It should come as no surprise such ideas, coming as they did in an era when science fiction was developing into its modern form, would be quickly snapped up by writers of the fantastic. H.G. Wells, a leader in this field as in so many others, created some quite memorable Martians in The War of the Worlds. This novel, however, describes an alien invasion rather than a voyage to Mars. The honour of sending the first Earthly traveller to Mars had already gone to a little known writer some years before, and it was left to the prolific Edgar Rice Burroughs to introduce the idea to popular science fiction some years later.

Burroughs created a larger than life fictional Mars, the semi-barbarous but scientifically advanced civilisation of Barsoom. John Carter, the hero of the series, is mysteriously transported to this world by a mixture of corporeal transference and wishful thinking. No explanation of this method of travel is given, and one gets the impression that it is not really important. What really matters are the adventures of John Carter amongst the Tharks, thoats, Jeddaks, banths, Therns and giant white apes of Barsoom. A Princess of Mars, the initial instalment in Burroughs' Martian saga, was first published in serial form in 1912. It was followed by Gods of Mars (1913), Warlord of Mars (1914), Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1921), Chessmen of Mars (1922), Master Mind of Mars (1927), A Fighting Man of Mars (1930), Swords of Mars (1935), Synthetic Men of Mars (1939), Llana of Gathol (1941), and John Carter of Mars (1943).

Everything on Barsoom is larger and more colourful than life. The animals all have bigger and more teeth, claws and limbs than their Earthly counterparts; the villains are more villainous; the men more brave and chivalrous; and the women beautiful beyond compare. Towering above them all is the heroic John Carter. Because of the heavier gravity of Earth he is almost superhumanly strong on Mars. He dispatches hordes of villains with one blow of his sword, he is more honourable and brave than the doughtiest Barsoomian warrior, and women swoon with love at one glimpse of his bulging biceps. This is fantasy in more than one sense of the word.

"That my poor services to Dejah Thoris had become known to the Heliumites was evidenced by the loud crying of my name, and by the loads of ornaments that were fastened upon me and my huge thoat as we passed up the avenues to the palace, for even in the face of the ferocious appearance of Woola the populace pressed close about me."

The first three books of the Barsoom series make up a trilogy, of which John Carter is both hero and narrator. From Thuvia, Maid of Mars, however, he started building his stories around new characters. For the most part, were the descendants of John Carter and his beloved Dejah Thoris, and included Cathoris, his son, Tara, his daughter, and Llana of Gathol, his grand daughter. Burroughs also introduces another Earthman character, Ulysses S. Paxton, who is transported to Mars in much the same way as the great John Carter himself. John Carter tends to take a back seat in the later Mars books, existing only to make a cameo appearance towards the beginning or end of the story, or as a name for the other characters to invoke.

In all justice it must be stated that however florid the Barsoom books, Edgar Rice Burroughs made use of the best scientific information available in writing them. Unfortunately Burroughs continued to produce these works into a more sophisticated era when better data was obtainable and better science fiction being written. By the time he published John Carter of Mars in 1943 Burroughs was already an anachronism, although his Martian books remain popular among those who first read them in their childhood or early teens.

Interestingly enough, the idea of Mars as the site of an ancient and exotic civilisation did not die out in fiction when the evidence mounted up against it in fact. It lingered on, in the works of such writers as Leigh Brackett, until the early sixties. One very good creator of tales of this kind was C.L. Moore, who used Mars as the setting for some of her "Northwest Smith" stories. Northwest Smith was a character closer to being a precursor of Han Solo than a descendant of John Carter: tough, worldly wise and not altogether honourable. The first in the series of stories featuring this hero was "Shambleau" (1933), in which Smith tangles with a Medusa-like alien vampire in one of the decaying cities of Mars. Moore evokes the sleazy back streets and alleyways of her Martian cities vividly. Stylistically it stands head and shoulders above the usual action-adventure fare prevailing at the time, and it remains an absorbing read today.

One year later, in 1934, another bombshell hit the burgeoning science fiction community. Stanley Weinbaum published his first story: "A Martian Odyssey" - and in it depicted, for the first time, truly alien aliens. Hitherto, all the "Martians" portrayed in stories of interplanetary voyages had been basically human. They had basically human mind sets and societies: they lived in cities, married, worshiped gods and goddesses and created tools and works of art. While this type of "alien" still remains a part of science fiction Weinbaum opened up the possibility of something different with his Martian "ostrich" Tweel.

