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Destination Mars

Mars fictions

The Red Planet

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.

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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

Visiting Mars

Mars facts

Mars fictions

Mars people

Life on Mars?

Exploring Mars

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