Mars in fiction

**Novels and short stories about Mars** have been popular for over a hundred years. The planet's dramatic red color that some people can see is one reason for this.  another is that the planet  is close to Earth.  Also, it looks somewhat like Earth.  There are also stories about creatures from Mars on Earth and elsewhere.

Near the end of the 19th century, the astronomer
Giovanni Schiaparelli reported seeing what  he thought might be water channels on Mars. Because the Italian for channels is _canali_, English translations tended to render the word as "canals", implying artificial construction. This led to the idea of intelligent beings on Mars before it apparently dried up.

The following works of fiction deal with the planet itself, with any assumed Martian civilization as part of its planetary landscape.

### First stories

Several early modern writers, including Athanasius Kircher and Emanuel Swedenborg, hypothesized contact with Mars. Early science fiction about Mars often involved the first voyages to the planet, sometimes as an invasion force, more often for the purposes of exploration.

#### Early works to 1910

- _Across the Zodiac_ (1880) by Percy Greg.
- _Melbourne and Mars: My Mysterious Life on Two Planets_ (1889) by Joseph Fraser.
- _Unveiling a Parallel_ (1893) by Alice Ilgenfritz Jones and Ella Merchant.
- _Journey to Mars_ (1894) by Gustavus W. Pope.
- _The War of the Worlds_ (1898) by H. G. Wells. (This was later made into a radio drama in the United States and then into at least one feature film.)
- _Edison's Conquest of Mars_ (1898) by Garrett P. Serviss.
- _A Honeymoon in Space_ (1900), by _George Griffith_.
- _Gullivar of Mars_ (1905) by Edwin Lester Linden Arnold. (The protagonist's name is taken from Gulliver's Travels.
- _Doctor Omega_ (1906) by Arnould Galopin.
- _Le prisonnier de la planète Mars_ [Vampires of Mars] (1908) and its sequel _La guerre des vampires_ [War of the Vampires] (1909) by Gustave Le Rouge.
- _Red Star_ (1908) by Alexander Bogdanov.

#### 1910s and 1920s

- _Le Mystère des XV_ (1911) by Jean de La Hire.
- _A Princess of Mars_ and another ten Mars stories (1912–1943) by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
- _Aelita_ (1922) by A.N. Tolstoy
- _Les Navigateurs de l'Infini _ (1925) by J.-H. Rosny aîné. Humans travels to Mars in a spaceship named Stellarium, and meets two competing races on the planet.

#### 1930s

- _Last and First Men_ by Olaf Stapledon (1930)
- _The Swordsman of Mars_ and _Outlaws of Mars_ (both 1933) by Otis Adelbert Kline.
- "A Martian Odyssey" (1934), a short story by Stanley G. Weinbaum.
- _Out of the Silent Planet_, by C. S. Lewis (1938)

#### 1940s

- _What Mad Universe_ (1949) by Fredric Brown

#### 1950s

- _The Martian Chronicles_ (1950) by Ray Bradbury.
- _Marooned on Mars_ (1952) by Lester del Rey.
- _No Man Friday_ (1956) by Rex Gordon.
- _A World's Revival_ (Hebrew: תבל בתחיתה Tevel Be-Thiatah)  (1955) by Tzvi Livneh.
- _The Outward Urge_ (1959) by John Wyndham.

### Living on Mars

By the 1930s, stories about reaching Mars had become somewhat trite, and the focus shifted to Mars as an alien landscape. New stories were set in a time after human contact and basic exploration. Some were about the colonization of Mars or otherwise used Mars as a setting rather than a goal.

#### 1930s

- _Dweller in the Gulf_ (1932), _The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis_ (1932) and _Vulthoom_ (1935) by Clark Ashton Smith.
- The _Northwest Smith_ stories (1933–1936) by C. L. Moore.
- _Legion of Space Series_ (1934–1982) by Jack Williamson.

#### 1940s

- _The Secret of Sinharat_, _People of the Talisman_ and another eleven stories published between 1940 and 1964 by Leigh Brackett.
- "Heredity" (1941), a short story by Isaac Asimov
- Robert A. Heinlein _The Green Hills of Earth_ (1947)
- Robert A. Heinlein_Red Planet_ (1949)
- Robert A. Heinlein _The Rolling Stones_ (1952)
- Robert A. Heinlein_Podkayne of Mars_ (1962)
- _Seetee Ship_ (1949) and _Seetee Shock_ (1950) by Jack Williamson

