Editing Mars in fiction

{{Short description|Depictions of the planet}}
{{Featured article}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}}
[[File:War-of-the-worlds-tripod.jpg|alt=An illustration of the alien invasion in The War of the Worlds|thumb|[[H. G. Wells]]'s ''[[The War of the Worlds]]'', depicting Martians<!-- Do not link [[Martian (The War of the Worlds)]]. For one thing, it puts the focus on the specific Martians in The War of the Worlds rather than fictional Martians in general. For another, it is an WP:EASTEREGG. It is linked in the body of the article, where the linked term is "Wells's Martians" rather than just "Martians". --> invading Earth, is one of the most influential works of science fiction.<ref name="Webb" />]]
[[Mars]], the fourth planet from the [[Sun]], has appeared as a [[Setting (narrative)|setting]] in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. Trends in the planet's portrayal have largely been influenced by advances in [[planetary science]]<!-- This can be sourced to Liptak if necessary, but it also summarizes content that is sourced elsewhere. -->. It became the most popular [[celestial object]] in fiction in the late 1800s, when it became clear that there was no life on the [[Moon]]. The predominant genre depicting Mars at the time was [[utopian fiction]]. Around the same time, the mistaken belief that there are [[canals on Mars]] emerged and made its way into fiction, popularized by [[Percival Lowell]]'s speculations of an ancient civilization having constructed them. ''[[The War of the Worlds]]'', [[H. G. Wells]]'s novel about an [[alien invasion]] of [[Earth]] by sinister Martians<!-- Do not link [[Martian (The War of the Worlds)]]. For one thing, it puts the focus on the specific Martians in The War of the Worlds rather than fictional Martians in general. For another, it is an WP:EASTEREGG. It is linked in the body of the article, where the linked term is "Wells's Martians" rather than just "Martians". -->, was published in 1897 and went on to have a major influence on the [[science fiction]] genre.

[[Life on Mars]] appeared frequently in fiction throughout the first half of the 1900s. Apart from enlightened as in the utopian works from the turn of the century, or evil as in the works inspired by Wells, [[Extraterrestrial intelligence|intelligent]] and human-like Martians began to be depicted as decadent, a portrayal that was popularized by [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]] in the ''[[Barsoom]]'' series and adopted by [[Leigh Brackett]] among others. More exotic lifeforms appeared in stories like [[Stanley G. Weinbaum]]'s "[[A Martian Odyssey]]".

The theme of [[Colonization of Mars|colonizing Mars]] replaced stories about native inhabitants of the planet in the second half of the 1900s following emerging evidence of the planet being inhospitable to life, eventually confirmed by data from [[Mars exploration]] probes. A significant minority of works persisted in portraying Mars in a nostalgic way that was by then scientifically outdated, including [[Ray Bradbury]]'s ''[[The Martian Chronicles]]''.

[[Terraforming of Mars|Terraforming Mars]] to enable [[Planetary habitability|human habitation]] has been another major theme, especially in the final quarter of the century, the most prominent example being [[Kim Stanley Robinson]]'s [[Mars trilogy|''Mars'' trilogy]]. Stories of the first [[human mission to Mars]] appeared throughout the 1990s in response to the [[Space Exploration Initiative]], and near-future exploration and settlement became increasingly common themes following the launches of other Mars exploration probes in the latter half of the decade. In the year 2000, [[science fiction scholar]] [[Gary Westfahl]] estimated the total number of works of fiction dealing with Mars up to that point to exceed five thousand, and the planet has continued to make frequent appearances across several genres and forms of media since. In contrast, the [[moons of Mars]]—[[Phobos (moon)|Phobos]] and [[Deimos (moon)|Deimos]]—have made only sporadic appearances in fiction.

== Early depictions ==
<imagemap>
File:Solar system.jpg|alt=A photomontage of the eight planets and the Moon|thumb|Early depictions of Mars in fiction were often part of [[Planetary tours in fiction|tours of the Solar System]]. Clicking on a planet leads to the article about its depiction in fiction.
circle 1250 4700 650 [[Neptune in fiction]]
circle 2150 4505 525 [[Uranus in fiction]]
circle 2890 3960 610 [[Saturn in fiction]]
circle 3450 2880 790 [[Jupiter in fiction]]
circle 3015 1770 460 [[Mars in fiction]]
circle 2370 1150 520 [[Earth in science fiction]]
circle 3165 590 280 [[Moon in science fiction]]
circle 1570 785 475 [[Venus in fiction]]
circle 990 530 320 [[Mercury in fiction]]
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Before the 1800s, [[Mars]] did not get much attention in fiction writing as a primary [[Setting (narrative)|setting]], though it did appear in some stories visiting multiple locations in the [[Solar System]].<ref name="SFEMars">{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2024<!-- 6 May --> |title=Mars |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mars |access-date=2024-05-09 |edition=4th |author1-last=Killheffer |author1-first=Robert K. J. |author2-last=Stableford |author2-first=Brian |author2-link=Brian Stableford |author3-last=Langford |author3-first=David |author3-link=David Langford |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}</ref><ref name="WestfahlMars" /> The first [[Planetary tours in fiction|fictional tour of the planets]], the 1656 work ''[[Itinerarium exstaticum]]''<!-- no English title --> by [[Athanasius Kircher]], portrays Mars as a volcanic wasteland.<ref name="CrossleyDreamworlds">{{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=24–26, 29–34 |language=en |chapter=Dreamworlds of the Telescope |quote=But Mars holds little interest for the Marquise and the philosopher. The few data generated by seventeenth-century science suggest that Mars is so similar to Earth that it "isn't worth the trouble of stopping there". Martians, it would seem, are probably too much like us to afford many of the pleasures of novelty that other habitable worlds promised. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3TDEDfEPdEC&pg=PA24}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Stableford |first=Brian |title=The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction |date=2003 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-01657-5 |editor-last=James |editor-first=Edward |editor-link=Edward James (historian) |pages=16 |language=en |chapter=Science Fiction Before the Genre |author-link=Brian Stableford |editor-last2=Mendlesohn |editor-first2=Farah |editor-link2=Farah Mendlesohn |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=55wUHXiay-gC&pg=PA16}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Udías |first=Agustín |date=2021 |title=Athanasius Kircher's Vision of the Universe: The Ecstatic Heavenly Journey |url=https://www.academia.edu/52517326 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20220621030208/https://www.academia.edu/52517326/Athanasius_Kirchers_vision_of_the_universe_The_Ecstatic_heavenly_journey |archive-date=2022-06-21 |access-date=2022-06-21 |publisher=[[Universidad Complutense de Madrid]] |pages=11}}</ref> It also appears briefly in the 1686 work ''Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes'' (''[[Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds]]'') by [[Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle]] but is largely dismissed as uninteresting due to its presumed similarity to Earth.<ref name="CrossleyDreamworlds" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Roberts |first=Adam |title=The History of Science Fiction |date=2016 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-137-56957-8 |edition=2nd |series=Palgrave Histories of Literature |pages=65 |chapter=Seventeenth-Century SF |doi=10.1057/978-1-137-56957-8_4 |oclc=956382503 |author-link=Adam Roberts (British writer) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gq7LDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA65}}</ref> Mars is home to spirits in several works of the mid-1700s. In the anonymously published 1755 work ''[[A Voyage to the World in the Centre of the Earth]]'', it is a heavenly place where, among others, [[Alexander the Great]] enjoys a second life.<ref name="AshleyLostMars" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Bleiler |first=Everett Franklin |title=[[Science-Fiction: The Early Years|Science-fiction, the Early Years: A Full Description of More Than 3,000 Science-fiction Stories from Earliest Times to the Appearance of the Genre Magazines in 1930: with Author, Title, and Motif Indexes]] |date=1990 |publisher=Kent State University Press |others=With the assistance of [[Richard Bleiler|Richard J. Bleiler]] |isbn=978-0-87338-416-2 |pages=780–781 |language=en |chapter=[Anonymous] |author-link=E. F. Bleiler |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KEZxhkG5eikC&pg=PA780}}</ref> In the 1758 work ''[[De Telluribus in Mundo Nostro Solari]]''<!-- Stableford refers to Swedenborg's earlier Arcana Cœlestia, an apparent error. --> (''Concerning the Earths in Our Solar System'') by [[Emanuel Swedenborg]], the planet is inhabited by beings characterized by honesty and moral virtue.<ref name="CrossleyDreamworlds" /><ref name="AshleyLostMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /> In the 1765 novel ''Voyage de Milord Céton dans les sept planètes'' (''[[The Voyages of Lord Seaton to the Seven Planets]]'') by [[Marie-Anne de Roumier-Robert]], reincarnated soldiers roam a war-torn landscape.<ref name="AshleyLostMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars">{{Cite book |last=Stableford |first=Brian |title=[[Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia]] |date=2006 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-0-415-97460-8 |pages=281–284 |language=en |chapter=Mars |author-link=Brian Stableford |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uefwmdROKTAC&pg=PA281}}</ref><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2022 |title=de Roumier-Robert, Marie-Anne |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/de_roumier-robert_marie-anne |access-date=2023-05-11 |edition=4th |author1-last=Clute |author1-first=John |author1-link=John Clute |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}</ref> It later appeared alongside the other planets throughout the 1800s. In the anonymously published 1839 novel ''[[A Fantastical Excursion into the Planets]]'', it is divided between the [[Roman gods]] [[Mars (mythology)|Mars]] and [[Vulcan (mythology)|Vulcan]].<ref name="CrossleyDreamworlds" /> In the anonymously published 1873 novel ''[[A Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Paul Aermont among the Planets]]'', it is culturally rather similar to Earth—unlike the other planets.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Bleiler |first=Everett Franklin |title=[[Science-Fiction: The Early Years|Science-fiction, the Early Years: A Full Description of More Than 3,000 Science-fiction Stories from Earliest Times to the Appearance of the Genre Magazines in 1930: with Author, Title, and Motif Indexes]] |date=1990 |publisher=Kent State University Press |others=With the assistance of [[Richard Bleiler|Richard J. Bleiler]] |isbn=978-0-87338-416-2 |pages=5–6 |language=en |chapter=Aermont, Paul (unidentified pseudonym) |author-link=E. F. Bleiler |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KEZxhkG5eikC&pg=PA5}}</ref> In the 1883 novel ''[[Aleriel, or A Voyage to Other Worlds]]'' by [[W. S. Lach-Szyrma]], a visitor from [[Venus]] relates the details of Martian society to Earthlings.<ref name="CrossleyInventingANewMars">{{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=37–67 |language=en |chapter=Inventing a New Mars |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3TDEDfEPdEC&pg=PA37}}</ref> The first work of [[science fiction]] set primarily on Mars was the 1880 novel ''[[Across the Zodiac]]'' by [[Percy Greg]].<ref name="HotakainenMarsFiction">{{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=201–216 |language=en |chapter=Little Green Persons |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sPs3S5TYOEMC&pg=PA201}}</ref>