Tweel is a bird-like alien who displays such behavioural traits as leaping seventy feet into the air and landing on his beak. He is found by, and becomes friends with, a lost explorer from Earth. Weinbaum does not gloss over the difficulties of interplanetary communications: on the contrary, this is a major part of the story. Neither of the two friends ever master more than a few words of one another's language. But the relationship between Tweel and the spaceman, however verbally limited, is a refreshing change from those stories in which the Martians are monsters, existing to slaughter and be slaughtered, or where they are quasi-humans, existing only to prove the hero's prowess.

Besides Tweel and his people (who live in a semi-deserted city on the edge of one of Mars' great canals) Weinbaum invented such aliens as a tentacled "dream beast" which lures its prey by disguising itself telepathically as the objects of its victims' desires; a silicon creature which, quite literally, shits bricks; and little, wheelbarrow-toting beings who endlessly repeat anything that is said to them. Weinbaum created an imaginative and original Mars, inhabited by novel and interesting creatures. It is a pity that he failed to be as innovative with his human characters, who are an unfortunate collection of ethnic stereotypes.

John Wyndham also entered the "ancient civilisation on Mars" stakes with an early novel, Stowaway to Mars, first published in 1935. This book is notably more clumsy than his later works - and sports such malachronisms as a heroine unable to grasp the concept of artificial intelligence, aviator/astronauts competing for prize money in their home-made rockets, a thriving British Empire, and a comic-book, nineteen-thirties style Soviet Union. Wyndham does, however, manage to convey the idea of a dying Martian civilisation which is technically sophisticated - a rarity in a sub-genre that owes more to the Arabian Nights than to scientific speculation.

Wyndham published a sequel, Sleepers of Mars, in 1938, the same year that another English writer published his one and only novel about Mars. C.S. Lewis was an academic and a theologian rather than a full-time science fiction writer, but his Out of the Silent Planet remains one of the most engaging Martian stories ever written. Unfortunately it also remains a science fiction novel written by a man who deeply distrusted science.
Unlike many other stories about Mars - indeed, unlike any other story about Mars - it is lushly pastoral in nature. Lewis' three Martian races - Hrossa, Seroni and Pfifltriggi - do not subsist on the edges on a once great civilisation, but lead a tranquil existence amongst the hills and valleys of their world. Out of the Silent Planet reflects Lewis' religious views: the inhabitants of Mars live ideal Christian lives, free of lust, greed, envy and strife. To his credit, and to the great benefit of the novel, Lewis does not preach in imparting his views. Few readers, whatever their personal beliefs, will fail to be amused by the scene in which Ransom, the philologist hero of the story, tries to translate the Social Darwinist pomposities of the villain into coherent Martian.

Leigh Brackett published her first Martian story ("Martian Quest") in 1940. It was followed by such stories as "Nemesis from Terra" (originally Shadow Over Mars) in 1944; "Mars Minus Bisha" in 1948; "Sword of Rhianon' (Sea Kings of Mars) and "The Secret of Sinharat" (Queen of the Martian Catacombs) in 1949; "People of the Talisman" (Black Amazon of Mars) in 1950 ; "The Last Days of Shandakor" in 1952; "The Beast Jewel of Mars" in 1954; "The Road to Sinharat" in 1963; and "Purple Princess of the Mad Moon" in 1964.

"have begun the business of reducing these dreams to cold, hard ruinous fact. But as we know, in the affairs of men and Martians, mere fact runs a poor second to Truth, which is mighty and shall prevail. Therefore I offer you these legends of Old Mars as true tales, inviting all dreary realities to keep a respectful distance."

Like C.L. Moore, Brackett depicts an ancient, but slowly fading, Martian civilisation, infinitely more sophisticated than the Earthly one which dominates it. The Earthmen who visit Mars are rough and ready adventurers trying to exploit the planet, or well-meaning bureaucrats trying to administer it. They find themselves out of their depths when they attempt to pit themselves against the Martians who "have been civilized for so many thousands of years that they could afford to forget it". Paradoxically, only Earthmen who are not quite civilised - Eric John Stark in "The Secret of Sinharat" and "The People of the Talisman" or Rick Urquhart in "The Nemesis From Terra" - have a chance of defeating these people.

Like Brackett, Bradbury depicted a Mars under attack by crude Terran invaders, who, ultimately, could not stand against the race they had conquered. In The Martian Chronicles he covers thirty years of Martian "history" in a series of vignettes, including the first, fated expeditions to Mars, the deaths by disease of the Martians, the depredations of the Terran settlers, and lastly, the exodus of those same settlers to their own, war-torn world. The series concludes with "Million Year Picnic", in which a few chastened survivors of Earth's last wars return to Mars to become the new "Martians". Strictly speaking these stories are not about Mars at all, any more than they are about the early decades of the twenty-first century in which they are set. They belong to a never-never place and time, and should not be examined too closely.

