Disappointing progress (or lack thereof) regarding the announcement one year ago that AMC were to adapt Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars for TV...

In a recent interview with the award-winning author of the Mars trilogy, I asked how the project was going...

Can you tell us how involved you are with the AMC Red Mars project? Is a three-season series envisaged encompassing the Mars trilogy? Are you concerned at whether TV can bring to life such cinematic visions as the space-elevator wrapping itself twice round Mars...?

I am merely a consultant to the AMC Red Mars effort, and my agents are co-producers. I don't know what the plans are long-term. Right now they are at the script-writing phase, and nothing has been green-lighted, so we'll see what happens.
As for how it might look, I think the space elevator falling is the kind of thing TV could be particularly good at, actually. It's the problem of traversing 70 years that is the real problem for them. Glad it's not my problem!

The Mars trilogy tells the epic tale of the colonisation of the red planet, going from the 21st to the 22nd century. Red Mars is the first in the trilogy, followed by Green Mars and finally Blue Mars in 1996.

Check back tomorrow for the full interview with Kim Stanley Robinson.

• Red Mars coming to TV
  
• Why Red Mars may prove unfilmable