Mars became the most popular extraterrestrial location in fiction in the late 1800s as it became clear that the [[Moon]] was devoid of life.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury" /><ref name="CrossleyWells" /> A recurring theme in this time period was that of [[reincarnation]] on Mars, reflecting an upswing in interest in the [[paranormal]] in general and in relation to Mars in particular.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury" /><ref name="CrossleyParanormal">{{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=129–131, 138–140 |language=en |chapter=Mars and the Paranormal |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3TDEDfEPdEC&pg=PA129}}</ref> Humans are reborn on Mars in the 1889 novel ''[[Uranie]]'' by [[Camille Flammarion]] as a form of [[afterlife]],<ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury" /> the 1896 novel ''Daybreak: The Story of an Old World'' by {{Interlanguage link|James Cowan (journalist)|lt=James Cowan|qid=Q62658070}} depicts [[Jesus]] reincarnated there,<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury" /> and the protagonist of the 1903 novel ''The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars'' by {{Interlanguage link|Louis Pope Gratacap|qid=Q18911244}} receives a message in [[Morse code]] from his deceased father on Mars.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury" /><ref name="CrossleyParanormal" /><ref name="Webster" /> Other [[supernatural]] phenomena include [[telepathy]] in Greg's ''Across the Zodiac'' and [[precognition]] in the 1886 short story "[[The Blindman's World]]" by [[Edward Bellamy]].<ref name="AshleyLostMars" /> 

Several recurring [[:wikt:trope|tropes]] were introduced during this time. One of them is Mars having a different [[local name]] such as Glintan in the 1889 novel ''[[Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet]]'' by [[Hugh MacColl]], Oron in the 1892 novel ''[[Messages from Mars, By Aid of the Telescope Plant]]'' by Robert D. Braine, and [[Barsoom]] in the 1912 novel ''[[A Princess of Mars]]'' by [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]. This carried on in later works such as the 1938 novel ''[[Out of the Silent Planet]]'' by [[C. S. Lewis]], which calls the planet [[Malacandra]].<ref name="CrossleyBestTradition" /> Several stories also depict Martians speaking Earth languages and provide explanations of varying levels of preposterousness. In the 1899 novel ''Pharaoh's Broker'' by {{Interlanguage link|Ellsworth Douglass|qid=Q56033709}}, Martians speak [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] as Mars goes through the same historical phases as Earth with a delay of a few thousand years, here corresponding to the captivity of the Israelites in [[Biblical Egypt]]. In the 1901 novel ''[[A Honeymoon in Space]]'' by [[George Griffith]], they speak English because they acknowledge it as the "most convenient" language of all. In the 1920 novel ''[[A Trip to Mars (novel)|A Trip to Mars]]'' by Marcianus Rossi, the Martians speak [[Latin]] as a result of having been taught the language by a [[Roman people|Roman]] who was flung into space by the [[Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD|eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79]].<ref name="CrossleyMasculinistFantasies" /> Martians were often portrayed as existing within a [[racial hierarchy]]:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Seed |first=David |author-link=<!-- No article at present (April 2024); Wikidata Q112491049 --> |title=Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction |date=2011 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-162010-2 |pages=28–29 |language=en |chapter=Alien Encounters |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zUOFPjeUcF8C&pg=PA28}}</ref> the 1894 novel ''[[Journey to Mars]]'' by [[Gustavus W. Pope]] features Martians with different skin colours (red, blue, and yellow) subject to strict [[anti-miscegenation laws]],<ref name="CrossleyMasculinistFantasies" /> Rossi's ''A Trip to Mars'' sees one portion of the Martian population described as "our inferior race, the same as your terrestrian [[Negro|negroes]]",<ref name="CrossleyMasculinistFantasies" /> and Burroughs's ''Barsoom'' series has red, green, yellow, and black Martians, a white race—responsible for the previous advanced civilization on Mars—having become extinct.<ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination" /><ref name="NewellLamont" />

=== Means of travel ===
{{Further|Space travel in science fiction}}
The question of how humans would get to Mars was addressed in several ways: when not travelling there via spaceship as in the 1911 novel ''[[To Mars via the Moon: An Astronomical Story]]'' by Mark Wicks,<ref name="CrossleyUtopia" /> they might use a [[flying carpet]] as in the 1905 novel ''[[Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation]]'' by [[Edwin Lester Arnold]],<ref name="HotakainenMarsFiction" /><ref name="Webster" /><ref name="CrossleyMasculinistFantasies">{{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=149–167 |language=en |chapter=Masculinist Fantasies |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3TDEDfEPdEC&pg=PA149}}</ref> a [[Balloon (aeronautics)|balloon]] as in ''A Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Paul Aermont among the Planets'',<ref name="SFEMars" /> or an "aeroplane" as in the 1893 novel ''[[Unveiling a Parallel]]: A Romance'' by [[Alice Ilgenfritz Jones]] and {{Interlanguage link|Ella Robinson Merchant|ca}} (writing jointly as "Two Women of the West").<ref name="CrossleyUtopia" /> They might also visit in a dream as in the 1899 play ''[[A Message from Mars (play)|A Message from Mars]]'' by [[Richard Ganthony]],<ref name="CrossleyUtopia" /> [[Teleportation|teleport]] via [[astral projection]] as in Burroughs's ''A Princess of Mars'',<ref name="GreenwoodMars" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Harpold |first1=Terry |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=32 |language=en |chapter=Where Is Verne's Mars? |quote=In Edgar Rice Burroughs's novels, John Carter travels to Barsoom by means of "astral projection," a way of moving the mind without moving the body. |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=PA32}}</ref> or use a long-range communication device while staying on Earth as in Braine's ''Messages from Mars, By Aid of the Telescope Plant'' and the 1894 novel ''[[W nieznane światy]]'' (''To the Unknown Worlds'') by [[Polish science fiction]] writer [[Władysław Umiński]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="CrossleyInventingANewMars" /><ref name="MarsAntologiaPolskiejFantastyki" /><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2024<!-- 22 February --> |title=Umiński, Władysław |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/uminski_wladyslaw |access-date=2024-03-03 |edition=4th |author1-last=Konieczny |author1-first=Piotr |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-first=David |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-link=Graham Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-last=Sleight}}</ref> [[Anti-gravity]] is employed in several works including Greg's ''Across the Zodiac'', MacColl's ''Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet'', and the 1890 novel ''[[A Plunge into Space]]'' by [[Robert Cromie]].<ref name="AshleyLostMars" /><ref name="Webster" /><ref name="Baxter">{{cite magazine |last=Baxter |first=Stephen |author-link=Stephen Baxter (author) |date=Autumn 1996 |title=Martian Chronicles: Narratives of Mars in Science and SF |magazine=[[Foundation (journal)|Foundation]] |publisher=[[Science Fiction Foundation]] |issue=68 |pages=5–16 |issn=0306-4964}}</ref> Occasionally, the method of transport is not addressed at all.<ref name="CrossleyUtopia" /> Some stories take the opposite approach of having Martians come to Earth; examples include the 1891 novel ''[[The Man from Mars: His Morals, Politics and Religion]]'' by Thomas Blot (pseudonym of William Simpson) and the 1893 novel ''[[A Cityless and Countryless World]]'' by [[Henry Olerich]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="CrossleyUtopia" />

