It really helps if you don't try to analyze all of the philosophy and politics until you're done reading the series. I was a little put off by the deus ex machi

It really helps if you don't try to analyze all of the philosophy and politics until you're done reading the series. I was a little put off by the deus ex machina of the longevity treatments, but I understand that it was necessary to keep a consistent narrative over the timespan it would take to actually terraform Mars. I thought the epilogue (humanity's colonization of the solar system and migration to the stars) was pretty inspiring though.