The Sands of Mars

[AE35Unit]

I'm about halfway thru this one-one of the few Clarke books I hadnt read and after much searching (it seems the book is like hen's teeth) I got the Space Trilogy from Amazon. I'm enjoying it so far-theyve just landed on mars after stopping off at Deimos, and one of the shocks I had, for a Clarke novel, was the depiction of native plants on the red planet! It was written in 1951-his first novel tho!
Anyone else enjoyed it?

 

[manephelien]

I did! Although it's been quite a while since I read it so I can't remember the details.

 

[BigBadBob141]

Enjoyed the kangaroo type Martians, there almost as memorable as Tweel in Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey ".
Very dated now of course but a very good book non the less.
The other interesting Martians are the Flat Cats in Heinlein's "Red Planet", another good book.
I think these gave the writers of Original Star Trek the idea for Tribbels.
Finely my other favourite Martians were those created by Eric Frank Russell in "Men, Martians & Machines", they looked like a cross between a tarantula and an octopus.
Covered in fur and over six feet across they tended to look down there noses at Humans (that is if they had noses) but they were completely mad about Chess, they played it all the time.

 

[BAYLOR]

I read this one twenty years a ago, It was quite good.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I'm about halfway thru this one-one of the few Clarke books I hadnt read and after much searching (it seems the book is like hen's teeth) I got the Space Trilogy from Amazon. I'm enjoying it so far-theyve just landed on mars after stopping off at Deimos, and one of the shocks I had, for a Clarke novel, was the depiction of native plants on the red planet! It was written in 1951-his first novel tho!
Anyone else enjoyed it?

This is one of the things SF readers must deal with and may find interesting.

When was the story written? What year is the story set in?

What has happened in the real world of science and technology relative to those dates.

1951 was before Sputnik in 1957. The US didn't get probes to Mars until the early 60s. That was when we learned that Mars did not have a magnetic field. So increasing scientific knowledge changes what is unrealistic in SF. Or at least Hard SF. Sometimes that makes the old SF more fun or interesting.

What about all of the old SF stories that have swamps on Venus? Between Planets, Podkayne of Mars.

psik