Moving Mars, Bear raises serious Inquestions about the positive effect upon human values of science and technology by describing a future Martian society. Casseia Majumdar, the young woman who narrates, is forced to ponder the moral implications of technological development as she rises ever higher in the movement to unify Mars politically. At the opening of the novel, the planet has been settled by humans for some time and belongs to a loose Triple Alliance with Earth and its Moon. All three populations benefit from the same great technological advances in communications, travel, medical practice, and almost all other physical areas.

Yet in Casseia's world, student dissent, business dirty-dealing, gender strife, political intrigue and interplanetary struggles for hegemony go unabated. In fact, as Casseia learns as she rises politically in the fledgling Federal Republic of Mars, the most advanced scientific discoveries serve to exacerbate interplanetary power...