Editing Mars in fiction (section)

== Nostalgic depictions ==
{{See also|Venus in fiction#Nostalgic depictions}}
[[File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17539936613).jpg|alt=Refer to caption|thumb|Globe of Mars based on drawing by [[Percival Lowell]], featuring the purported [[Martian canals]]]]
Although most stories by the middle of the 1900s acknowledged that advances in [[planetary science]] had rendered previous notions about the conditions of Mars obsolete and portrayed the planet accordingly, some continued to depict a romantic version of Mars rather than a realistic one.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="TheNewMartianNovel" /><ref name="CrossleyThreshold" /> Besides the stories of [[Ray Bradbury]]'s 1950 [[fix-up]] novel ''[[The Martian Chronicles]]'', another early example of this was [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s 1949 novel ''[[Red Planet (novel)|Red Planet]]'' where Mars has a breathable (albeit thin) atmosphere, a diverse ecosystem including sentient Martians, and Lowellian canals.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="HotakainenMarsFiction" /><ref name="TheNewMartianNovel" /><ref name="CrossleyThreshold" /> [[Martian canals]] remained a prominent symbol of this more traditional vision of Mars, appearing both in lighthearted works like the 1954 novel ''[[Martians, Go Home]]'' by [[Fredric Brown]] and more serious ones like the 1963 novel ''[[The Man Who Fell to Earth (novel)|The Man Who Fell to Earth]]'' by [[Walter Tevis]] and the 1964 novel ''[[Martian Time-Slip]]'' by Philip K. Dick.<ref name="TheNewMartianNovel" /><ref name="CrossleyScientificAdvances" /> Some works attempted to reconcile both visions of Mars, one example being the 1952<!-- Crossley gives the year as 1962, an apparent error --> novel ''Marooned on Mars'' by Lester del Rey where the presumed canals turn out to be rows of vegetables and the only animal life is primitive.<ref name="CrossleyScientificAdvances" />

As the [[Space Age]] commenced the divide between portraying Mars as it was and as it had previously been imagined deepened, and the discoveries made by [[Mariner 4]] in 1965 solidified it.<ref name="MarkleyTransformingMars" /><ref name="CrossleyScientificAdvances" /> Some authors simply ignored the scientific findings, such as [[Lin Carter]] who included intelligent Martians in the 1973 novel ''[[The Man Who Loved Mars]]'', and [[Leigh Brackett]] who declared in the foreword to ''The Coming of the Terrans'' (a 1967 collection of earlier short stories) that "in the affairs of men and Martians, mere fact runs a poor second to Truth, which is mighty and shall prevail".<ref name="CrossleyThreshold" /><ref name="CrossleyScientificAdvances" /> Others were cognizant of them and used workarounds: [[Frank Herbert]] invented the fictional [[Extrasolar planet|extrasolar]] Mars-like planet [[Arrakis]] for the 1965 novel ''[[Dune (novel)|Dune]]'' rather than setting the story on Mars, [[Robert F. Young]] set the 1979 short story "[[The First Mars Mission]]" in 1957 so as not to have to take the findings of Mariner 4 into account, and [[Colin Greenland]] set the 1993 novel ''[[Harm's Way (Greenland novel)|Harm's Way]]'' in the 1800s with corresponding scientific concepts like the [[luminiferous aether]].<ref name="CrossleyScientificAdvances" /><ref name="CrossleyMarsRemade">{{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=243–262 |language=en |chapter=Mars Remade |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3TDEDfEPdEC&pg=PA243}}</ref> The 1965 novel ''[[The Alternate Martians]]'' by [[A. Bertram Chandler]] is based on the premise that the depictions of Mars that appear in older stories are not incorrect but reflect [[Parallel universes in fiction|alternative universes]]; the book is dedicated to "the Mars that used to be, but never was".<ref name="HartzmanMarsInvadesPopCulture" /> The urge to recapture the romantic vision of Mars is reflected as part of the story in the 1968 novel ''[[Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?]]'' by Philip K. Dick, where the people living on a desolate Mars enjoy reading old stories about the lifeful Mars that never was,<ref name="MarkleyTransformingMars" /> as well as in the 1989 novel ''[[The Barsoom Project]]'' by [[Steven Barnes]] and [[Larry Niven]], where the fantastical version of Mars is recreated as an [[amusement park]].<ref name="Baxter" />
[[File:Martian face viking cropped.jpg|alt=Part of an image of the Cydonia region of Mars taken by the Viking 1 orbiter, depicting the so-called "Face on Mars"|thumb|The so-called "[[Face on Mars]]", photographed by ''[[Viking 1]]'' in 1976 (the black dots are missing data errors).<ref>{{Cite web |date=1998-04-02 |title=PIA01141: Geologic 'Face on Mars' Formation |url=https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/pia01141 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021017223417/https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/pia01141 |archive-date=2002-10-17 |access-date=2022-08-19 |website=[[NASA]]}}</ref> Later higher-quality images (such as [[:File:Mars face.png|this one]] by ''[[Mars Global Surveyor]]'' in 2001) do not resemble a face.<ref name="JennerCydonia" />]]
Following the arrival of the ''[[Viking program|Viking]]'' probes in 1976, the so-called "[[Face on Mars]]" superseded the Martian canals as the most central symbol of nostalgic depictions of Mars.<ref name="CrossleyScientificAdvances" /> The "Face" is a rock formation in the Cydonia<!-- Not linked as [[Face on Mars]] redirects to [[Cydonia (Mars)]]. If the former is turned into a stand-alone article, this should be linked. --> region of Mars first photographed by the ''[[Viking 1]]'' orbiter under conditions that made it resemble a human face; higher-quality photographs taken by subsequent probes under different lighting conditions revealed this to be a case of [[pareidolia]].<ref name="WandererAmHimmelMars">{{Cite book |last1=Caryad |first1=<!-- None; mononymous --> |title=Wanderer am Himmel: Die Welt der Planeten in Astronomie und Mythologie |last2=Römer |first2=Thomas |last3=Zingsem |first3=Vera |date=2014 |publisher=Springer-Verlag |isbn=978-3-642-55343-1 |pages=150–152 |language=de |trans-title=Wanderers in the Sky: The World of the Planets in Astronomy and Mythology |chapter=Roter Planet und Grüne Männchen |trans-chapter=Red Planet and Little Green Men |doi=10.1007/978-3-642-55343-1_8 |author-link2=<!-- No article at present (July 2022); editor for Phantastische Medien, Wikidata Q126753 --> |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y_WJBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA150}}</ref><ref name="JennerCydonia">{{Cite book |last=Jenner |first=Nicky |title=4th Rock from the Sun: The Story of Mars |date=2017 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4729-2251-9 |pages=145–160 |language=en |chapter=The Draw of Cydonia |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=od7oDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT147}}</ref> It was popularized by <!-- Do not gloss; Hoagland would if anything be glossed as "conspiracy theorist", and that's a value-laden WP:LABEL which would be inappropriate from a WP:BLP perspective without WP:INTEXT attribution. Adding the gloss and attribution to this article, which is not about Hoagland, would be out of proportion to its significance here. Readers who are curious about who Hoagland is can follow the link to the article about him, where the information can be found in its proper context. --> [[Richard C. Hoagland]], who interpreted it as an artificial construction by intelligent extraterrestrials, and has appeared in works of fiction including the 1992 novel ''[[Labyrinth of Night]]'' by [[Allen Steele]], the 1995 short story "[[The Great Martian Pyramid Hoax]]" by [[Jerry Oltion]], and the 1998 novel ''[[Semper Mars]]'' by [[Ian Douglas (author)|Ian Douglas]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="JennerCydonia" /> Outside of literature, it has made appearances in the 1993<!-- Baxter gives the year 1994, an apparent error. --> episode "[[Space (The X-Files)|Space]]"<!-- specific episode not explicitly named by the source but inferred --> of ''[[The X-Files]]'', the 2000 film ''[[Mission to Mars]]'', and the 2002 episode "[[Where the Buggalo Roam]]"<!-- specific episode not explicitly named by the source but inferred --> of the animated television show ''[[Futurama]]''.<ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="Baxter" />