=== Canals ===
{{Further|Martian canals}}
{{Quote box|quote=A [[Mercury in fiction#Tidal locking|clement twilight zone on a synchronously rotating Mercury]], a [[Venus in fiction#Jungle and swamp|swamp-and-jungle Venus]], and a canal-infested Mars, while all classic science-fiction devices, are all, in fact, based upon earlier misapprehensions by planetary scientists. |author=[[Carl Sagan]], 1978<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sagan |first=Carl |author-link=Carl Sagan |date=1978-05-28 |title=Growing up with Science Fiction |language=en-US |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/05/28/archives/growing-up-with.html |url-status=live |access-date=2022-07-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220712161346/https://www.nytimes.com/1978/05/28/archives/growing-up-with.html |archive-date=2022-07-12 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> |width=400px}}
During the [[Opposition (astronomy)|opposition]] of Mars [[History of Mars observation#Martian canals|in 1877]], Italian astronomer [[Giovanni Schiaparelli]] announced the discovery of linear structures he dubbed {{lang|it|canali}} (literally ''[[Channel (geography)|channels]]'', but widely translated as ''[[canal]]s'') on the Martian surface.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="CrossleyInventingANewMars" /> These were generally interpreted—by those who accepted their disputed existence—as waterways,<ref name="HotakainenCanals" /> and they made their earliest appearance in fiction in the anonymously published 1883 novel ''[[Politics and Life in Mars]]''<!-- Some sources give the title as "Politics and Life on Mars". This would appear to be an error, see https://books.google.com/books?id=dwtEAQAAMAAJ -->, where the Martians live in the water.<ref name="CrossleyUtopia">{{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=90–109 |language=en |chapter=Mars and Utopia |quote=In some cases, however, the method of passage to Mars is ignored altogether. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3TDEDfEPdEC&pg=PA90}}</ref> Schiaparelli's observations, and perhaps the translation of {{lang|it|canali}} as "canals" rather than "channels", inspired [[Percival Lowell]] to speculate that these were artificial constructs and write a series of non-fiction books—''Mars'' in 1895, ''Mars and Its Canals'' in 1906, and ''Mars as the Abode of Life'' in 1908—popularizing the idea.<ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="ReadingMars" /><ref name="SFELowell" /><ref name="OldMars" /> Lowell posited that Mars was home to an ancient and advanced but dying or already dead Martian civilization who had constructed these vast canals for irrigation to survive on an increasingly arid planet,<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="SFELowell" /> and this became an enduring vision of Mars that influenced writers across several decades.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="ReadingMars" /><ref name="SFELowell" /><ref name="TheNewMartianNovel" /> [[Science fiction scholar]] [[Gary Westfahl]], drawing from the catalogue of [[early science fiction]] works compiled by [[E. F. Bleiler]] and [[Richard Bleiler]] in the reference works ''[[Science-Fiction: The Early Years]]'' from 1990 and ''[[Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years]]'' from 1998, concludes that Lowell thus "effectively set the boundaries for subsequent narratives about an inhabited Mars".<ref name="ReadingMars" />

Canals became a feature of romantic portrayals of Mars such as Burroughs's ''Barsoom'' series.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="TheNewMartianNovel">{{Cite book |last=Crossley |first=Robert |title=Histories of the Future: Studies in Fact, Fantasy and Science Fiction |date=2000 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-4039-1929-8 |editor-last=Sandison |editor-first=Alan |pages=152–167 |language=en |chapter=Sign, Symbol, Power: The New Martian Novel |quote=The three books [of Kim Stanley Robinson's ''Mars'' trilogy] indeed enact a forward-moving history, a utopia-in-progress, rather than an achieved ideal state. |editor-last2=Dingley |editor-first2=Robert |editor-link2=<!-- No article at present (June 2022); Senior Lecturer in English at the University of New England, NSW --> |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0p0YDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA152}}</ref><ref name="MillerMars">{{Cite book |last1=Miller |first1=Joseph D. |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=17–19, 26–27 |language=en |chapter=Mars of Science, Mars of Dreams |author-link=<!-- No article at present (March 2022); Ph.D. in 1979 from the University of Texas and associate professor in the Department of Cell and Neurobiology at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California --> |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=PA17}}</ref> Early works that did not depict any waterways on Mars typically explained the appearance of straight lines on the surface in some other way, such as [[simoom]]s or large tracts of vegetation.<ref name="CrossleyInventingANewMars" /> Although they quickly fell out of favour as a serious scientific theory, largely as a result of higher-quality telescopic observations by astronomers such as [[E. M. Antoniadi]] failing to detect them,<ref name="HotakainenCanals" /><ref name="TheNewMartianNovel" /><ref name="MillerMars" /> canals continued to make sporadic appearances in fiction for a while in works such as the 1936 novel ''[[Planet Plane]]'' by [[John Wyndham]], the 1938 novel ''Out of the Silent Planet'' by C. S. Lewis, and the 1949 novel ''[[Red Planet (novel)|Red Planet]]'' by [[Robert A. Heinlein]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="CrossleyBestTradition" /><ref name="TheNewMartianNovel" /> Said Lewis in response to criticism from biologist [[J. B. S. Haldane]], "The canals in Mars are there not because I believe in them but because they are part of the popular tradition."<ref name="CrossleyBestTradition" /><ref name="TheNewMartianNovel" /> Eventually, the [[Mars flyby|flyby of Mars]] by [[Mariner 4]] in 1965 conclusively determined that the canals were mere [[optical illusion]]s.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="SFELowell">{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2022 |title=Lowell, Percival |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/lowell_percival |access-date=2023-07-14 |edition=4th |author1-last=Westfahl |author1-first=Gary |author1-link=Gary Westfahl |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}</ref>

=== 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" />

=== ''The War of the Worlds'' ===
{{Further|The War of the Worlds}}
The 1897 novel ''The War of the Worlds'' by [[H. G. Wells]], which depicts an [[alien invasion]] of [[Earth]] by Martians in search of resources, represented a turning point in Mars fiction. Rather than being portrayed as essentially human, [[Martian (The War of the Worlds)|Wells's Martians]] have a completely inhuman appearance and cannot be communicated with. Rather than being noble creatures to emulate, the Martians dispassionately kill and exploit the Earthlings like livestock—a critique of contemporary [[British colonialism]] in general and its devastating effects on the [[Aboriginal Tasmanians]] in particular.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="AshleyLostMars" /><ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury" /><ref name="CrossleyWells">{{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=110–128 |language=en |chapter=H. G. Wells and the Great Disillusionment |quote=But in the last decades of the nineteenth century, a discernible shift of locale took place. Fictional goings and comings between Earth and Mars took precedence over all other forms of the interplanetary romance. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3TDEDfEPdEC&pg=PA110}}</ref> The novel set the tone for the majority of the science-fictional depictions of Mars in the decades that followed in portraying the Martians as malevolent and Mars as a dying world.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /> Beyond Martian fiction, the novel had a large influence on the broader science fiction genre,<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="JennerDeathStars">{{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=63–82 |language=en |chapter=Death Stars and Little Green Martians |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=od7oDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT65}}</ref><ref name="ScienceFictionAndEcology">{{Cite book |last=Stableford |first=Brian |author-link=Brian Stableford |title=A Companion to Science Fiction |date=2005 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-0-470-79701-3 |editor-last=Seed |editor-first=David |editor-link=<!-- No article at present (April 2024); Wikidata Q112491049 --> |pages=129, 135–136 |language=en |chapter=Science Fiction and Ecology |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PiphRocVYRwC&pg=PA129}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Webb |first=Stephen |author-link=Stephen Webb (scientist) |url= |title=All the Wonder that Would Be: Exploring Past Notions of the Future |date=2017 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-319-51759-9 |series=Science and Fiction |pages=104 |language=en |chapter=Aliens |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-51759-9_4 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TVPJDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA104}}</ref> and inspired rocket scientist [[Robert H. Goddard]].<ref name="Webb" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Science fiction meets science fact: how film inspired the Moon landing |url=https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/science-fiction-meets-science-fact-how-film-inspired-moon-landing |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210725122048/https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/science-fiction-meets-science-fact-how-film-inspired-moon-landing |archive-date=2021-07-25 |access-date=2022-08-20 |website=[[Royal Museums Greenwich]] |language=en}}</ref> According to science fiction essayist [[Bud Webster]], "It's impossible to overstate the importance of ''The War of the Worlds'' and the influence it's had over the years."<ref name="Webster" /> 

