Statistics: facts and figures, characters and time in Red, Green & Blue Mars

In the diagram below, the horizontal scale coincides with the number of pages in the three books. The vertical scale shows the years between 2000 and 2220, according to the Terran (Christian) calendar. The colored vertical bands each stand for a chapter, the color representing the character that has the "perspective", the person through the eyes of whom the reader looks at the events. The narrow grey zones between the colored bands are the pages in italics between the chapters. The thick white "timeline" gives an indication of the way time has been dealt with by Kim Stanley Robinson.

One very remarkable aspect about the timeline is the exception that occurs right in the first chapter. Instead of starting at the beginning, the departure of the Ares, Red Mars begins at the night John Boone gets killed in 2053 and then jumps back to 2026. From that moment on it's completely chronological until the very end of Blue Mars .

In some chapters the line is almost horizontal. These parts correspond with important periods in the history of the colonization: the first settlement, the first and second revolution, and rather surprisingly also the first years of the 22nd century. In some other chapters the line becomes quite steep. In many places at the turn of a chapter the line jumps a few years or decades, leaving a gap in our knowledge; particularly little is known about the first decades after the desastrous 2061 revolution.

One of the reasons I made this diagram is that I was curious if there's a pattern in the alternation of characters, but I don't think there is. History obviously doesn't let itself be fit in a scheme. Also the length of the chapters varies tremendously, and the number of chapters rises from eight in Red to twelve in Blue.

After reading the trilogy I had the feeling Ann, Sax and Nirgal were the most important characters. Ann represents the red, Sax can be identified with the Green, and Nirgal, born in the world that's the result of the struggle between Red and Green, in a way stands for the Blue. Looking at the number of pages however the conclusion has to be a different one, because the number one in the top-10 is Nadia, a more moderate character. Ann finds herself back in a dissappointing sixth position, even after Maya and John.

Knowing that Kim Stanley Robinson is a male American, it can't be too much of a surprise that the USA is the best represented country and that the men beat the women. But the author has certainly done his best also to identify with other nationalities and the other gender, because the numbers two, Russia and the women, follow at a short distance. And after all: there are two Russian women in the top-3...