Editing Red Planet (novel) (section)

==Influences==
The background of Mars presented in the novel, as a desert planet crisscrossed by giant [[Martian canals]] built by an ancient civilization to bring water from the polar ice caps, is a common scenario in science fiction novels of the early 20th century, and was actually put forward as a plausible theory by some astronomers around the turn of the last century, notably [[Percival Lowell]], mentioned in the novel.  It stems from early telescope observations of Mars by 19th century astronomers who, beginning with the Italian [[Giovanni Schiaparelli]] in 1877, believed they saw straight lines on the planet. Schiaparelli called them ''canali'' (grooves), which was popularly mistranslated into English as "canals".