Moving Mars
by Greg Bear · first published 1993
73% recommend27% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Big-picture hard sci-fi about humans building and governing a Mars colony and handling powerful technology; readers praise its thoughtful depth and ambition, and many call it a favorite of the author's work.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The young may not remember Mars of old, under the yellow Sun, its cloud-streaked skies dusted pink, its soil rusty and fine, its inhabitants living in pressurized burrows and venturing Up only as rite of passage or to do maintenance or tend the ropy crops spread like nests of intensely green snakes over the wind-scoured farms. That Mars, an old and tired Mars filled with young lives, is gone forever. Now I am old and tired, and Mars is young again. Our lives are not our. Own, but by God, we must behave as if they are. When I was young, what I did seemed too small to be of any consequence; but
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…teacher that gets taken hostage by terrorists. It's an incredible book and the reason why I decided to study computer science. http://www.amazon.com/Plowing-Dark-Novel-Richard-Powers/dp/B... Airport: Moving Mars by Greg Bear. Mars is a colony of Earth and the book follows a struggle for Martian independence. Also an incredible book. http://www.amazon.com/Moving-Mars-Novel-Greg-Bear/dp/0812524...
on “Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?” ↗Also, Greg Bear has hacked out some dreadful stuff but "Moving Mars" and "The Anvil of Stars" (the Forge of God is a bit of a pot boiler tbh, but it is the prequel, so...). Both are really big picture sci-fi; about what humans will do with toys that are beyond them,…
on “Sci-Fi Novels You Should Read” ↗Here are some works I'm fond of from authors who deal in technology and whose works have also taken the top science fiction awards. Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and The Diamond Age. Greg Bear's Moving Mars, Anvil of Stars, and Eon. John Barnes' A Million Open Doors, and Mother of Storms.
on “Earliest images of the moon were better than people realised” ↗Constellation Games, The Martian, Too Like the Lightning, Moving Mars, Nexus, Blue Remembered Earth,and The Caryatids are some hopeful SF that's come out recently that I recommend.
on “The Expanse UI Design” ↗Ah that's sad. Back when I was a teenager I discovered the Bova, Benford, Brin, and Bear SF section. That's what I called it anyway. I have happy memories of reading Moving Mars and I have a prized (to me) hardcover copy of "Songs of Earth and Power". A talent who wrote wonderful books. He'll be missed
on “Greg Bear to be taken off life support this week end” ↗…But around age 13, I had to read a book for school. I picked up Eon at the library, and I read it, and actually wanted to read the whole thing. After that I got my hands on every book he had written. Moving Mars is possibly the only book I ever read twice. Later in life reading sci-fi is no longer an interest of mine, however his books were transformative for me.
on “Greg Bear has died” ↗A sad loss. His books meant a lot to me at a particular time in my life, and I still re-read them sometimes. Queen of Angels and Moving Mars are probably my favourites, along with Eon and Blood Music. His works always delivered thoughtful depth and satisfying stories.
on “Greg Bear has died” ↗Moving Mars is my favorite of his works as well. His other book, Heads, is something of a prequel, although Moving Mars does a good job of standing on it's own.
on “Greg Bear has died” ↗…two, but who knew you could end books like that?! Queen of Angels was the weirdest detective book I'd ever encountered, with futuristic CSI way ahead of its time. The power levels of the conflicts in Moving Mars and Anvil of Stars seemed unimaginable. Slant, one of my favorites, felt like something like cyberpunk, but something else as well. I've always thought him as my favorite of the Killer B's (Bear, Brin,…
on “Greg Bear has died” ↗Exactly. The Turing machine is a state machine. The universe does a pretty good job of appearing stateful (amusing side note, Greg Bear's Moving Mars has a fundamentally object-oriented universe, as opposed to Wolfram's bent). All of our programming paradigms are built to, in the end, manipulate state. Imperative programming does this in a very direct…
on “All Programming Philosophies Are About State” ↗Something like this got passing mention in Greg Bear's [1] book Moving Mars (1993) [2], under the name Legal Logic. The (human) Martians used it with AI assistance to formulate legislation for their newly independent society. For those who don't know, Greg Bear was a well-known…
on “CatalaLang/catala: Programming language for law specification” ↗> information physics Agree - this was a refreshingly novel SF concept that he developed. He re-used the concept somewhat in Moving Mars
on “Greg Bear has died” ↗