Overpopulation, global warming, nuclear winter, and deadly asteroids are a few choice scenarios for the end of our beloved blue Earth. No matter what fate befalls our planet, though, the human race will be along for the ride. What else can we do? Pack up and move to Mars? Oh, wait…

Like so much science fiction, Stanley Kim Robinson's Red Mars originates from a gigantic "what if?" As in, what if humanity needs to colonize another planet because Earth begins falling apart beneath our feet? No hospitable planets exist within millions of light-years of our current planetary home, so we'd probably have to transform one of our solar neighbors to do the trick.

Jupiter? Too gassy. Mercury? Too hot. Mars? Eh, beggars can't be choosers.

Published in 1993 but set in 2026, Robinson's novel tells just such an intrepid tale. Aboard the spaceship Ares, one hundred humans head off to colonize Mars. Their goal is to terraform Mars—a.k.a. use the most advanced scientific technology and techniques to change the desert planet into a place that can sustain human life.

But did anybody say playing god was easy? Because it is not. The colonists face plenty of trials and tribulations on the inhospitable Martian landscape, while back on Earth greedy politicians and transnational corporations have their own plans for the red planet.

This book is pretty epic, and critics heaped praise upon it to match. It won the BSFA in 1992 and went on to win the Nebula a year later. It also set the stage for two more sequels, both beasts in their own right.

And check this out: When the Phoenix robotic spacecraft landed on Mars in 2008, it brought with it a DVD containing the works of Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and, yep, Kim Stanley Robinson. Robinson's contribution to this interstellar library is the text of his novel Green Mars and the cover art of Red Mars. Boo ya.

It's just a hunch, but if Robinson's work is good enough to send to aliens, well, it's probably good enough for you to read, too.

You should care about Red Mars because Mars isn't really Mars in the novel. It's Earth.

Say what?

Okay, literally speaking, it's Mars—but it's Earth metaphorically. Worry not, we'll explain further.

Robinson's novel is all about the transformation of Mars. The colonists sent aboard the Ares have one goal: make Mars hospitable enough for humans to one day occupy the planet. As you can imagine, this type of plot leads to all sorts of considerations on what makes a healthy environment, not to mention a bunch of ethical questions regarding the natural order of human life and liberty.

To further complicate matters, transnational corporations back on Earth—called transnats—are doing what corporations do. That is, they are trying to exploit Mars as a natural and social resource to further the three Ps: power, profit, and political influence. Since the politicians have their hands in the corporate honey pot, they aren't much help when it comes to putting a nix on capitalist colonialism.

So when we say that Mars is really Earth, we mean that the difficulties facing the First Hundred and the other Martian immigrants are the same problems we face on Earth today. Sure, the setting may be that distant rusty sphere floating across the night sky, but the problems, conflicts, and potential solutions on Mars are the same problems, conflicts, and potential solutions for Earth in the here and now.

Mars is a fictional playground in which Robinson can play with important political, social, and environmental issues, and can allow us, the readers, to consider new possibilities to our old 21st-century problems.