[[File:Orson Welles War of the Worlds 1938.jpg|alt=Photograph of Orson Welles surrounded by reporters|thumb|[[Orson Welles]] interviewed by reporters after his [[The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama)|1938 radio adaptation]] of ''[[The War of the Worlds]]'' caused a panic.]]
An unauthorized sequel—''[[Edison's Conquest of Mars]]'' by [[Garrett P. Serviss]]—was released in 1898,<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="Roberts1850–1900">{{Cite book |last=Roberts |first=Adam |title=The History of Science Fiction |date=2016 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-137-56957-8 |edition=2nd |series=Palgrave Histories of Literature |pages=174, 177 |chapter=SF 1850–1900: Mobility and Mobilisation |doi=10.1057/978-1-137-56957-8_7 |oclc=956382503 |quote=[...] ''Edison's Conquest of Mars'' (1898) by Garrett P Serviss which was written as a more upbeat American sequel—unauthorised, naturally—to H G Wells's Martian invasion story ''The War of the Worlds'' |author-link=Adam Roberts (British writer) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gq7LDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA174}}</ref> as was a parody by {{Interlanguage link|Charles L. Graves|qid=Q16944166}} and [[E. V. Lucas]] titled ''{{Interlanguage link|The War of the Wenuses|qid=Q124090563}}''.<ref name="CrossleyInventingANewMars" /><ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" /> Wells's story gained further notoriety in 1938 when [[The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama)|a radio adaptation]] by [[Orson Welles]] in the style of a news broadcast was mistaken for a real newscast by some listeners in the US, leading to panic;<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="HotakainenMarsFiction" /><ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination">{{Cite book |last=Markley |first=Robert |title=Dying Planet: Mars in Science and the Imagination |date=2005 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-8727-5 |pages=182–229 |language=en |chapter=Mars at the Limits of Imagination: The Dying Planet from Burroughs to Dick |author-link=Robert Markley |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=loalUL6vakoC&pg=PA203}}</ref> less famously, a 1949 broadcast in [[Quito]], Ecuador, also resulted in a riot.<ref name="Baxter" /><ref name="JennerDeathStars" /><ref name="HartzmanMarsInvadesPopCulture">{{Cite book |last=Hartzman |first=Marc |title=The Big Book of Mars: From Ancient Egypt to The Martian, A Deep-Space Dive into Our Obsession with the Red Planet |date=2020 |publisher=Quirk Books |isbn=978-1-68369-210-2 |pages=148–201 |language=en |chapter=Mars Invades Pop Culture |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4W-2DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA157}}</ref> Several [[List of works based on The War of the Worlds#Sequels by other authors|sequels and adaptations by other authors]] have been written since, including the 1950 [[Superman]] comic book story "[[Black Magic on Mars]]" by [[Alvin Schwartz (comics)|Alvin Schwartz]]<!-- Westfahl (2022) incorrectly gives the name as "Alan" Schwartz --> and [[Wayne Boring]] where Orson Welles tries to warn Earth of an impending Martian invasion but is dismissed,<ref name="WestfahlMars" /><ref name="ReadingMars" /> the 1968 novel ''[[The Second Invasion from Mars]]'' (''Второе нашествие марсиан'') by [[Soviet science fiction]] writers [[Arkady and Boris Strugatsky]] where the Martians forgo military conquest in favour of infiltration,<ref name="ReadingMars" /> the 1975 novel ''[[Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds]]'' by [[Manly Wade Wellman]] and {{Interlanguage link|Wade Wellman|qid=Q121745664}} and the 1976 novel ''[[The Second War of the Worlds]]'' by [[George H. Smith (fiction author)|George H. Smith]] which both combine Wells's story with [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]'s [[Sherlock Holmes]] characters,<ref name="HotakainenMarsFiction" /><ref name="PringleTheMartians">{{Cite book |title=The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: The Definitive Illustrated Guide |date=1996 |publisher=Carlton |isbn=1-85868-188-X |editor-last=Pringle |editor-first=David |editor-link=David Pringle |pages=269–270 |language=en |chapter=The Martians |oclc=38373691 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/ultimateencyclop0000unse_a8c7/page/269/mode/2up}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Andrew M. |title=Solar Flares: Science Fiction in the 1970s |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-1-84631-834-4 |pages=54 |language=en |chapter=Big Dumb Objects: Science Fiction as Self-Parody |author-link=Andrew M. Butler |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qz4iCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA54}}</ref> the 1976 novel ''[[The Space Machine]]'' by [[Christopher Priest (novelist)|Christopher Priest]] which combines the story of ''The War of the Worlds'' with that of Wells's 1895 novel ''[[The Time Machine]]'',<ref name="HotakainenMarsFiction" /><ref name="PringleTheMartians" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Mann |first=George |title=The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |date=2001 |publisher=Carroll & Graf Publishers |isbn=978-0-7867-0887-1 |pages=243 |language=en |chapter=Priest, Christopher |author-link=George Mann (writer) |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/mammothencyclope00mann/page/243/mode/2up}}</ref> the 2002 short story "[[Ulla, Ulla]]" by [[Eric Brown (writer)|Eric Brown]] which reframes the invasion as a desperate escape by a peaceful race from a dying world,<ref name="HotakainenMarsFiction" /><ref name="MarkleyTransformingMars" /> and the 2005 novel ''[[The Martian War]]'' by [[Kevin J. Anderson]] where Wells himself goes to Mars and instigates a [[slave uprising]].<ref name="CrossleyAlternativeVisions" /> The authorized 2017 sequel novel ''[[The Massacre of Mankind]]'' by [[Stephen Baxter (author)|Stephen Baxter]] is set in 1920 in an [[alternate timeline]] where the events of the original novel caused World War I never to happen by making Britain war-weary and isolationist, and the Martians attack yet again after inoculating themselves against the microbes that were their downfall the first time.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2020 |title=Sequels by Other Hands |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/sequels_by_other_hands |access-date=2022-06-06 |edition=4th |author1-last=Langford |author1-first=David |author1-link=David Langford |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Alexander |first=Niall |date=2017-01-19 |title=Graphic Geometry: The Massacre of Mankind by Stephen Baxter |url=https://www.tor.com/2017/01/19/book-review-the-massacre-of-mankind-by-stephen-baxter/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221003140414/https://www.tor.com/2017/01/19/book-review-the-massacre-of-mankind-by-stephen-baxter/ |archive-date=2022-10-03 |access-date=2023-02-09 |website=[[Tor.com]] |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Dihal |first=Kanta |author-link=Kanta Dihal |date=2017-02-12 |title=Review: ''The Massacre of Mankind'' |url=https://theoxfordculturereview.com/2017/02/12/review-the-massacre-of-mankind/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220927102143/https://theoxfordculturereview.com/2017/02/12/review-the-massacre-of-mankind/ |archive-date=2022-09-27 |access-date=2023-02-09 |website=The Oxford Culture Review |language=en}}</ref>

== Life on Mars ==
{{Redirect2|Martian|Martians}}
{{Anchor|Martians}}
The term ''Martians'' typically refers to inhabitants of Mars that are similar to humans in terms of having such things as [[language]] and [[civilization]], though it is also occasionally used to refer to [[Extraterrestrial life|extraterrestrials]] in general.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=LaBare |first1=Sha |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=152 |language=en |chapter=Chronicling Martians |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=PA152}}</ref><ref>{{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=17 |language=en |chapter=Mars Fever |quote=In a way, the word 'Martian' has become synonymous with 'alien' |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=od7oDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT16}}</ref> These inhabitants of Mars have variously been depicted as enlightened, evil, and decadent; in keeping with the conception of Mars as an older civilization than Earth, Westfahl refers to these as "good parents", "bad parents", and "dependent parents", respectively.<ref name="WestfahlMars">{{Cite book |last=Westfahl |first=Gary |title=[[Science Fiction Literature through History: An Encyclopedia]] |date=2021 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-4408-6617-3 |pages=427–430 |language=en |chapter=Mars and Martians |author-link=Gary Westfahl |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WETPEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA427}}</ref><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /><ref name="ReadingMars" />

Martians have also been equated with humans in different ways. Humans are revealed to be the descendants of Martians in several stories including the 1954 short story "[[Survey Team]]" by [[Philip K. Dick]].<ref name="MarkleyTransformingMars" /><ref name="StanwayWeAreTheMartians">{{Cite web |last=Stanway |first=Elizabeth |author-link=<!-- No article at present (July 2024); Stanway is an astrophysicist at the University of Warwick who has been published in [[Foundation (journal)]], among others (see https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/astro/people/stanway/sciencefiction); Wikidata Q127710708 --> |date=2023-02-26 |title=We are the Martians |url=https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/astro/people/stanway/sciencefiction/cosmicstories/we_are_the |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230402120633/https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/astro/people/stanway/sciencefiction/cosmicstories/we_are_the/ |archive-date=2023-04-02 |access-date=2024-03-26 |website=[[Warwick University]] |series=Cosmic Stories Blog}}</ref> Conversely, Martians are the descendants of humans from Earth in some works such as the 1889 novel ''Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet'' by Hugh MacColl, where a close approach between Mars and Earth in the past allowed some humans to get to Mars,<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="CrossleyInventingANewMars" /><ref name="Webster" /> and Tolstoy's ''Aelita'' where they are descended from inhabitants of the lost civilization of [[Atlantis]].<ref name="CrossleyBestTradition" /> Human settlers take on the new identity of Martians in the 1946 short story "[[The Million Year Picnic]]" by [[Ray Bradbury]] (later included in the 1950 [[fix-up]] novel ''[[The Martian Chronicles]]''), and this theme of "becoming Martians" came to be a recurring motif in Martian fiction toward the end of the century.<ref name="GreenwoodMars" /><ref name="TheNewMartianNovel" /><ref name="CrossleyThreshold">{{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=195–221 |language=en |chapter=On the Threshold of the Space Age |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3TDEDfEPdEC&pg=PA195}}</ref><ref name="Rabkin" />

