Elon Musk's mission to turn Mars into an ancap utopia is only more painful to witness as a person who loved KSR's Red Mars in general, and Arkady in particular.
Anyway, here's a photograph of a beautiful sunset that a robot took from the surface of another planet, then beamed back to us at the speed of light.
@trappleton KSR is an excellent writer! I really enjoyed the Mars series, though the writing is quite dry. The depth and breadth of his ability as a writer, and the very 3D characters he creates makes for very interesting writing.
@puffinux *so* dry. I have to admit my dedication faded with Green Mars and withered with Blue Mars. It's actually scared me away from some of his other works, even though the premises sound fascinating!
@trappleton Yeah, same. I don't think I actually finished Blue Mars, though I might look at again at some point. You have to appreciate his ability though, because I find so much of his writing very realistic and believable. Plus stuff like the predicition of 'Lecterns' with AI assistants built in (tablets), and wrist computer things (smartwatches) is pretty impressive.
@puffinux Truly! He's an amazing worldbuilder.
I've been chewing on this a minute, and Red Mars might be a perfect portrait of our planetary neighbor. It's enormous, and oppressively dry (as mentioned), but full of wonderful things to behold, and... well... read?
@trappleton That's an interesting observation, the books are kind of like one big metaphor. The trilogy certainly has a special place in my mind. I tend to compare all Mars-based sci-fi to them (and unfortunately, as a result, all sci-fi of that type pales in comparison)