Talk:Rainbow Mars

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I'd never heard of this book, though I'm a big Niven fan. The plot sounds similar to the first issue of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume II. Hmm. . I wonder if that's a coincidence, or one is a fan of the other? Coyote-37 12:53, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I suspect coincidence myself. I should dig up my copy of Rainbow Mars anyway and have another look-through, then poke around here again. Balancer 07:13, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Rainbow Mars was published in 1999. When did TLOEGM begin? I love Rainbow Mars and I wish Niven, and others, would write (and draw) a whole series of novels, short stories, graphic novels, etc. about it. In particular, about relations and conflicts between the pious and peaceful Malacandrans and the truculent Barsoomians. Also, a series called "Rainbow Tau Ceti" - about the dozen or more cultures that SF writers have imagined for Tau Ceti. Das Baz 17:14, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Nod to KSR?
Is the title a nod to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series (Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, plus the short story Purple Mars)? -Father Inire 06:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think so, too. The mish-mash of cultures borrowed from other authors make it specially colourful. But it is as well something like a contrast: Robinson's equatorial lift and Yggdrasil are two different and alike at the same time... and the process runs in opposite directions in each novel: Robinson makes Mars bloom over centuries while Niven slowly dries it up with his "giant drinking-straw-like Yggdrasil, "the Beanstalk" Piolinfax (talk) 22:43, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

A brief summary
This article is a mess. I don't have time to rewrite it myself, but I'll try to give a more coherent account of the storyline, which is designed to be whimsical and surreal.

Mars was once inhabited by Barsoomians, Malacandrians, Weinbaum's "Tweels", and all the other famous Martian races, all at once.

Some Martian scientists decide to construct an elevator up to an artifial moon (as in Kim Stanley Robinson's story), but instead of building it they decide to use gene manipulation to breed a tree with the right properties. Unfortunately the tree uses up all of Mars' water, turning it into the desert planet we know of today. Apparently the tree was indestructible once it grew.

Svetz, the bumbling hero of Niven's time-travel stories (collected in "FLIGHT OF THE HORSE") visits Mars in various time periods and figures out what when wrong. Whether he discovered a solution, I don't remember.

On top of pulling in all the Martian stories, Niven also points out that his story is a "rationalized" version of "Jack and the Beanstalk". CharlesTheBold (talk) 04:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Svetz is not so "bumbling." He always comes out ahead. He does not manage to save Mars, but he saves many of the Martians. He does save Earth and give new hope to the people of two worlds.

Tau Ceti is up to over 30 worlds by now. Rainbow Tau Ceti will be a very rich project. Das Baz, aka Erudil 20:06, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Short story compilation vs novel
I think there is a probable "messtake" in this article. It refers to ISBN 0-312-86777-8 and it says "Rainbow Mars" is a collection of short stories. I have read "Rainbow Mars" in a different edition (ISBN 1-85723-948-2) and that is not a collection of short stories but a full novel. Some characters and the general concept (going back in time to collect items from the past for the UN's Waldemars) in the 1-85723-948-2 book are the same as in a previous book "The Flight of the Horse" which is a short story collection. If the 0-312-86777-8 edition happens to be a compilation of all Svetz's literature, this article should at least say that the book is a compilation of short stories plus a novel... I doubt it is such a compilation, though... Why should the book have "Mars" in its title when only the novel and none of the short stories deals with Mars? --Piolinfax (talk) 22:12, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Interesting, I just bought paperback "Rainbow Mars" ISBN 0-812-56678-5" and it has both! The "Rainbow Mars" story takes up about 3/4 of the pages, and then following that are the five Svetz short-stories.  Thomas Dzubin (talk) 20:29, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I also have ISBN 1-85723-948-2 and it is as described by Piolinfax. It is the 1999 UK edition published by Orbit. It isn't unusual for SF authors to publish in this way in different markets but the article would be improved if it documented the different editions correctly. Unfortunately I'm not an expert on Larry Niven or international SF publishing so don't have the expertise to do this. I have no idea if the novel in ISBN 1-85723-948-2 is the same as the novella in ISBN 0-312-86777-8 but it is over 300 pages long. --Ef80 (talk) 14:14, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

The Mars novel "outweighs" the non-Mars short stories. Das Baz 17:41, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Rainbow Mars, the Movie
It should be a movie. Come on, Mr. Cameron, you can do it. Das Baz, aka Erudil 20:36, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikiproject Horror
Why is this article tagged Wikiproject Horror? It's an unusual mixture of hard sf and fantasy, but certainly not horror. Totally different genre. --Ef80 (talk) 18:41, 3 December 2012 (UTC)