=== Enlightened ===
[[File:Klaatu - screenshot from trailer for Day the Earth Stood Still.jpg|alt=Still frame from the trailer for the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still, showing the character Klaatu|thumb|[[Klaatu (The Day the Earth Stood Still)|Klaatu]], the Martian who visits Earth in the 1951 film ''[[The Day the Earth Stood Still]]'']]
The portrayal of Martians as superior to Earthlings appeared throughout the [[utopian fiction]] of the late 1800s.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="WestfahlMars" /><ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /> In-depth treatment of the nuances of the concept was pioneered by Kurd Lasswitz with the 1897 novel ''Auf zwei Planeten'', wherein the Martians visit Earth to share their more advanced knowledge with humans and gradually end up acting as an occupying colonial power.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="HotakainenMarsFiction" /><ref name="MarkleyTurnOfTheCentury" /><ref name="Roberts1850–1900" /> Martians sharing wisdom or knowledge with humans is a recurring element in these stories, and some works such as the 1952 novel ''[[David Starr, Space Ranger]]'' by [[Isaac Asimov]] depict Martians sharing their advanced technology with the inhabitants of Earth.<ref name="WestfahlMars" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /> Several depictions of enlightened Martians have a religious dimension:<ref name="AshleyLostMars">{{Cite book |last=Ashley |first=Mike |title=Lost Mars: Stories from the Golden Age of the Red Planet |date=2018 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-57508-7 |editor-last=Ashley |editor-first=Mike |editor-link=Mike Ashley (writer) |pages=7–26 |language=en |chapter=Introduction |author-link=Mike Ashley (writer) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hOl3DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA7}}</ref> in the 1938 novel ''[[Out of the Silent Planet]]'' by [[C. S. Lewis]], Martians are depicted as Christian beings free from [[original sin]],<ref name="WestfahlMars" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /> the Martian [[Klaatu (The Day the Earth Stood Still)|Klaatu]]{{efn|Although Klaatu's planet of origin is not named in the 1951 film, [[science fiction scholar]] [[Gary Westfahl]] notes that the information provided uniquely identifies it as Mars.<ref name="ReadingMars" /><ref name="MartiansOldAndNewStillStandingOverUs" /> See {{section link|Klaatu (The Day the Earth Stood Still)|Analysis}} for further details.}} who visits Earth in the 1951 film ''[[The Day the Earth Stood Still]]'' is a [[Christ figure]],<ref name="ReadingMars" /><ref name="MartiansOldAndNewStillStandingOverUs">{{Cite magazine |last=Westfahl |first=Gary |author-link=Gary Westfahl |date=June 2001 |editor-last=Pringle |editor-first=David |editor-link=David Pringle |title=Martians Old and New, Still Standing Over Us |url=https://archive.org/details/interzone-168-2001-06-bogof-39/page/56/mode/2up |magazine=[[Interzone (magazine)|Interzone]] |issue=168 |pages=57–58 |issn=0264-3596}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Sherman |first=Theodore James |title=[[The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders]] |date=2005 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-32951-7 |editor-last=Westfahl |editor-first=Gary |editor-link=Gary Westfahl |pages=20 |language=en |chapter=Allegory |quote=Klaatu is also a Christ figure |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/greenwoodencyclo0000unse_k2b9/page/20/mode/2up}}</ref> and the 1961 novel ''[[Stranger in a Strange Land]]'' by [[Robert A. Heinlein]] revolves around a human raised by Martians who brings a religion based on their ideals to Earth as a [[prophet]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="AshleyLostMars" /><ref name="CrossleyScientificAdvances" /> In [[comic book]]s, the superhero [[Martian Manhunter]] first appeared in 1955.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="WestfahlMars" /> In the 1956 novel ''[[No Man Friday]]'' by [[Rex Gordon]], an astronaut stranded on Mars encounters [[pacifist]] Martians and feels compelled to omit the human history of warfare lest they think of humans as savage creatures akin to [[Human cannibalism|cannibals]].<ref name="CrossleyThreshold" /> On television, the 1963–1966 [[sitcom]] ''[[My Favorite Martian]]''—later adapted to [[children's animation]] in 1973 and to [[My Favorite Martian (film)|film in 1999]]—portrayed a Martian comedically; the contemporaneous science fiction [[anthology series]] ''[[The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)|The Twilight Zone]]'' and ''[[The Outer Limits (1963 TV series)|The Outer Limits]]'' also occasionally featured Martian characters,<ref name="ReadingMars" /> such as in "[[Mr. Dingle, the Strong]]" where they find disappointment in human lack of altruism<ref name="HartzmanMarsInvadesPopCulture" /> and "[[Controlled Experiment]]" where murder is a foreign concept to them.<ref name="Westfahl2022PastAndFuture">{{Cite book |last=Westfahl |first=Gary |title=The Stuff of Science Fiction: Hardware, Settings, Characters |date=2022 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-8659-2 |pages=92 |language=en |chapter=The Past and Future—Time Out of Mind: Journeys through Time in Science Fiction |author-link=Gary Westfahl |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q7WREAAAQBAJ&pg=PA92}}</ref>

=== Evil ===
There is a long tradition of portraying Martians as warlike, perhaps inspired by the planet's association with the [[Mars (mythology)|Roman god of war]].<ref name="Westfahl2022Venus">{{Cite book |last=Westfahl |first=Gary |title=The Stuff of Science Fiction: Hardware, Settings, Characters |date=2022 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-8659-2 |pages=165–166, 169 |language=en |chapter=Venus—Venus of Dreams ... and Nightmares: Changing Images of Earth's Sister Planet |author-link=Gary Westfahl |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q7WREAAAQBAJ&pg=PA166}}</ref><ref name="CrossleyAlternativeVisions" /> The seminal depiction of Martians as evil creatures was the 1897 novel ''The War of the Worlds'' by H. G. Wells, wherein the Martians attack Earth.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="WestfahlMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /> This characterization dominated the [[pulp era of science fiction]], appearing in works such as the 1928 short story "[[The Menace of Mars]]" by [[Clare Winger Harris]], the 1931 short story "[[Monsters of Mars]]" by [[Edmond Hamilton]], and the 1935 short story "Mars Colonizes" by [[Miles J. Breuer]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="WestfahlMars" /><ref name="ReadingMars">{{multiref2|{{cite magazine |last=Westfahl |first=Gary |author-link=Gary Westfahl |date=December 2000 |title=Reading Mars: Changing Images of Mars in Twentieth-Century Science Fiction |magazine=[[The New York Review of Science Fiction]] |issue=148 |pages=1, 8–13 |issn=1052-9438}}|{{Cite book |last=Westfahl |first=Gary |title=The Stuff of Science Fiction: Hardware, Settings, Characters |date=2022 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-8659-2 |pages=146–163 |language=en |chapter=Mars—Reading Mars: Changing Images of the Red Planet |author-link=Gary Westfahl |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q7WREAAAQBAJ&pg=PA146}}}}</ref> It quickly became regarded as a [[cliché]] and inspired a kind of [[countermovement]] that portrayed Martians as meek in works like the 1933 short story "[[The Forgotten Man of Space]]" by [[P. Schuyler Miller]] and the 1934 short story "[[Old Faithful (short story)|Old Faithful]]" by [[Raymond Z. Gallun]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /> The 1946 novel ''[[The Man from Mars]]'' by [[Polish science fiction]] writer [[Stanisław Lem]] likewise depicts a Martian mistreated by humans.<ref name="MarsAntologiaPolskiejFantastyki" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Booker |first=M. Keith |title=Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction in Literature |date=2014 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-8108-7884-6 |pages=160 |language=en |chapter=Lem, Stanisław (1921–2006) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WRi7BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA160}}</ref>

Outside of the pulps, the [[alien invasion]] theme pioneered by Wells appeared in [[Olaf Stapledon]]'s 1930 novel ''[[Last and First Men]]''—with the twist that the invading Martians are cloud-borne and microscopic, and neither aliens nor humans recognize the other as a sentient species.<ref name="WestfahlMars" /><ref name="CrossleyBestTradition" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Huntington |first1=John W. |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=82 |language=en |chapter=The (In)Significance of Mars in the 1930s |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=PA82}}</ref> In film, this theme gained popularity in 1953 with the releases of ''[[The War of the Worlds (1953 film)|The War of the Worlds]]'' and ''[[Invaders from Mars (1953 film)|Invaders from Mars]]''; later films about Martian invasions of Earth include the 1954 film ''[[Devil Girl from Mars]]'', the 1962 film ''[[The Day Mars Invaded Earth]]'', a [[Invaders from Mars (1986 film)|1986 remake]] of ''Invaders from Mars'' and [[List of works based on The War of the Worlds#Adaptations|three different adaptations of ''The War of the Worlds'']] in 2005.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="HotakainenMarsFiction" /><ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /> Martians attacking humans who come to Mars appear in the 1948 short story "[[Mars Is Heaven!]]" by Ray Bradbury (later revised and included in ''The Martian Chronicles'' as "The Third Expedition"), where they use [[Telepathy|telepathic]] abilities to impersonate the humans' deceased loved ones before killing them.<ref name="AshgateExtraterrestrial" /><ref name="JennerDeathStars" /><ref name="Rabkin">{{Cite book |last1=Rabkin |first1=Eric S. |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=95, 98, 102–103 |language=en |chapter=Is Mars Heaven? ''The Martian Chronicles'', ''Fahrenheit 451'' and Ray Bradbury's Landscape of Longing |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=PA95}}</ref> Comical portrayals of evil Martians appear in the 1954 novel ''[[Martians, Go Home]]'' by [[Fredric Brown]], where they are [[little green men]] who wreak havoc by exposing secrets and lies;<ref name="CrossleyThreshold" /> in the form of the cartoon character [[Marvin the Martian]] introduced in the 1948 short film "[[Haredevil Hare]]", who seeks to destroy Earth to get a better view of Venus;<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="HotakainenMarsFiction" /><ref name="JennerMarvin">{{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=45–62 |language=en |chapter=Marvin and the Spiders |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=od7oDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT52}}</ref><ref name="HartzmanMarsInvadesPopCulture" /> and in the 1996 film ''[[Mars Attacks!]]'', a pastiche of [[History of science fiction films#Post-War and 1950s|1950s alien invasion films]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Mann |first=George |title=The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |date=2001 |publisher=Carroll & Graf Publishers |isbn=978-0-7867-0887-1 |pages=390 |language=en |chapter=Mars Attacks! |author-link=George Mann (writer) |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/mammothencyclope00mann/page/390/mode/2up}}</ref>

