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  • Plot Summary: I honestly don't remember much of it, but here it is... There are some humans who have colonized Mars. Some of them just want to live peacefully on the colony, while there are other scientists who want to glean all the resources they can from Mars. I remember something about resources from ice.

  • Author: Definitely not Asimov, Bradbury, Orwell...

  • Publication: Around the 1980s, I think, but I could be up to a couple decades off. :)

  • Awards: A bunch of 'em including a really prestigious one.

  • Language: English

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    Asimov, Bradbury, Orwell? One of those is not like the others.
    – user14111
    Commented Dec 9, 2019 at 12:37
  • @user14111 -- But none of them authored this book!
    – user112267
    Commented Dec 9, 2019 at 12:51
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    @user14111 I'm used to seeing ABC(D): Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke(, Dick).
    – SQB
    Commented Dec 9, 2019 at 15:33

3 Answers 3

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Could this be the Mars trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson? The three books in the trilogy are Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993), and Blue Mars (1996).

The covers to the Mars trilogy

A ship is sent to Mars, to colonise. Two different factions emerge, one wanting to preserve Mars and not disturb it, in order to do research, the other wanting to use new technologies to terraform.

The different books in the trilogy won BSFA, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards among them.

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    Even if this isn't the answer, read it anyway. Fantastic.
    – Beejamin
    Commented Dec 9, 2019 at 23:12
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    @Beejamin I'm curious why people rave over it, myself. I found the Red Mars storyline pretty tedious and predictable, and the characters one-dimensional. And that's before we add Robinson's blatant lack of care with the science. I never made it to the second and third, because I couldn't face any more of it. Like with Arthur C Clarke, I can appreciate the scope of the ambition, but I don't rate the writing. So YMMV on that one. :/
    – Graham
    Commented Dec 10, 2019 at 10:35
  • Yep, this is correct! Thanks for that!!
    – user112267
    Commented Dec 11, 2019 at 2:17
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    Yeah, I definitely can see why people don't like it! Re: the 1D characters, KSR often uses an 'archetype' approach: each character is the personification of some characteristic, and then they play off of each other to develop the story. It's kind of implicit in Mars, but explicit in the Years of Rice & Salt where the same core characters are literally resurrected throughout the story. It's a conceit in that it's not strictly realistic, but once you see it across his books it does 'make sense'. Though I haven't liked all his work, one of his recent books I really enjoyed is Aurora.
    – Beejamin
    Commented Dec 11, 2019 at 2:21
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Possibly The Mars Trilogy (1992-1996) by Kim Stanley Robinson.

It is from the 1990s, which is a decade off your estimate, but as you write that you could be "up to a couple decades off", it fits the timeframe.

Some of the colonists in this trilogy want to establish a new and better society on Mars, doing away with old legacy political baggage, while transnational companies on Earth ("transnats") want to exploit Mars' natural resources. At one point, a rebel colony is established beneath the south polar ice cap, using resources there.

The books in the trilogy won a bunch of Awards: Red Mars won the BSFA and Nebula awards, while Green Mars and Blue Mars both won the Hugo and Locus awards.

covers of the trilogy ("Red Mars", "Blue Mars" and "Green Mars")

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  • Unfortunately, SQB beat you to the mark by 8 minutes! I'll check over this to see if it seems correct.
    – user112267
    Commented Dec 9, 2019 at 12:49
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    It's absolutely plausible that writing this answer took more than 8 minutes, so we can assume SQB's answer was not yet visible when thsi one was started.
    – Volker Landgraf
    Commented Dec 9, 2019 at 15:50
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    @VolkerLandgraf absolutely.
    – SQB
    Commented Dec 9, 2019 at 16:06
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    Which was exactly the case! :-)
    – Klaus Æ. Mogensen
    Commented Dec 10, 2019 at 8:35
  • It bothers me more than it should that the book covers are in the wrong order above... :-)
    – T.J. Crowder
    Commented Dec 11, 2019 at 12:33
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I know the OP says that it's definitely not Asimov, but Isaac Asimov wrote "The Martian Way" in 1952 about how a colony on Mars (and the moon) was being pestered by politicians about how many resources they were taking away from Earth, specifically water. (Also, the OP hasn't said whether the other answers seem familiar or are otherwise possibly correct.)

The Mars colony decides to scavenge ice from space to placate Earth. During the trip with a fleet of ships, Asimov correctly describes the first detailed EVA as a free floating experience of extreme beauty and serenity, or something similar.

It's been many years since I've read this book, but I seem to remember something about the politicians wanting to pull scarce resources from the colony in compensation for the resources Earth is sending them. There are such short supplies that those who actually know what's going on realize this will starve the current population and shut down the colony, which appears to be the whole intent of the politician.

Plot Summary

Protagonists Mario Esteban Rioz and Ted Long are Scavengers: Mars-born humans who scour space for the spent lower stages of spacecraft, which are then recycled on the Martian moon Phobos. At the beginning of the story, Rioz scolds Long for wasting power listening to Grounder (Earth-born) politician John Hilder's argument that Earth's settlements on Mars, Venus, and the Moon are useless drains on Earth's economy, and that spaceships are wasting irreplaceable water by using it as reaction mass.

A year later, Hilder has used his campaign against "Wasters" to gain power in Earth's Assembly, and has just reduced shipments of water to Mars, putting the Scavengers out of work. When Hamish Sankov, the head of the Martian colony, learns of Hilder's plan to desist all water shipments to Mars, he authorizes Long's plan to travel to Saturn and tow a fragment of ice from the rings to Mars.

A fleet of 25 Scavenger ships makes the trip. Reaching the rings, the Scavengers choose a fragment approximately one cubic mile in volume, carve it into a rough cylinder, embed their spaceships in it, and fly it back to Mars, using the fragment's ice as reaction mass, in five weeks.

On Mars, Hilder's allies are pressing Sankov to terminate all water exports to the Martian colony. When he hears from the returning Scavengers, Sankov signs. Two days later, the Scavengers land their ice-spacecraft in full view of the press, and Sankov announces that the fragment they brought holds 200 times the amount of water that Earth had been sending to Mars annually, and that if Earth cannot afford to lose any more water, the Martians will sell some of theirs. Long takes this situation as confirmation that Martians, instead of Terrestrials, shall colonize the remaining Solar System.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_Way

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  • The Martian Way is a novella (of about 50 pages), not a novel.
    – PM 2Ring
    Commented Dec 10, 2019 at 2:30
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    @PM2Ring, seeing as the OP barely remembers anything about the story, the difference between a novel and a novella is a minor detail that they could also have easily forgotten. The story is similar enough to make this a relevant guess.
    – computercarguy
    Commented Dec 10, 2019 at 17:10
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    An important note: water is used as reaction mass by the rockets, which is why limiting it puts the rocket jockeys out of business (for a while as it turns out).
    – Maury Markowitz
    Commented Dec 10, 2019 at 22:13