But the Mars of Brackett and Bradbury was already becoming dated. "Realism" was the new trend, based on what was known of actual surface conditions on Mars. By the late 1940's the best scientific opinion had it that the surface of Mars was much like the peaks of Everest: thin but breathable air, and a cold but survivable climate. Scientists also believed that Mars was a desert, lacking in water and any marked features such as mountains, valleys or volcanoes.

Robert Heinlein published a juvenile novel, Red Planet, in 1949, which was based on these conditions. In it he draws a picture of an Earth colony on Mars, living under domes but able to survive on the surface using respirator masks and thermal suits. Because Mars was held to be a desert, and because it was thought that any water on Mars would be concentrated at the polar ice caps, Heinlein describes his colonists as living at the poles and making a migration twice each Martian year to follow the summer weather. Indeed, this bi-annual migration is a major plot point, and sparks the colonists' rebellion against the company which "owns" Mars.

The debate on the canals of Mars had not yet been resolved in favour of their absence, so Heinlein was able to incorporate some Martians and their canals into his story. In some ways the Martians in Heinlein's Red Planet are a rehearsal for his Martians in Stranger in a Strange Land. They are deeply philosophical beings who commune together - although in this case they "grow together" rather than grok. Red Planet contains many other elements found in Heinlein's later works - the outstanding example being Doc MacRae, the father figure who spouts homespun wisdom.

Arthur C. Clarke tackles the subject of a Martian colony in The Sands of Mars first published in 1951. As in most of his works he has depicted a thoroughly civilised society dominated by scientists and men of education. Everyone in "Port Lowell" is highly skilled - even the local bartender is a member of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts!

Being written by Clarke, The Sands of Mars gives a remarkable picture of what could be extrapolated from the scientific theory of the time. Clarke's Mars, for example, is covered in non-photosynthetic vegetation. On the other hand, it lacks canals - the engineering feats imagined by Percival Lowell had come to seem increasingly improbable. And while Clarke has imagined native fauna, it is not very intelligent - a form of Martian kangaroo in fact.

The colonists on Clarke's Mars live under domes, and like the colonists in Heinlein's Red Planet, cannot venture outdoors without breathing apparatus and thermal clothing. Clarke also mentions the effects of Mar's low atmospheric pressure - though this was eventually found to be much lower than surmised at the time The Sands of Mars was written.

Clarke's colony is under attack by conservatives on Earth who resent the expense of maintaining the Mars and are adverse to seeing it grow independent and prosperous. These conservatives, however, remain insubstantial, non-threatening figures compared to the demagogue who menaces Mars in Isaac Asimov's "The Martian Way". This novella, first published in 1952, was written as a comment on McCarthyism. Dry Mars is built up as a threat to Earth's water supplies by an opportunistic politician: the Martian colonists respond by seeking a new source of water from the outer planets.

Published in the same year as "The Martian Way", power politics also play a major role in Cyril Judd's Outpost Mars. In this case the corruption of local judicial processes by business interests is involved. A small settlement on Mars - Sun Lake Colony - finds itself facing extinction when one Hugo Brenner, a drug manufacturer, accuses the colonists of stealing part of his valuable stock of "marcaine". Marcaine is made from a local plant at a commercially run colony. With the aid of a corrupt local military governor, Brenner uses the theft of a case of this substance to cut the smaller, rival colony off from its trade connections - and thus force it into bankruptcy and its assets into his hands. The situation is made worse by a muck-raking journalist from Earth who is writing venomous "exposés" of the colony for his readers back home.

The problems of Sun Lake Colony are compounded by their dependency on OxEn, a drug which allows them to breathe freely on Mars. Judd also portrays a viciously irradiated Mars, causing at least one peculiar Martian mutation - the "dwarfs", long considered to be the legendary indigenous race of Mars, but found in the course of the story to be the mutated offspring of the earliest settlers. Given the difficult, not to mention dangerous, conditions Judd posits on Mars, it is a wonder that any of the colonists wish to remain there - until one realises the squalor they have left behind on Earth.

Corruption and squalor are a way of life for the Martian colonists in Police Your Planet by Lester del Rey. Graft, political chicanery, drug dealing, prostitution, crooked gambling and protection rackets are rife. The hero, Bruce Gordon, a former prize fighter, policeman and reporter exiled to Mars, attempts to fit in with the world around him but never quite manages to live down to his ideals. Police Your Planet was first published in serial form in 1953, and expanded into a novel in 1956.