#### 1950s and early 1960s

- _Genesis (story)_ (1951) by H. Beam Piper  (see http://hbpiper.wikispaces.com/Martian ,).
- "Omnilingual" (1957) by H. Beam Piper
- _The Sands of Mars_ (1951) by Arthur C. Clarke
- _David Starr, Space Ranger_ (1952) by Isaac Asimov writing as Paul French.
- _The Martian Way_ (1952) by Isaac Asimov
- "One in Three Hundred" (1954) by J. T. McIntosh
- "The Badge of Infamy" (1957) by Lester Del Rey
- _The Sirens of Titan_ by Kurt Vonnegut (1959)
- _Perry Rhodan_ series (1961- ) (in German)
- "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" (1963) by Roger Zelazny
- Philip K. Dick _Martian Time Slip_ (1964)
- Philip K. Dick _The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch_ (1965)).
- Philip K. Dick Destination Mars (1963)

### 1960s and later

Beginning in 1965, the Mariner and Viking space probes revealed that the canals were an illusion, and that the Martian environment is extremely hostile to life. By the 1970s, the ideas of canals and ancient civilizations had to be abandoned.

Authors soon began writing stories based on the new Mars (frequently treating it as a desert planet). Most of these works have humans struggling to tame the planet, and some of them refer to terraforming (using technology to transform a planet's environment).

A common theme, particularly among American writers, is that of a Martian colony fighting for independence from Earth. It appeared already in Heinlein's _Red Planet_ and is a major plot element in Greg Bear's _Moving Mars_ and Kim Stanley Robinson's _Mars_ trilogy. It is also part of the plot of the movie _Total Recall_ and the television series _Babylon 5_. Many video games also use this concept, such as the _Red Faction_ and _Zone of the Enders_ series. A historical rebellion of Mars against Earth is also mentioned in the _Star Trek_ series of novels.

In the decades following Mariner and Apollo, the once-popular subgenre of realistic stories about a first expedition to Mars fell out of fashion, possibly due to the failure of the Apollo Program to continue on to Mars. The early 1990s saw a revival and re-envisioning of realistic novels about Mars expeditions. Early novels in this renaissance were Jack Williamson's novel _Beachhead_ and Ben Bova's novel _Mars_ (both 1992), which envisioned large-scale expeditions to Mars according to the thinking of the 1990s. These were followed by Gregory Benford's _The Martian Race_ (1999), Geoffrey A. Landis's _Mars Crossing_ (2000), and Robert Zubrin's _First Landing_ (2002), which took as their starting points the smaller and more focussed expedition strategies evolved in the late 1990s, mostly building on the concepts of Mars Direct.

### Late 1960s and the 1970s

- Larry Niven  Known Space stories (1964- )
- _Die Erde ist nah: die Marsexpedition_ (1970), by Ludek Pesek, published in English as _The Earth is Near_ (1973)
- _Police Your Planet_ (1975) by Lester Del Rey
- _Birth of Fire_ (1976) by Jerry Pournelle
- _Man Plus_ (1976) by Frederik Pohl, an astronaut is transformed into a cyborg capable of living on Mars.
- _The Far Call_ by Gordon R. Dickson

### 1980s

- "Ananke"  (1982) by Stanisław Lem (a story in _More Tales of Pirx the Pilot_)
- _Watchmen_ (1985) by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
- _The Forge of God_ (1987) by Greg Bear.
- _Desolation Road_ (1988) by Ian McDonald i
- _Draka_ series (1989-)
- _Venus Prime_ (1989) The third book of the series: _Hide & Seek_ is set on Mars.

### 1990s

- Terry Bisson _Voyage to the Red Planet_ (1990)
- Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (_Red Mars_, _Green Mars_, _Blue Mars_, 1992–1996)
- Kim Stanley Robinson: _The Memory of Whiteness_ (1985).
- _Mars_ (1992), _Return to Mars_ (1999) and _Mars Life_ (2008) by Ben Bova, from the _Grand Tour_ series.
- _Moving Mars_ (1993) by Greg Bear
- _Red Dust_ (1993) by Paul J. McAuley
- _Bright Messengers_ (1995) by Gentry Lee
- _Voyage_ (1996) by Stephen Baxter
- _Mars Underground_ (1997) by William K. Hartmann
- _Olympus Mons_ (1998) by Bud Sparhawk
- _Beige Planet Mars_ (1998) by Lance Parkin and Mark Clapham
- _Semper Mars_ (1998) by Ian Douglas
- "Mars is No Place for Children" (1999) by Mary A. Turzillo
- _The Martian Race_ (1999) by Gregory Benford
- Brian Aldiss and Roger Penrose:  _White Mars_ (1999)

