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Ever
since ancient astronomers noticed the Red Planet in the night sky,
Mars - named after the god of war - has been part of human psychology.
The dream of humans walking on the Martian surface began in science-fiction
writing long before NASA decided to send a robot there in 1976.
Mars is the planet on which we have most often imagined colonies
of little green men, or giant bugs or enormous robots. Since the
end of the 19th century Mars and Martians have been the central
subjects of science fiction.
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Before
the 19th century Mars was only mentioned once in a work of fiction.
Gulliver's Travels, written by Jonathan Swift and first
published in 1726, mentions astronomers on the island of Laputa who
have discovered two satellites orbiting Mars. Oddly enough, there
are two moons in Mars's orbit, but these were not discovered by scientists
until 1877. |
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In
1898, Herbert George Wells's The
War of the Worlds was published. It remains the most famous
work about the Red Planet in English literature. The book tells of
an invasion of Earth by Martians who land in the south of England
and attack London with heat rays and poisonous black smoke. The technologically
advanced aliens are not equipped to deal with the common cold, however,
and this is the cause of their demise. |
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HG
Wells's The War of the Worlds became notorious when
a realistic radio version, broadcast in 1938 and starring Orson Welles,
induced widespread panic in the USA. Many listeners thought that the
'news' that Martians were invading was true. |
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Other
Mars classics include The Martian Tales by Edgar Rice
Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan of the Apes. The
Martian Tales are a series of 11 swashbuckling novels - the
first of which was published in 1917 - recounting the adventures of
John Carter, a Confederate Civil War veteran who is transported to
Mars, where he does battle with huge, four-armed green men called
Tharks. |
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In
a reversal of HG Wells's theme, The
Martian Chronicles, a collection of short stories
written by Ray Bradbury and published in 1951, tells of humans who
invade Mars and spread terrestrial bacteria, killing the native Martians.
The book raises interesting questions about what the first contact
with alien life would be like. |
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Works
of science fiction have often used Mars as the setting for adventure
stories or for tales of cooperation and conflict, military and political,
between Earth and Mars. Isaac Asimov's The Martian Way
and Double Star by Robert Heinlein, both novels from
the 1950s, are examples. The Season of Passage (1992)
by Christopher Pike is a mixture of sci-fi, horror and fantasy which
gives its own explanation of the Martian canals. |
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Michael
Allaby and James Lovelock wrote The Greening of Mars
(1984), which is in fact more science fact than science fiction, and
looks at the possibility of making Mars liveable for humans. The
Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson is also a detailed look
at the colonising of Mars. |
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There
are countless films about Mars which reveal a good deal more about
ourselves, and in particular Hollywood, than they do about Mars. But
one of the earliest films about Mars was not American, but Soviet.
Aelita: Queen of Mars was a silent film, made in 1924,
which tells the tale of a Soviet engineer who builds a spaceship,
kills his wife and flees to Mars, where he falls in love with Aelita,
the queen of the planet. |
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Most
films about the Red Planet deal with invasions by evil Martians: Hollywood
films such as Invaders from Mars, The Day Mars
Invaded Earth, The Deadly Ray from Mars and
It! The Terror from Beyond Space reveal the way Mars
was used as a metaphor for American Cold War fears about a Soviet
invasion. Mars Attacks!,
the 1996 film starring Jack Nicholson and Glenn Close, is a recent
spoof of the Martian genre. |
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Total
Recall, the 1990 film starring Arnold Schwarzeneggar
and Sharon Stone, is one of the more successful films about Mars.
A sci-fi fantasy set in 2084, the film depicts Mars as a colony
of Earth - a holiday destination as well as a source of raw materials.
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