=== Decadent ===
[[File:Planet stories 195103.jpg|alt=Refer to caption|thumb|Decadent portrayals of Martians were popularized by [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]], inspiring many authors such as [[Leigh Brackett]]. Seen here is the March 1951 cover of ''[[Planet Stories]]'', featuring Brackett's "[[Black Amazon of Mars]]".]]
The conception of Martians as decadent was largely derived from [[Percival Lowell]]'s vision of Mars.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="SFELowell" /> The first appearance of Martians characterized by decadence in a work of fiction was in the 1905 novel ''[[Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation]]'' by [[Edwin Lester Arnold]]—variously considered one of the earliest examples of, or an important precursor to, the [[planetary romance]] subgenre.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref>{{Cite book |title=The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: The Definitive Illustrated Guide |date=1996 |publisher=Carlton |isbn=1-85868-188-X |editor-last=Pringle |editor-first=David |editor-link=David Pringle |pages=23 |language=en |chapter=Planetary Romances |oclc=38373691 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/ultimateencyclop0000unse_a8c7/page/23/mode/2up}}</ref><ref name="SFEPlanetaryRomance">{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2013 |title=Planetary Romance |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/planetary_romance |access-date=2025-04-01 |edition=4th |author1-last=Clute |author1-first=John |author1-link=John Clute |author2-last=Langford |author2-first=David |author2-link=David Langford |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}</ref> The idea was developed further and popularized by [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]] in the 1912–1943 ''[[Barsoom]]'' series starting with ''[[A Princess of Mars]]''.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="WestfahlMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /> Burroughs presents a Mars in need of human intervention to regain its vitality,<ref name="WestfahlMars" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /> a place where violence has replaced sexual desire.<ref name="CrossleyMasculinistFantasies" /> Science fiction critic {{Interlanguage link|Robert Crossley|qid=Q55188564}}, in the 2011 non-fiction book ''[[Imagining Mars: A Literary History]]'', identifies Burroughs's work as the archetypal example of what he dubs "masculinist fantasies", where "male travelers ''expect'' to find princesses on Mars and devote much of their time either to courting or to protecting them".<ref name="CrossleyMasculinistFantasies" /> This version of Mars also functions as a kind of stand-in for the bygone [[American frontier]], where protagonist [[John Carter of Mars|John Carter]]—a [[Confederate States Army|Confederate]] veteran of the [[American Civil War]] who is made [[Superhuman strength|superhumanly strong]] by the lower [[gravity of Mars]]—encounters indigenous Martians representing [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]].<ref name="CrossleyMasculinistFantasies" /><ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination" /><ref name="NewellLamont" />

Burroughs's vision of Mars would go on to have an influence approaching but not quite reaching Wells's,<ref name="Webb">{{Cite book |last=Webb |first=Stephen |author-link=Stephen Webb (scientist) |title=All the Wonder that Would Be: Exploring Past Notions of the Future |date=2017 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-319-51759-9 |series=Science and Fiction |pages=71–72 |language=en |chapter=Space Travel |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-51759-9_3 |quote=''War of the Worlds'' is an archetypical piece of science fiction, and one of the most influential books in the canon. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TVPJDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA71}}</ref> inspiring the works of many other authors—for instance, [[C. L. Moore]]'s stories about [[Northwest Smith]] starting with the 1933 short story "[[Shambleau]]".<ref name="LiptakDestinationMars">{{Cite magazine |last=Liptak |first=Andrew |date=May 2015 |title=Destination: Mars |url=https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/liptak_05_15/ |magazine=[[Clarkesworld Magazine]] |issue=104 |issn=1937-7843}}</ref> Another author who followed Burroughs's lead in the decadent portrayal of Mars and its inhabitants—while updating the politics to reflect shifting attitudes toward [[colonialism]] and [[imperialism]] in the intervening years—was [[Leigh Brackett]],<ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination" /><ref name="NewellLamont" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /> the "Queen of the Planetary Romance".<ref name="AshleyLostMars" /> Brackett's works in this vein include the 1940 short story "[[Martian Quest]]" and the 1944 novel ''[[Shadow Over Mars]]'', as well as the stories about [[Eric John Stark]] including the 1949 short story "[[Queen of the Martian Catacombs]]" and the 1951 short story "[[Black Amazon of Mars]]" (later expanded into the 1964 novels ''[[The Secret of Sinharat]]'' and ''[[People of the Talisman]]'', respectively).<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="NewellLamont">{{Cite book |last1=Newell |first1=Diana |title=Visions of Mars: Essays on the Red Planet in Fiction and Science |last2=Lamont |first2=Victoria |date=2014 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-8470-6 |editor-last=Hendrix |editor-first=Howard V. |editor-link=Howard V. Hendrix |pages=73–79 |language=en |chapter=Savagery on Mars: Representations of the Primitive in Brackett and Burroughs |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=PA73}}</ref>

Decadent Martians appeared in many other stories as well. The 1933 novel ''[[Cat Country (novel)|Cat Country]]'' (''貓城記'') by [[Chinese science fiction]] writer [[Lao She]] portrays feline Martians overcome by vices such as opium addiction and corruption as a vehicle for [[satire]] of contemporary Chinese society.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2023<!-- 6 February --> |title=China |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/china |access-date=2023-05-13 |edition=4th |author1-last=Clements |author1-first=Jonathan |author1-link=Jonathan Clements |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Lozada |first=Eriberto P. Jr. |title=Religion and Science Fiction |date=2012 |publisher=ISD LLC |isbn=978-0-7188-4096-9 |editor-last=McGrath |editor-first=James F. |editor-link=James F. McGrath |pages=66–67 |language=en |chapter=Star Trekking in China: Science Fiction as Theodicy in Contemporary China |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3XezEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA66}}</ref> In the 1950 film ''[[Rocketship X-M]]'', Martians are depicted as disfigured [[cavepeople]] inhabiting a barren wasteland, descendants of the few survivors of a [[nuclear holocaust]];<ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Miller |first=Thomas Kent |title=Mars in the Movies: A History |date=2016 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-2626-0 |pages=46 |language=en |chapter=''Rocketship X-M'' (1950) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y7R5DQAAQBAJ&pg=PT56}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Henderson |first=C. J. |title=The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies |date=2001 |publisher=New York: Facts On File |isbn=978-0-8160-4043-8 |pages=356 |chapter=Rocketship X-M |oclc=44669849 |author-link=C. J. Henderson (writer) |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofsc0000hend/page/356/mode/2up}}</ref> in the 1963 novel ''[[The Man Who Fell to Earth (novel)|The Man Who Fell to Earth]]'' by [[Walter Tevis]] a survivor of nuclear holocaust on Mars comes to Earth for refuge but finds it to be similarly corrupt and degenerate.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="CrossleyScientificAdvances" /><ref>{{Cite book |title=The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: The Definitive Illustrated Guide |date=1996 |publisher=Carlton |isbn=1-85868-188-X |editor-last=Pringle |editor-first=David |editor-link=David Pringle |pages=233–234 |language=en |chapter=Walter Tevis |oclc=38373691 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/ultimateencyclop0000unse_a8c7/page/233/mode/2up}}</ref> Inverting the premise of Heinlein's ''Stranger in a Strange Land'', the 1963 short story "[[A Rose for Ecclesiastes]]" by [[Roger Zelazny]] sees decadent Martians visited by a preacher from Earth.<ref name="Webster">{{Cite magazine |last=Webster |first=Bud |author-link=Bud Webster |date=2006-07-01 |title=Mars — the Amply Read Planet |url=http://www.philsp.com/articles/pastmasters_01.html |url-status=live |magazine=[[Helix SF]] |id=[https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?32655 ISFDB series #32655] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211004211726/http://www.philsp.com/articles/pastmasters_01.html |archive-date=2021-10-04 |access-date=2022-06-21}}</ref>

=== Past and non-humanoid life ===
In some stories where Mars is not inhabited by humanoid lifeforms, it was in the past or is inhabited by other types of life. The ruins of extinct Martian civilizations are depicted in the 1943 short story "[[Lost Art (short story)|Lost Art]]" by [[George O. Smith]] where their [[perpetual motion machine]] is recreated and the 1957 short story "[[Omnilingual]]" by [[H. Beam Piper]] in which scientists attempt to [[Decipherment|decipher]] their fifty-thousand-year-old language;<ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /> the 1933 novel ''[[The Outlaws of Mars]]'' by [[Otis Adelbert Kline]] and the 1949 novel ''[[The Sword of Rhiannon]]'' by Leigh Brackett employ [[time travel]] to set stories in the past when Mars was still alive.<ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination" /><ref name="CrossleyThreshold" />

