Editing Mars in fiction (section)

=== Lifeless Mars ===
[[File:Mariner_4_craters.gif|alt=A photograph of Mars from the Mariner 4 probe|thumb|Data returned from [[Mars exploration]] missions in the 1960s and 1970s, such as this photograph by the [[Mariner 4]] probe, led to stories of [[life on Mars]] becoming unfashionable.]]
In light of the ''[[Mariner program|Mariner]]'' and ''[[Viking program|Viking]]'' probes to Mars between 1965 and 1976 revealing the planet's inhospitable conditions, almost all fiction started to portray Mars as a lifeless world.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="MillerMars" /> The disappointment of finding Mars to be hostile to life is reflected in the 1970 novel ''Die Erde ist nah'' (''[[The Earth Is Near]]'') by [[Czech science fiction]] writer [[Luděk Pešek]], which depicts the members of an [[Astrobiology|astrobiological]] expedition on Mars driven to despair by the realization that their search for life there is futile.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="CrossleyScientificAdvances">{{multiref2|{{Cite book |last=Crossley |first=Robert |title=[[Imagining Mars: A Literary History]] |date=2011 |publisher=Wesleyan University Press |isbn=978-0-8195-6927-1 |pages=222–242 |language=en |chapter=Retrograde Visions |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3TDEDfEPdEC&pg=PA222}}|{{Cite book |last1=Crossley |first1=Robert |title=Visions of Mars: Essays on the Red Planet in Fiction and Science |date=2014 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-8470-6 |editor-last=Hendrix |editor-first=Howard V. |editor-link=Howard V. Hendrix |pages=165–174 |language=en |chapter=Mars as Cultural Mirror: Martian Fictions in the Early Space Age |editor-last2=Slusser |editor-first2=George |editor-link2=George Slusser |editor-last3=Rabkin |editor-first3=Eric S. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XjIglebU6CIC&pg=PA165}}}}</ref> A handful of authors still found ways to place life on the red planet: [[microbial life]] exists on Mars in the 1977 novel ''[[The Martian Inca]]'' by [[Ian Watson (author)|Ian Watson]], and intelligent life is found in [[hibernation]] there in the 1977 short story "[[In the Hall of the Martian Kings]]" by [[John Varley (author)|John Varley]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="MillerMars" /><ref name="CrossleyScientificAdvances" /> By the turn of the millennium, the idea of microbial life on Mars gained popularity, appearing in the 1999 novel ''[[The Martian Race]]'' by [[Gregory Benford]] and the 2001 novel ''[[The Secret of Life (novel)|The Secret of Life]]'' by [[Paul J. McAuley]].<ref name="MillerMars" />