Typically, a good science fiction novel takes a single strong idea and expands upon it. What are the social implications, what are the effects on humanity of such and such? So his Mars trilogy is quite the shocker because due to its cornucopia of new ideas, even new characters, introduced every few chapters. It's quite the departure from the usual run of the mill. He has economic theory, political theory, string theory, geology, biology, psychology, genetics, terrorism, ecology, nuclear fusion, planetary exploration, space elevators, solar sails, immortality, religion, self replicating industries, moholes, viruses, ... and that doesn't even touch upon the incomprehensible scale of the imagery and plot. It takes skill to combine ingredients into coherent fiction, and amazingly enough, none of the ideas seem far beyond what is possible, and it would seem at no point was Robinson tempted to throw in alien life and tip the story into fantasy.

I'm going to have to end up reading the trilogy twice just to make sure I got it right .

He took the four classical greek personality types and mixed them up with other stuff, and in that particular instance, he is doing it to develop a character, to expose Michel Duval's method of thinking. It creates the sense of rationality, and then he switches over to another external point of view, and stomps all over the psychological exposition, calling it alchemy and pseudoscience and bullshit. It's disconcerting, but effective in building up the many characters have their own systems of thought, many times at odds with each other.

I'll probably finish the last book today, hopefully. :-D

Calvin