### 21st century

- _Mars Crossing_ (2000) by Geoffrey A. Landis
- "The Great Wall of Mars" (2000) by Alastair Reynolds
- _First Landing_ (2002) by Robert Zubrin
- Mars is the scene of the last of three recent space operas by John Barnes: _In the Hall of the Martian King_ (2003). Barnes also sets one of the two _Meme Wars_ novels on Mars: _The Sky So Big and Black_ (2002).
- "Falling Onto Mars, by Geoffrey A. Landis
- _Ilium/Olympus_ series (2003- ) by Dan Simmons
- Stories by Caitlín R. Kiernan:
    - "Bradbury Weather" (2005)
    - "Zero Summer" (2007)
    - "Excerpt from _Memoirs of a Martian Demirep_" (2007).
- _An Old Fashioned Martian Girl_ (2004), by Mary A. Turzillo
- _New Mobile Report Gundam Wing: Frozen Teardrop_ (2010-ongoing) by Katsuyuki Sumisawa is a novel continuation of the _Gundam Wing_ anime series taking place primarily on the terraformed Mars.
- _The Quantum Thief_ (2010) by  Hannu Rajaniemi

### Nostalgic Mars fiction

Several post-Mariner works are homages to the older phase of Mars fiction, circumventing the scientific picture of a dry and lifeless Mars with an unbreathable atmosphere through such science fiction generic staples as positing its future terraforming, or creating alternate history versions of Mars, where Burroughs' Barsoom, Bradbury's Martian Chronicles or The War of the Worlds are literal truth.

- Philip José Farmer's World of Tiers series (1965–1993)
- Some Sword and planet series, such as Michael Moorcock's _Kane of Old Mars_ trilogy (1965) and Lin Carter's _Mysteries of Mars_ (1973–1984) are deliberately anachronistic homages to earlier visions of Mars, particularly Burroughs'.
- Robert A. Heinlein: _The Number of the Beast_ (1980)
- _A World Of Difference_ (1990) by Harry Turtledove
- S. M. Stirling's Lords of Creation series includes _In the Courts of the Crimson Kings_, involving Mars.
- Larry Niven: _Rainbow Mars_ (1999)
- "Larklight" (2006), a story by Phillip Reeve

### Comics

- In the _Watchmen_ comic by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons Dr. Manhattan character tours Mars and visits Olympus Mons, admiring its features. He takes his girlfriend there, soon after he leaves for another galaxy.
- In the 2000 AD series _The V.C.s_ Olympus Mons' crater is covered by a massive dome to retain an atmosphere as the main settlement on the planet.
- Several stories of the DC Comics character Martian Manhunter take place on Mars, and the Manhunter is a Martian. Most of the Green Martians were wiped out by a plague, although the more ruthless White Martians still exist. Martians were among the most powerful races in the Universe, capable of telepathy, shapeshifting, and flight, though they have an aversion to fire.
- The most recent issue of the webcomic Dr. McNinja features Dracula revealing that he discovered the cure for cancer and hid it on Mars.
- In Wonder Woman Pre-Crisis comics, Mars was the base of the god Mars, (see Ares). Spirits of the dead from various planets were taken to Mars and given new bodies to work. The Duke of Deception is a major villain of that world, operating a Lie Factory and making several attempts to invade Earth.
- In January–February 1950, Superman journeys to Mars to help actor-director Orson Welles smash a plot by the Martian dictator Martler to "blitzkrieg the solar system" and conquer the Earth (S No. 62/1: "Black Magic on Mars!").
- In Tales to Astonish #2 (1959) "My Job: To Catch a Martian", a professor, who discovers an empty alien spacecraft, hires a private investigator to find the occupant when no one else will listen to him.
- In Tales to Astonish #3 (1959) "I Discovered the Men From Mars", a man from the year 1990 discovers a Martian space-craft while patrolling the coast on the lookout for communist spies.
- In the Manga and Anime _Sailor Moon_, released in 1992, in the silver millennium, Mars was inhabited by the warlike descendants of the Greek god Ares.  The character of Rei Hino is a modern descendant of Ares and is Sailor Mars. All her attacks are based on fire. Like the other planets in the modern solar system, Mars is no longer inhabitable.
- In the comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes: Weirdos From Another Planet! by Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes travel to Mars because the Earth is too polluted.
- In Marvel Family #36 Mars is shown to be inhabited by a warlike treacherous race that resemble 1940s military dictators. They join the Invaders from Infinity (see List of Captain Marvel (DC Comics) enemies) in their attempt to destroy the Solar System after being defeated, but are beaten and sent back to Mars while the Invaders are imprisoned and destroyed.

## Martians in fiction

The Martian is a favorite character of classical science fiction; he was frequently found away from his home planet, often invading Earth, but sometimes simply a lonely character representing alienness from his surroundings. Martians, other than human beings transplanted to Mars, became rare in fiction after Mariner, except in exercises of deliberate nostalgia – more frequently in some genres, such as comics and animation, than in written literature.

## Related pages

- Science fiction movie

## References

- http://blog.oup.com/2012/12/mars-literature-early-sci-fi/