The 1934 short story "[[A Martian Odyssey]]" by [[Stanley G. Weinbaum]] contains what Webster describes as "the first really alien aliens" in science fiction, in contrast to previous depictions of Martians as monsters or essentially human.<ref name="Webster" /> The story broke new ground in portraying an entire Martian [[ecosystem]] wholly unlike that of Earth—inhabited by species that are alien in anatomy and inscrutable in behaviour—and in depicting extraterrestrial life that is non-human and [[Extraterrestrial intelligence|intelligent]] without being hostile.<ref name="D'AmmassaAMartianOdyssey" /><ref name="CriticalStudiesWeinbaum" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Wolfe |first=Gary K. |title=James Cameron's Story of Science Fiction |date=2018 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-68383-590-5 |editor-last=Prince |editor-first=Chris |pages=<!-- the book has no page numbers --> |language=en |chapter=Alien Life |quote=This introduced the idea not only that some aliens might be friendly or helpful or even cute, but also that they might just be really ''different'', neither humanoid nor monstrous—and that some of them might simply be indifferent to us. |author-link=Gary K. Wolfe |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FU1XDwAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PA1914}}</ref> In particular, one Martian creature called [[Tweel (A Martian Odyssey)|Tweel]] is found to be intelligent but have thought processes that are utterly inhuman.<ref name="CrossleyBestTradition">{{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=168–194 |language=en |chapter=Quite in the Best Tradition |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3TDEDfEPdEC&pg=PA178}}</ref><ref name="CriticalStudiesWeinbaum">{{Cite book |last=Stableford |first=Brian |title=Science Fiction Writers: Critical Studies of the Major Authors from the Early Nineteenth Century to the Present Day |date=1999 |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |isbn=0-684-80593-6 |editor-last=Bleiler |editor-first=Richard |editor-link=Richard Bleiler |edition=2nd |pages=883–884 |chapter=Stanley G. Weinbaum |oclc=40460120 |author-link=Brian Stableford |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/sciencefictionwr0000unse/page/883/mode/2up}}</ref> This creates an impenetrable language barrier between the alien and the human it encounters, and they are limited to communicating through the [[universal language]] of [[mathematics]].<ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination" /><ref name="D'AmmassaAMartianOdyssey">{{Cite book |last=D'Ammassa |first=Don |title=Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |date=2005 |publisher=Facts On File |isbn=978-0-8160-5924-9 |pages=246–247 |language=en |chapter="A Martian Odyssey" |author-link=Don D'Ammassa |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofsc0000damm/page/246/mode/2up}}</ref> Asimov would later say that this story met the challenge [[science fiction editor]] [[John W. Campbell]] made to science fiction writers in the 1940s: to write a creature who thinks at least as well as humans, yet not ''like'' humans.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Asimov |first=Isaac |title=Asimov on Science Fiction |date=1981 |publisher=Doubleday |isbn=978-0-385-17443-5 |pages=221–222 |language=en |chapter=The Second Nova |author-link=Isaac Asimov |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/asimovonsciencef0000asim/page/220/mode/2up}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Rudick |first=Nicole |date=2019-07-18 |title=A Universe of One's Own |language=en |work=[[The New York Review of Books]] |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/07/18/universe-of-ones-own-women-science-fiction/ |url-status=live |access-date=2022-06-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211111211043/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/07/18/universe-of-ones-own-women-science-fiction/ |archive-date=2021-11-11 |issn=0028-7504}}</ref>

Three different species of intelligent lifeforms appear on Mars in C. S. Lewis's 1938 novel ''Out of the Silent Planet'', only one of which is humanoid.<ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Stableford |first=Brian |title=The Dictionary of Science Fiction Places |date=1999 |publisher=Wonderland Press |isbn=978-0-684-84958-4 |pages=189 |chapter=Malacandra |author-link=Brian Stableford |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofscie0000unse/page/189/mode/2up}}</ref> In the 1943 short story "[[The Cave (short story)|The Cave]]" by P. Schuyler Miller, lifeforms endure on Mars long after the civilization that used to exist there has driven itself to [[extinction]] through [[ecological collapse]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination" /> The 1951 novel ''[[The Sands of Mars]]'' by [[Arthur C. Clarke]] features some indigenous life in the form of [[Oxygen production|oxygen-producing]] plants and Martian creatures resembling Earth [[marsupial]]s, but otherwise depicts a mostly desolate environment—reflecting then-emerging data about the scarcity of life-sustaining resources on Mars.<ref name="WestfahlMars" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /><ref name="ReadingMars" /><ref name="MarkleyTransformingMars" /> Other novels of the 1950s likewise limited themselves to rudimentary lifeforms such as [[lichen]]s and [[tumbleweed]] that could conceivably exist in the absence of any appreciable atmosphere or quantities of water.<ref name="MartianMusings">{{Cite book |last1=Robinson |first1=Kim Stanley |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=146–151 |language=en |chapter=Martian Musings and the Miraculous Conjunction |author-link=Kim Stanley Robinson |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=PA146}}</ref>

=== 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" />

== Human survival ==
As stories about an inhabited Mars fell out of favour in the mid-1900s amid mounting evidence of the planet's inhospitable nature, they were replaced by stories about enduring the harsh conditions of the planet.<ref name="WestfahlMars" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /> Themes in this tradition include [[Space colonization|colonization]], [[terraforming]], and pure survival stories.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="WestfahlMars" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" />

=== Colonization ===
The [[colonization of Mars]] became a major theme in science fiction in the 1950s.<ref name="SFEMars" /> The central piece of Martian fiction in this era was [[Ray Bradbury]]'s 1950 [[fix-up]] novel ''[[The Martian Chronicles]]'', which contains a series of loosely connected stories depicting the first few decades of human efforts to colonize Mars.<ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination" /><ref name="CrossleyThreshold" /><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2023<!-- 11 December --> |title=Bradbury, Ray |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/bradbury_ray |access-date=2024-02-03 |edition=4th |author1-last=Nicholls |author1-first=Peter |author1-link=Peter Nicholls (writer) |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Mann |first=George |title=The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |date=2001 |publisher=Carroll & Graf Publishers |isbn=978-0-7867-0887-1 |pages=74 |language=en |chapter=Bradbury, Ray |author-link=George Mann (writer) |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/mammothencyclope00mann/page/74/mode/2up}}</ref> Unlike later works on this theme, ''The Martian Chronicles'' makes no attempt at realism (Mars has a breathable atmosphere, for instance, even though [[spectrographic analysis]] had at that time revealed no detectable amounts of [[oxygen]]); Bradbury said that "Mars is a mirror, not a crystal", a vehicle for [[social commentary]] rather than attempts to predict the future.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="TheNewMartianNovel" /><ref name="CrossleyThreshold" /> Contemporary issues touched upon in the book include [[McCarthyism]] in "[[Usher II]]", [[Racial segregation in the United States|racial segregation]] and [[lynching in the United States]] in "[[Way in the Middle of the Air]]", and [[nuclear anxiety]] throughout.<ref name="CrossleyThreshold" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Leonard |first=Elisabeth Anne |title=The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction |date=2003 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-01657-5 |editor-last=James |editor-first=Edward |editor-link=Edward James (historian) |pages=256–257 |language=en |chapter=Race and Ethnicity in Science Fiction |editor-last2=Mendlesohn |editor-first2=Farah |editor-link2=Farah Mendlesohn |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=55wUHXiay-gC&pg=PA256}}</ref> There are also several allusions to the [[European colonization of the Americas]]: the first few missions to Mars in the book encounter Martians, with direct references to both [[Hernán Cortés]] and the [[Trail of Tears]], but the indigenous population soon goes extinct due to [[chickenpox]] in a parallel to the [[virgin soil epidemic]]s that [[Native American disease and epidemics|devastated Native American populations]] as a result of the [[Columbian exchange]].<ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /><ref name="AshgateExtraterrestrial" /><ref name="CrossleyThreshold" />

The majority of works about colonizing Mars endeavoured to portray the challenges of doing so realistically.<ref name="SFEMars" /> The hostile environment of the planet is countered by the colonists bringing [[life-support system]]s in works like the 1951 novel ''[[The Sands of Mars]]'' by [[Arthur C. Clarke]] and the 1966 short story "[[We Can Remember It for You Wholesale]]" by [[Philip K. Dick]],<ref name="WestfahlMars" /><ref name="CrossleyScientificAdvances" /> the early colonists during the centuries-long terraforming process in the 1953 short story "[[Crucifixus Etiam]]" by [[Walter M. Miller Jr.]] are dependent on [[Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation|a machine that oxygenates their blood]] from the thin atmosphere,<ref name="MarkleyTransformingMars" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Roberts |first=Adam |title=The History of Science Fiction |date=2016 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-137-56957-8 |edition=2nd |series=Palgrave Histories of Literature |pages=315 |language=en |chapter=Golden Age SF: 1940–1960 |doi=10.1057/978-1-137-56957-8_11 |oclc=956382503 |author-link=Adam Roberts (British writer) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gq7LDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA315}}</ref> and the scarcity of oxygen even after generations of terraforming forces the colonists to live in a [[domed city]] in the 1953 novel ''[[Police Your Planet]]'' by [[Lester del Rey]].<ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination" /> In the 1955 fix-up novel ''[[Alien Dust]]'' by [[Edwin Charles Tubb]], colonists are unable to return to a life on Earth because inhaling the Martian dust has given them [[pneumoconiosis]] and the lower gravity has [[Muscle atrophy|atrophied their muscles]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="BostonBroderick">{{Cite book |last1=Boston |first1=John |title=Building New Worlds, 1946–1959: The Carnell Era, Volume One |last2=Broderick |first2=Damien |date=2013 |publisher=Wildside Press LLC |isbn=978-1-4344-4720-3 |pages=87–89 |language=en |chapter=Temporary Stability (1951–53) |author-link=<!-- No article at present (July 2022); amateur science fiction critic, lawyer, co-author of ''Prisoners' Self-help Litigation Manual'' --> |author-link2=Damien Broderick |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9j70AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA87}}</ref> The 1952 novel ''[[Outpost Mars]]'' by [[Cyril Judd]] (joint pseudonym of [[Cyril M. Kornbluth]] and [[Judith Merril]]) revolves around an attempt at making a Mars colony economically sustainable by way of resource extraction.<ref name="AshleyLostMars" />

