Red Dust by Paul J McAuley. (Red Dust - Paul McAuley)

Member Name: Brett Bligh

Product:	Red Dust - Paul McAuley
Date:	26/09/00 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: full of both intriguing ideas and concepts and high-octane excitement.

Disadvantages: at times appears to be somewhat episodic.

Science fiction seems to have always had a special fascination with our closest neighbouring planetary body, at first postulating invasions of our own Earth by its hideous denizens and then, as fascination with the planet itself increased and real science showed indigenous life on Mars to be highly unlikely, depicting future versions of the world, colonised by humans, with trend-setters in this area including Dick’s ‘Martian Time-Slip’.

Recently, however, the amount of fiction concerned with the red planet has seemed to increase out of all proportion, with the famous trilogy Red-Blue-Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson — reckoned, by some commentators, to be among the most important works of sf produced in the 1990s — and its many imitators ensuring that McAuley’s novel must now be viewed as part of a crowded arena, and must be particularly strong if it is to be worth reading at all.

Thankfully, however, Red Dust is exactly such a novel. It is set in one of McAuley’s typically inventive and complex scenarios, in which Mars’ Emperor has been silent for two years, apparently convinced into backing the ideologies of emissaries sent to Mars from Earth, the results of which would involve ceasing all attempts to terraform Mars to conditions easily suited to its new human inhabitants, and instead convincing said inhabitants to download their memories and personalities into virtual realities viewed by many as the best way to achieve immortality and, in fact, as a veritable Heaven.

Several groups have dedicated themselves to fighting such trends, including the anarchists who, based in various precarious habitats in space, plot to unleash vast amounts of water on the planet, partially by launching much of the ice located in Saturn’s rings at Mars, but also by the use of cleverly designed viruses which will melt Mars’ own permafrost. A more planet-based opposition group is the fabled ‘k
u li’, merciless horsemen who roam Mars’ vast plains.

The novel revolves around Wei Lee, a contract agronomist technician who has taken a job in the Bitter Waters danwei. He is on a hunting expedition with two friends when they see a spacecraft plummet from the sky; tracing the source, they find an injured anarchist pilot, Mary Makepeace Mbele, lying in the wreckage of the crashed vehicle. Lee, who has a natural tendency to sympathise with the anarchist cause which may be linked with his obsession with the King of the Cats (a computer-maintained simulacrum of an Old-Earth rock ‘n roll superstar who continually broadcasts a radio show which Lee can pick up using a receiver built into his mind), decides to try and help the pilot, but unfortunately the authorities arrive too soon and transport the now-captive pilot back to Bitter Waters. Lee manages to help her escape, and starts a journey with the pilot which will hopefully take them both to New Beijing, the capital city of Mars.

Unfortunately, the pilot is soon killed, but before she dies she kisses Lee, infecting him with strange viruses which give him both mentally and physically superhuman, and also implants an (unfortunately imperfect) copy of her personality into his brain, hoping to fulfil her mission from beyond the grave. And so begins Lee’s strange journey, which will take him into many and varied dangerous situations, including visiting an ancient and morally-warped lamasery, becoming a cowboy and briefly eking out a living on the plains of Mars, being captured by the Free Yankee Nation, a tribal group whose craft plies the dust seas of Mars, a repeated and prolonged conflict with Mary Makepeace Gaia, another clone from the same genebank as the anarchist pilot currently inhabiting Lee’s head, and, finally, to the Emperor himself, where the fate of the entire planet will be decided.

A novel set against a hugely complicated and well-realised backdrop (m
y descriptions above may have been slightly lengthy, but they barely scratch the surface of the universe McAuley has created for this novel), but which nevertheless contains believable characters, none of which are of the stock sf variety, Red Dust is told in a very controlled and precise style which some might find slightly dry but which, through its great emphasis on description, produces a novel which is a veritable celebration of the planet Mars — one could almost believe that the author has been there —, a place which is most certainly hostile despite the ingenious attempts at terraforming but is now the only planetary home of the human race in any recognisable form, making the plight of its inhabitants all the more urgent.

At times appearing to be somewhat aimless, a valid criticism of the book in my opinion would be that it has a somewhat episodic feel, with many of the adventures contained herein not seeming to particularly follow on from the previous events in any particular fashion, the novel still manages to build a considerable momentum which peaks wonderfully at the end of the novel, resulting in a satisfying read, high on both concepts and excitement, which will live in the mind for a long time to come.
For those interested in an original scenario set in an audaciously conceived universe, a novel which can be slightly challenging at times but which rewards amply those willing to rise to that challenge, this novel is most certainly recommended, along with pretty much all of Paul J. McAuley’s novels.

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