The early 1950's saw the publication of two notable shorts stories: "What's It Like Out There?" (1952) by Edmond Hamilton and "Crucifixus Etiam" (1953) by Walter M. Miller Jr. Both stories are concerned with the human price to be paid in pursuit of the Martian dream. The former had originally been written in 1932 and rejected by the magazine editors of the day as being too grim. It deals with the leader of an expedition to Mars who returns to face the families of men who died under his command. Confronted with their questions of "what's it like out there?" he finds himself unable to shatter their illusions and prevaricates. He thus perpetuates the glamorous myths that conceal the harsh realities of Mars. The second is concerned with the sufferings of a Peruvian labourer, lured to work on a terraforming project on Mars by the promise of big money. Unfortunately Mars is slowly destroying him by causing his lungs to atrophy. As the story progresses he gradually understands the nature and the meaning of his sacrifice.

Aliens made a comeback to the Martian scene around the middle of the decade. At the same time there was a swing away from stories dealing with colonies: a sign, perhaps, that this particular vein of inspiration was becoming exhausted. The best, or at least, the best known novel published around this time was No Man Friday by Rex Gordon. This very British book about a shipwrecked astronaut seems quaint in places, but its impact still remains.

As the title indicates, No Man Friday parallels Robinson Crusoe. Like his predecessor, Gordon Holder, the main character of No Man Friday, narrates his story of shipwreck and survival in an untamed land. Holder (and by implication the author) makes deliberate comparisons between his situation and Crusoe's. Emphasis is placed on the fact that Mars is harsher than Crusoe's island - thin air, sparse and dangerous vegetation, and totally alien fauna. Holder takes particular pride in his ingenuity in overcoming these obstacles, a pride that suffers a severe fall when he encounters the native inhabitants of Mars. For the Martians, far from being the tameable primitives that he had hoped to find, are so superior to Holder as to regard him as little more than an animal. The phrase "No Man Friday" then, refers not only to Holder's lack of a biddable companion, but to his inability to fill even that role amongst the Martians who come to regard him as a kind of pet.

Perhaps the general run of writers preferred their Martians either dead or dying. In any case, they were in the former condition in "Omnilingual" (1957) by H. Beam Piper. This short story is concerned with an archaeological expedition to Mars. How the expedition manages to decipher the texts of a dead civilisation unrelated to any on Earth is the basis for an intriguing puzzle plot. "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" (1963) by Roger Zelazny, is concerned with a dying Martian civilisation which contrives its survival by motivating a Terran genius to rescue it through love of one of its members. The civilisation is saved but the Earthman is emotionally destroyed. It can be seen from these examples that science fiction set on Mars moving away from the nuts and bolts "how-to" stories of the early 1950's.

Worth mentioning in the context of the early sixties are two novels by Robert Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) and Podkayne of Mars (1963). While neither of these books are about Mars per se, they both have a Martian component in them. The philosophy of Valentine Michael Smith, the hero of Stranger in a Strange Land, is derived from the Martians who brought him up. And though much of the action takes place elsewhere, Podkayne Fries, the heroine of Podkayne of Mars, originates on that planet and many interesting details are sketched in as background to the story.

Realism becomes surrealism in the works of Philip K. Dick. In The Martian Time Slip and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, both published in 1964, he uses a Martian setting to explore his preoccupations with time, life and reality. Dick employs many of the standard elements of conventional Mars fiction - such as canals, Martians and colonists - and also foreshadows the "New Wave" writers of the later sixties by exploring the topics of psychology and drugs.

The Martian Time Slip is the most "Martian" of these two novels, being set entirely in a collection of human colonies on Mars. The inhabitants of these colonies have come to Mars in order to escape conditions on Earth, but are rapidly building their new world into a replica of the old. The plot revolves around a ten year-old boy who can see the future: his foreknowledge has made him autistic. By contrast, in The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Dick portrays a Mars colonised by unwilling, drafted settlers who are too apathetic to do anything, constructive or destructive. Even their own gardens are allowed to fall into ruin and decay. Instead, the colonists spend their exile imbibing the drugs "Can-D" and "Chew-Z" in order to escape into an idealised version of the Earth they have left behind. In some ways these novels are curiously backward looking: the colonies in The Martian Time Slip, for example, exist on the edges of dry silted Martian canals and the Martian deserts are inhabited by quasi-human, bushman-like natives. Both novels depict a world with a breathable atmosphere: a condition more and more rare in serious science fiction located on Mars.

But the days when Mars could be used as a convenient locale for slightly exotic adventures were drawing to a close. The real Mars, as opposed to its fictional counterpart, had become the destination of a voyager from Earth. In July 1965 Mariner 4 went into orbit around Mars and started transmitting data about the planet back to Earth. In the process some cherished myths about Mars were destroyed forever - but new facts and new myths rose in their place giving fresh opportunities to those who wished to write science fiction about Mars.

By Christine Hawkins, 2000