Mars has grown up
It is fully terraformed – genetically engineered plants and animals live by newly built canals and young but stormy seas.
It is politically independent. A brave and buzzing new world. Most of the First Hundred have died. Those that remain are like walking myths to Martian youth.
Earth has grown too much
Chronic overpopulation, bitter nationalism, scarce resources. For too many Terrans, Mars is a mocking utopia. A dream to live for, fight for... perhaps even die for.
Kim Stanley Robinson was born in 1952. After travelling and working around the world, he settled in his beloved California. He is widely regarded as the finest science fiction writer working today, noted as much for the verisimilitude of his characters as the meticulously researched hard science of his work. He has won just about every major sf award there is to win.