Editing Mars in fiction (section)

=== Utopias ===
[[File:A Plunge into Space, cover image.jpg|alt=Book cover for A Plunge into Space|thumb|''[[A Plunge into Space]]'', an 1890 piece of [[utopian fiction]] set on Mars]]
Because [[History of Solar System formation and evolution hypotheses|early versions]] of the [[nebular hypothesis]] of [[Formation and evolution of the Solar System|Solar System formation]] held that the planets were formed sequentially starting at the outermost planets, some authors envisioned Mars as an older and more mature world than the Earth, and it became the setting for many [[Utopian and dystopian fiction|utopian works of fiction]].<ref name="HotakainenMarsFiction" /><ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury">{{Cite book |last=Markley |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Markley |title=Dying Planet: Mars in Science and the Imagination |date=2005 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-8727-5 |pages=115–149 |language=en |chapter='Different Beyond the Most Bizarre Imaginings of Nightmare': Mars in Science Fiction, 1880–1913 |quote=Mars was defined by the ecological constraints dictated by the nebular hypothesis. The planet dominated fantasies of a plurality of worlds during this period [...] If Darwin and Lowell were correct, then the inhabitants of this older world should have evolved beyond nineteenth-century humanity—biologically, culturally, politically, and perhaps morally as well. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=loalUL6vakoC&pg=PA115}}</ref><ref name="GreenwoodMars">{{Cite book |last=Westfahl |first=Gary |title=[[The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders]] |date=2005 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-32952-4 |editor-last=Westfahl |editor-first=Gary |editor-link=Gary Westfahl |pages=499–501 |language=en |chapter=Mars |author-link=Gary Westfahl |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/greenwoodencyclo0002unse_f3t4/page/498/mode/2up}}</ref><ref name="HotakainenCanals">{{Cite book |last=Hotakainen |first=Markus |title=Mars: From Myth and Mystery to Recent Discoveries |date=2010 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-0-387-76508-2 |pages=27–41 |language=en |chapter=Martian Canal Engineers |quote=In those days the Solar System was thought to have been born by the accretion of a rotating cloud of gas and dust according to a "nebular hypothesis" proposed by the German Immanuel Kant and developed further by the Frenchman Pierre Simon de Laplace. The main difference with the current theory is that the cloud was thought to have condensed and cooled down starting from the outer edge so that the outer planets are older than the inner ones and thus evolved further. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sPs3S5TYOEMC&pg=PA27}}</ref> This genre made up the majority of stories about Mars in the late 1800s and continued to be represented through the early 1900s.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /> The earliest of these works was the 1880 novel ''Across the Zodiac'' by Percy Greg.<ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury" /> The 1887 novel ''[[Bellona's Husband: A Romance]]''<!-- Several sources give the title as "Bellona's Bridegroom". This is an error, see https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/genone_hudor --> by [[William James Roe]] portrays a Martian society where everyone ages backwards.<ref name="CrossleyInventingANewMars" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Slusser |first1=George |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=59 |language=en |chapter=The Martians Among Us: Wells and the Strugatskys |quote=a number of popular novels saw Mars as the perfect place for a utopian society. Examples are [...] ''Bellona's Bridegroom: ''[sic]'' A Romance'' |author-link=George Slusser |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=PA59}}</ref> The 1890 novel ''A Plunge into Space'' by Robert Cromie depicts a society that is so advanced that life there has become dull and, as a result, the humans who visit succumb to boredom and leave ahead of schedule—to the approval of the Martians, who have come to view them as a corrupting influence.<ref name="CrossleyInventingANewMars" /><ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury" /> The 1892 novel ''Messages from Mars, By Aid of the Telescope Plant'' by Robert D. Braine is unusual in portraying a completely rural Martian utopia without any cities.<ref name="CrossleyInventingANewMars" /> An early work of [[feminist science fiction]], Jones's and Merchant's 1893 novel ''Unveiling a Parallel: A Romance'', depicts a man from Earth visiting two [[egalitarian society|egalitarian societies]] on Mars: one where women have adopted male vices and one where equality has brought out everyone's best qualities.<ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Romaine |first=Suzanne |title=Communicating Gender |date=1998 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-1-135-67944-6 |pages=331 |language=en |chapter=Writing Feminist Futures |author-link=Suzanne Romaine |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ai95AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA331}}</ref> The 1897 novel ''[[Auf zwei Planeten]]'' (''Two Planets'') by [[German science fiction]] pioneer [[Kurd Lasswitz]] contrasts a utopian society on Mars with that society's [[Colonialism|colonialist]] actions on Earth. The book was translated into several languages and was highly influential in [[Continental Europe]], including inspiring rocket scientist [[Wernher von Braun]], but did not receive a translation into English until the 1970s, which limited its impact in the [[Anglosphere]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury" /><ref name="CrossleyUtopia" /> The 1910 novel ''[[The Man from Mars, Or Service for Service's Sake]]'' by {{Interlanguage link|Henry Wallace Dowding|qid=Q65952198}} portrays a civilization on Mars based on a variation on Christianity where woman was created first, in contrast to the conventional [[Genesis creation narrative]].<ref name="CrossleyUtopia" /> [[Hugo Gernsback]] depicted a science-based utopia on Mars in the 1915–1917 [[Serial (literature)|serial]] ''[[Baron Münchhausen's New Scientific Adventures]]''<!-- Several variations on the title exist. This is the title under which it was originally serialized in Gernsback's The Electrical Experimenter, see https://archive.org/details/Electrical_Experimenter_1915_05/page/n3/mode/2up -->,<ref name="ReadingMars" /> but by and large, [[World War I]] spelled the end for utopian Martian fiction.<ref name="CrossleyBestTradition" />

In [[Russian science fiction]], Mars became the setting for [[Socialism|socialist]] utopias and revolutions.<ref name="DibsOnTheRedStar">{{Cite book |last1=Yudina |first1=Ekaterina |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=51–55 |language=en |chapter=Dibs on the Red Star: The Bolsheviks and Mars in the Russian Literature of the Early Twentieth Century |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=PA51}}</ref><ref name="WandererAmHimmelMars" /> The 1908 novel ''[[Red Star (novel)|Red Star]]'' (''Красная звезда'') by [[Alexander Bogdanov]] is the primary example of this, and inspired many others.<ref name="DibsOnTheRedStar" /> ''Red Star'' portrays a socialist society on Mars from the perspective of a Russian [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] invited there, where the [[Class conflict|struggle between classes]] has been replaced with a common struggle against the harshness of nature.<ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury" /><ref name="CrossleyUtopia" /> The 1913 prequel ''[[Engineer Menni]]'' (''Инженер Мэнни''), also by Bogdanov, is set several centuries earlier and serves as an [[origin story]] for the Martian society by detailing the events of the revolution that brought it about.<ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury" /><ref name="CrossleyUtopia" /><ref name="DibsOnTheRedStar" /><ref name="AshgateExtraterrestrial">{{Cite book |last1=Eaton |first1=Lance |title=The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters |last2=Carlson |first2=Laurie |last3=Maguire |first3=Muireann |date=2014 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. |isbn=978-1-4724-0060-4 |editor-last=Weinstock |editor-first=Jeffrey Andrew |editor-link=Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock |pages=219, 226 |language=en |chapter=Extraterrestrial |author-link2=<!-- No article at present (June 2022); Professor of English at North Shore Community College in MA, Ph.D. in American Literature at the University of Rhode Island, and middle name Ann per https://web.uri.edu/gws/meet/laurie-carlson/ --> |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Uly8AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA219}}</ref> Another prominent example is the 1922 novel ''[[Aelita (novel)|Aelita]]'' (''Аэлита'') by [[Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy]]—along with its [[Aelita|1924 film adaptation]], the earliest Soviet science fiction film—which adapts the story of the [[1905 Russian Revolution]] to the Martian surface.<ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /><ref name="JennerMarvin" /> ''Red Star'' and ''Aelita'' are in some ways opposites. ''Red Star'', written between the failed revolution in 1905 and the successful [[Russian Revolution|1917 Russian Revolution]], sees Mars as a socialist utopia from which Earth can learn, whereas in ''Aelita'' the socialist revolution is instead exported from the early [[Soviet Russia]] to Mars. ''Red Star'' depicts a [[utopia]] on Mars, in contrast to the [[dystopia]] initially found on Mars in ''Aelita''—though both are [[Technocracy|technocracies]]. ''Red Star'' is a sincere and idealistic work of traditional utopian fiction, whereas ''Aelita'' is a [[parody]].<ref name="CrossleyBestTradition" /><ref name="DibsOnTheRedStar" /><ref name="AshgateExtraterrestrial" />