I can definitely see why the Mars Trilogy isn't on everyone's multiple-read list. The premise that they wouldn't have sorted out more of the philosophy of the expedition while still on the ground is shaky. The premise that they'd send a bunch of scientists with little in the way of a command structure is credence-breaking. The way so many scientific developments come out of these scientists on Mars who have to spend so much time just staying alive as opposed to the dozens of millions of scientists and engineers on Earth who can pay others to keep them alive is absurd.

At that point, the odd gratuitous sex scene or scientific oddity (windmills to run electrical resistive heaters? multiple-meter-thick beanstalks?) is barely a blip on the radar.