Blue Mars

Hugo Award: Best Novel winner (1997).
Arthur C. Clarke Award: Best Novel nominee (1997).
John W. Campbell Memorial Award: Best Novel nominee (1997).

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy burst upon the science fiction scene in 1992 with the publication of the #1 bestselling, Nebula Award-winning Red Mars. Critics and fans alike instantly hailed the novel as a modern classic, and the New York Times declared that Robinson had "virtually invented a new kind of science fiction." Two years later, with the publication of Green Mars, Robinson cemented his reputation as the brightest new star on the hard science fiction horizon, winning the Hugo Award and receiving dozens of reviews that alluded to the novel's "breathtaking scope" and "intellectual daring."

Now comes the much anticipated conclusion to this spectacular saga. The colonists on Mars have nearly succeeded in transforming or "terraforming" the red planet to produce a liveable Earth-like atmosphere. Oceans dot the surface, as do gigantic, diaphanous tents that are intended to preserve areas of Martian wilderness in their original state. Meanwhile, on Earth, humankind is struggling to survive the floods of melting polar ice caps, while on Jupiter and Saturn, early terraforming efforts have just been launched. Then a new ice age imperils the Martian civilization, and the First Hundred colonists and their Martian-born children must hurdle the final, awesome obstacles to the creation of their infant civilization.