed or brought to completion. This was a guide to revolution, entertainingly set in a scientifically accurate description of Mars. This was far inferior as a novel, however. The characters did not serve ideas as well, and pointed tutorials replaced the wonder of uncertainty. My personal preferences, too, might have made this a less enjoyable experience. I am always ready to move on to new ideas, always on the look out for creativity. This was for fans of the first who wanted more of the same.