Red Mars (Mars Trilogy Book 1)

they were crazy enough to want to leave Earth forever, but sane enough to disguise this fundamental madness, in fact defend it as pure rationality, scientific curiosity or something of the sort—which seemed to be the only acceptable reason for wanting to go, and so naturally they claimed to be the most scientifically curious people in history! But

Arkady shook his head vehemently, causing him to spin a little in the air over the table. “No, no, no, no! History is not evolution! It is a false analogy! Evolution is a matter of environment and chance, acting over millions of years. But history is a matter of environment and choice, acting within lifetimes, and sometimes within years, or months,

Certainly it had been a mistake to have only one psychiatrist along. Every therapist on Earth was also in therapy, it was part of the job, it came with the territory. But his therapist was back in Nice, fifteen timeslipped minutes away at best, and Michel talked to him but he couldn’t help. He didn’t understand, not really; he lived where it was wa

“People who in the lab are as hard-headed as can be—you should see Phyllis grilling the conclusions her colleagues draw from their data! And then suddenly they start using all kinds of debater’s tricks, evasions, qualifications, fuzzy thinking of every kind. As if they were an entirely different person.” “You just don’t have faith!” Frank repeated.

“Beauty is power and elegance, right action, form fitting function, intelligence, and reasonability. And very often,” he grinned and pushed at her belly, “expressed in curves.”

“I don’t know what I would have done without you,” she was saying rapidly, “really you are so good in those situations, so clear and firm and sharp. They believe you because you don’t try to flatter them or soften the truth.” “That’s what works best,” he said, looking out the window at the tents running by. “Especially when you’re flattering them a

A hundred thousand volumes; lecterns today beat that a hundredfold, although it was a pointless improvement, as there was no longer time to read even a single book. He had been fond of Nietzsche in those days, apparently. About half the marked passages were from him, and glancing through them Frank couldn’t see why, it was all windy drivel. And the

He headed back to the city offices. He was halfway there when there was a loud pop overhead. He looked up and saw a small hole in the dome. The air suddenly took on an iridescent shimmer, as if they were inside a great soap bubble. A bright flash and a loud boom knocked him to his feet. Struggling back up, he saw everything ignite simultaneously; p

He stared at his coffee cup, looked up at her, then back down at the cup. It was impossible. A sentence was pronouncing itself in his mind, each word equally weighted: I killed John. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “What do you mean?”