Mars in fiction

The dramatic red color and rapid apparent motion of the planet Mars as seen in the sky of Earth has always made it an object of interest, and this was only increased by early scientific speculations that its surface conditions might be capable of supporting life.

The standard depiction of Mars in fiction until the arrival of planetary probes derives from the astronomers Percival Lowell and Giovanni Schiaparelli. Schiaparelli had observed (or thought he had seen) linear features on the face of Mars, which he thought might be water channels. However, since the Italian word he used for channels was canali, the accounts of his work in english tended to translate that as canals; with attending implications of artificial construction. Lowell's books on Mars expanded on this notion, and the standard model of Mars, as a drying, cooling dying world was established, with ancient Martian civilizations having constructed irrigation works that spanned the planet. This of course, was the origin for a large number of science fiction scenarios.

Some of these concerned the attempts by the Martian race(s) to take the desirable warmer wetter world of Earth:

• The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
• Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon

Edgar Rice Burroughs, true to form, was more concerned with writing adventure stories, so his John Carter (Barsoom) series are pure primitive space opera, with princesses, energy weapons and exotic animals. More thoughtful approaches to the planet, generally featuring intelligent Martians much older and wiser than the upstart humans included:

• The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
• Stanley G. Weinbaum's A Martian Odyssey, in which alien intelligent beings are described who really don't think or act like humans (a rare feature of science fiction of the time)
• C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet, an interesting example of theological science fiction.
• H. Beam Piper's short story Omnilingual, in which archaeologists excavating the remains of a humanoid martian civilization find an entire library: but what can they use for a Rosetta stone?
• Robert A. Heinlein's teenage fiction Red Planet; the Martians in this book very closely resemble the (offstage) martians of his later Stranger in a Strange Land

After the Viking spacecraft had returned pictures of Mars as it really is, the canals and ancient civilizations had to be abandoned, but new stories were written around the new Mars:

• Man Plus by Frederik Pohl, in which an astronaut is cyborged into a form capable of living on Mars.
• The Red Mars / Green Mars / Blue Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, concerned with a centuries long program of terraforming

the planet.

• Red Dust by Paul J. McAuley, a story of the failing terraforming of Mars.

• Ananke by Stanislaw Lem (a story in More Tales of Pirx the Pilot)

Film and television

• Robinson Crusoe on Mars
• Total Recall (Philip K. Dick? short story, later film)
• Armitage III (an anime by Hiroyuki Ochi)
• Mars Attacks, a film directed by Tim Burton
• Invaders From Mars, film
• My Favourite Martian, television series and film.

• The alien Marvin of Bugs Bunny cartoons

Other media

• The pop song Life on Mars by David Bowie

• The computer game Elite 2 starts on Mars too in one scenario.