Deliberately nostalgic homages to older works have continued to appear through the turn of the millennium.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /> In the 1999 novel ''[[Rainbow Mars]]'' by Larry Niven, a [[Time travel in fiction|time traveller]] goes to visit Mars's past but instead appears in the parallel universe of Mars's fictional past and encounters the creations of science fiction authors such as [[H. G. Wells]] and [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref>{{cite magazine |last=Seaman |first=Andrew |date=July–August 1999 <!-- the magazine bears the date "July/August 1999", which gives an error message in the citation template --> |editor-last=Cullen |editor-first=Tony |editor-link=<!-- No article at present (May 2023); not the same person as [[Tony Cullen]]; https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?139696 --> |editor2-last=Butler |editor2-first=Andrew M. |editor2-link=Andrew M. Butler |editor3-last=Dalkin |editor3-first=Gary |editor4-last=Jeffery |editor4-first=Steve |title=Larry Niven – ''Rainbow Mars'' |url=https://www.fanac.org/fanzines/Vector/Vector206.pdf |url-status=live |department=First Impressions |magazine=[[Vector (magazine)|Vector]] |publisher=[[British Science Fiction Association]] |issue=206 |pages=29–30 |issn=0505-0448 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230106065245/https://www.fanac.org/fanzines/Vector/Vector206.pdf |archive-date=2023-01-06}}</ref> Stories collected in [[Peter Crowther]]'s 2002 anthology ''[[Mars Probes]]'' pay tribute to the works of [[Stanley G. Weinbaum]] and Leigh Brackett, among others.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="CrossleyMarsUnderConstruction" /> The 2013 anthology ''[[Old Mars]]'' edited by [[George R. R. Martin]] and [[Gardner Dozois]] consists of newly written stories in the [[planetary romance]] style of older stories whose visions of Mars are now outdated; Martin compared it to the common practice of setting [[Western (genre)|Westerns]] in a romanticized version of the [[Old West]] rather than a more realistic one.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="OldMars">{{Cite book |last=Martin |first=George R. R. |title=[[Old Mars]] |date=2015 |publisher=[[Titan Books]] |isbn=978-1-78329-949-2 |editor-last=Martin |editor-first=George R. R. |editor-link=George R. R. Martin |edition=UK<!-- the US edition published by Bantam Books has different page numbers --> |pages=3, 10–11 |language=en |chapter=Introduction: Red Planet Blues |author-link=George R. R. Martin |orig-date=2013 |editor-last2=Dozois |editor-first2=Gardner |editor-link2=Gardner Dozois |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/oldmars0000unse/page/3/mode/2up <!-- Also available at https://books.google.com/books?id=ACtmCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT6, though without proper pagination -->}}</ref>