Moving Mars
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| Moving Mars | |
 Cover of first edition (hardcover) |
|
| Author | Greg Bear |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Tor Books |
| Publication date | 1993 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 448 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-312-85515-X |
Moving Mars is a science fiction novel written by Greg Bear. Published in 1993, it won the 1994 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and was also nominated for the 1994 Hugo Award in the same category. The main focus of Moving Mars is the development of Casseia Mujumdar, the main character.
[edit] Plot introduction
The book begins with a physical comparison of Mars to Earth, and continues into the story. Casseia Majumdar is the narrator, and is old when she writes her account of Mars' past in the form of a diary. Students angered at the breaking of their contract with the University of Mars, Sinai, start a protest and plan to storm the university (only a small number of students). Eventually, Casseia emerges as a leader, with new friends. The attempted coup by the students ends in a stalemate and the story picks up a few years later when Casseia is more mature. She does not necessarily regret her actions in the attempted revolution, but continues to be haunted by their consequences, especially her love affair with fellow student Charles Franklin.
The politics in this book deal with the "Triple", the combined economy of Earth, the Moon, and Mars. On Mars the first colonists formed families, which developed into larger family-units called Binding Multiples (BMs). The BMs were fashioned after the Lunar system, and were being threatened to be toppled out of power by Statists, people who want a unified Mars under a centralized government. The Earth wants Mars to unify in order to improve trade within the Triple, but many Martians prefer their independence, and see the Earth's proposal as a thinly-veiled attempt at total control.
Casseia eventually emerges as a fledgling politician in her BM, and wins a trip to Earth with her BM's representative and the BM's Thinker, or artificial intelligence, to discuss the situation between Earth and Mars, which is getting increasingly worse.
Meanwhile, Charles, her one-time lover from earlier, along with his team of super-geniuses the Olympians, discovers a radical new technology that has the potential to turn the tables on the conflict. He uses the theory that the universe is basically a large computer and discovers a way to "tweak" the laws of the universe to create a desired effect. The Earth does not know exactly what this new technology can do, but they have hints of what it might do, and they fear it.
While on her journey to Earth, Casseia makes a new friend who has been enhanced, or “therapied,” with nanotechnology brain implants. Being from the Martian frontier, Casseia has very little experience with enhancement, but gradually warms up to it through the insistence of her young friend.
The ultimate of the enhancements don't even need a human. They are the Thinkers; artificial intelligences given human traits that allow them to carry out conversations with normal people. The most advanced of these are the Quantum Logic Thinkers or QL Thinkers. Their raw intelligence is far beyond what any human could imagine, to the point of being dangerous. Unfortunately for the Martians, almost all Thinkers are manufactured on Earth.
Casseia returns to Mars and marries into a powerful political family. Her mother-in-law eventually becomes president of an interim central Martian government, and chooses Casseia as her vice-president. Tensions between the BMs and Earth grow to crisis levels, as news of the Olympians discovery frightens the Earth government into pressuring the Martians to cooperate. One method of coercion that the Martians fear is “evolvons,” or small computer viruses implanted during manufacture into all Thinkers. Martians fear that the Earth will use these to control all Martian Thinkers, and therefore cripple essential operations.
While the tension between Earth and Mars builds, the Olympians, led by Charles Franklin, reveal to Casseia that they have the ability to instantly move anything an infinite distance, with the help of a QL Thinker. The ramifications of this become clear to Casseia and the leaders of the interim government immediately, but they so fear its power that they refuse to use it as anything but a last resort. Charles is convinced that “tweaking,” as the technique is called, is the solution, and orders a QL Thinker to speed up the process. Eventually, he is able to test his technique by linking his mind to a QL Thinker, and he brings Casseia along with his team as the government representative. The test goes well, but with Charles’ mind linked to the QL Thinker, it nearly ends in disaster. While connected to the Thinker, the raw intelligence of the Thinker imposes its intellectual will on Charles, and tempts him to test every possibility, even those that would be destructive.
The test shows everyone on Earth what the potential of this breakthrough really is, and Earth fears the power it gives the Martians. They double their efforts to duplicate the technology, but this only puts more pressure on the Martians. Eventually, the Earth activates the evolvons, creating chaos on Mars. The Martians, finally united, retaliate, but this only escalates the conflict into a war. Earth invades Mars with terrible nanotech robots that kill the Martian President, leaving Casseia as the one in charge.
Under attack and with no hope of fighting back, she makes the decision to go along with Charles Franklin’s desperate plan to completely remove Mars from the solar system and place it in orbit around a star tens of thousands of light-years away. To do it, Charles Franklin must connect his mind to the QL Thinker again. The same temptation as in the first test nearly overcomes Charles’ willpower, but he prevails. The cost to him is tremendous; it costs him his mind, and he is forced to live out the rest of his life as little more than a vegetable.
The novel ends with a very aged Casseia looking at the new Martian sky filled with new stars and hoping that the decision she made was the right one.
| Preceded by Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson |
Nebula Award for Best Novel 1994 |
Succeeded by The Terminal Experiment by Robert J. Sawyer |