Mars colonies seeking independence from or outright revolting against Earth is a recurring motif;<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="CrossleyThreshold" /> in del Rey's ''Police Your Planet'' a revolution is precipitated by Earth using unrest against the colony's corrupt mayor as a pretext for bringing Mars under firmer [[:wikt:Terran|Terran]] control,<ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination" /><ref name="CrossleyAlternativeVisions">{{Cite book |last=Crossley |first=Robert |title=Future Wars: The Anticipations and the Fears |date=2012 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=978-1-84631-755-2 |editor-last=Seed |editor-first=David |editor-link=<!-- No article at present (April 2024); Wikidata Q112491049 --> |pages=66–84 |language=en |chapter=From Invasion to Liberation: Alternative Visions of Mars, Planet of War |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Bx_xd0cYPowC&pg=PA66}}</ref><ref name="CrossleyScientificAdvances" /> and in Tubb's ''Alien Dust'' the colonists [[Nuclear blackmail|threaten Earth with nuclear weapons]] unless their demands for necessary resources are met.<ref name="BostonBroderick" /> In the 1952 short story "[[The Martian Way]]" by [[Isaac Asimov]], Martian colonists [[Space mining|extract water]] from the [[rings of Saturn]] so as not to depend on importing water from Earth.<ref name="MarkleyTransformingMars" /><ref name="CrossleyAlternativeVisions" /><ref name="CrossleyThreshold" /> Besides direct conflicts with Earth, Mars colonies get other kinds of unfavourable treatment in several works. Mars is a dilapidated colony and neglected in favour of locations outside of the Solar System in the 1967 novel ''[[Born Under Mars]]'' by [[John Brunner (author)|John Brunner]],<ref name="SFEMars" /> a place where political dissidents and criminals are [[exile]]d in ''Police Your Planet'',<ref name="CrossleyScientificAdvances" /> and the site of an outright [[prison colony]] in the 1966 novel ''[[Farewell, Earth's Bliss]]'' by [[David G. Compton]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /> The vision of Mars as a prison colony recurs in [[Japanese science fiction]] author [[Moto Hagio]]'s 1978–1979 [[manga]] series ''[[Star Red]]'' (''スター・レッド''), a [[Homage (arts)|homage]] to Bradbury's ''The Martian Chronicles''.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2022 |title=Hagio Moto |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/hagio_moto |access-date=2023-06-20 |edition=4th |author1-last=Clements |author1-first=Jonathan |author1-link=Jonathan Clements |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}</ref> The independence theme was adopted by on-screen portrayals of Mars colonies in the 1990s in works like the 1990 film ''[[Total Recall (1990 film)|Total Recall]]'' (a loose adaptation of Dick's "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"<!-- probably not necessary to have an inline source for this uncontroversial description, but if anyone objects: <ref>{{Cite book |last=Roberts |first=Adam |title=The History of Science Fiction |date=2016 |isbn=978-1-137-56957-8 |edition=2nd |location=London |pages=411 |language=en |chapter=SF Screen Media, 1960–2000: Hollywood Cinema and TV |doi=10.1057/978-1-137-56957-8_13 |oclc=956382503 |author-link=Adam Roberts (British writer) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gq7LDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA411}}</ref> -->) and the 1994–1998 television series ''[[Babylon 5]]'', now both in terms of Earth-based governments and—likely inspired by the emergence of [[Reaganomics]]—especially corporations.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=O'Brien |first1=Stanley |last2=Michalski |first2=Nicki L. |last3=Stanley |first3=Ruth J. H. |date=March 2012 |title=Are There Tea Parties on Mars? Business and Politics in Science Fiction Films |url=https://www.academia.edu/4903396 |url-status=live |journal=Journal of Literature and Art Studies |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=383, 387–388, 390, 394 |issn=2159-5836 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230901154557/https://www.academia.edu/4903396/Are_There_Tea_Parties_on_Mars_Business_and_Politics_in_Science_Fiction_Films |archive-date=2023-09-01}}</ref>

=== Terraforming ===
{{Further|Terraforming in popular culture}}
[[File:MarsTransitionV.jpg|alt=Artist's impression of the hypothetical phases of the terraforming of Mars|thumb|Some works depict Mars being [[Terraforming|terraformed]] to enable [[Planetary habitability|human habitation]].]]
Clarke's ''The Sands of Mars'' features one of the earliest depictions of [[Terraforming of Mars|terraforming Mars]] to make it more hospitable to human life; in the novel, the [[atmosphere of Mars]] is made breathable by plants that release [[Oxide mineral|oxygen from minerals]] in the [[Martian soil]], and the [[Climate of Mars|climate]] is improved by creating an artificial sun.<ref name="HotakainenMarsFiction" /><ref name="ReadingMars" /> The theme appeared occasionally in other 1950s works like the aforementioned "Crucifixus Etiam" and ''Police Your Planet'', but largely fell out of favour in the 1960s as the scale of the associated challenges became apparent.<ref name="ScienceFictionAndEcology" /><ref name="MarkleyTransformingMars" /><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2020 |title=Terraforming |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/terraforming |access-date=2022-08-22 |edition=4th |author1-last=Edwards |author1-first=Malcolm |author1-link=Malcolm Edwards |author2-last=Stableford |author2-first=Brian |author2-link=Brian Stableford |author3-last=Langford |author3-first=David |author3-link=David Langford |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}</ref> By the 1970s, Martian literature as a whole had mostly succumbed to the discouragement of finding the planet's conditions to be so hostile, and stories set on Mars became much less common than they had been in previous decades.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="ReadingMars" />

A resurgence of popularity of the terraforming theme began to emerge in the late 1970s in light of data from the ''[[Viking program|Viking]]'' probes suggesting that there might be substantial quantities of non-liquid and sub-surface [[water on Mars]]; among the earliest such works are the 1977 novel ''The Martian Inca'' by Ian Watson and the 1978 novel ''[[A Double Shadow]]'' by [[Frederick Turner (poet)|Frederick Turner]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="MarkleyTransformingMars" /><ref name="MartianMusings" /><ref name="CrossleyMarsRemade" /> Works depicting the terraforming of Mars continued to appear throughout the 1980s. The 1984 novel ''[[The Greening of Mars]]'' by [[James Lovelock]] and [[Michael Allaby]], a study on how Mars might be settled and terraformed presented in the form of a fiction narrative, was influential on science and fiction alike.<ref name="ScienceFictionAndEcology" /><ref name="CrossleyMarsRemade" /><ref name="MarkleyFallingIntoTheory">{{Cite book |last=Markley |first=Robert |title=Dying Planet: Mars in Science and the Imagination |date=2005 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-8727-5 |pages=355–384 |language=en |chapter=Falling into Theory: Terraformation and Eco-Economics in Kim Stanley Robinson's Martian Trilogy |quote=Robinson's trilogy is structured ideationally as a series of conflicts between competing visions of terraforming Mars and, therefore, opposing views of politics, economics, and social organization. |author-link=Robert Markley |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=loalUL6vakoC&pg=PA355}}</ref><ref>{{multiref2|{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2022 |title=Allaby, Michael |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/allaby_michael |access-date=2023-07-14 |edition=4th |author1-last=Clute |author1-first=John |author1-link=John Clute |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}|{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2022 |title=Lovelock, James |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/lovelock_james |access-date=2023-07-14 |edition=4th |author1-last=Langford |author1-first=David |author1-link=David Langford |author2-last=Clute |author2-first=John |author2-link=John Clute |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}}}</ref> [[Kim Stanley Robinson]] was an early prolific writer on the subject with the 1982 short story "[[Exploring Fossil Canyon]]", the 1984 novel ''[[Icehenge]]'', and the 1985 short story "[[Green Mars (novella)|Green Mars]]". Turner revisited the concept in 1988 with ''[[Genesis (poem)|Genesis]]'', a 10,000-line [[Epic poetry|epic poem]] written in [[iambic pentameter]], and [[Ian McDonald (British author)|Ian McDonald]] combined terraforming with [[Magic realism|magical realism]] in the 1988 novel ''[[Desolation Road]]''.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="MarkleyTransformingMars" /><ref name="CrossleyMarsRemade" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Walton |first=Jo |author-link=Jo Walton |date=2009-12-21 |title=Magical Realist Mars: Ian McDonald's ''Desolation Road'' |url=https://www.tor.com/2009/12/21/magical-realist-mars-ian-mcdonalds-lemgdesolation-roadlemg/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151007020647/https://www.tor.com/2009/12/21/magical-realist-mars-ian-mcdonalds-lemgdesolation-roadlemg/ |archive-date=2015-10-07 |access-date=2022-08-23 |website=[[Tor.com]] |language=en-US}}</ref>

By the 1990s, terraforming had become the predominant theme in Martian fiction.<ref name="SFEMars" /> Several methods for accomplishing it were depicted, including ancient alien artefacts in the 1990 film ''Total Recall'' and the 1997 novel ''[[Mars Underground (novel)|Mars Underground]]'' by [[William Kenneth Hartmann]],<ref name="GreenwoodMars" /><ref name="MarkleyTransformingMars" /> utilizing indigenous animal lifeforms in the 1991 novel ''[[Martian Rainbow]]''<!-- Crossley mistakenly gives the title as "The Martian Rainbow" --> by [[Robert L. Forward]],<ref name="CrossleyScientificAdvances" /> and relocating the entire planet to a new [[Planetary system|solar system]] in the 1993 novel ''[[Moving Mars]]'' by [[Greg Bear]].<ref name="GreenwoodMars" /><ref name="CrossleyBeingThere">{{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=265–268, 271, 277, 279–283 |language=en |chapter=Being There |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3TDEDfEPdEC&pg=PA271}}</ref> The 1993 novel ''[[Red Dust (McAuley novel)|Red Dust]]'' by [[Paul J. McAuley]] portrays Mars in the process of reverting to its natural state after an abandoned attempt at terraforming it.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="Baxter" /><ref name="CrossleyScientificAdvances" /> With a Mars settled primarily by China, ''Red Dust'' also belongs to a tradition of portraying a multicultural Mars that developed parallel to the rise to prominence of the terraforming theme. Other such works include the 1989 novel ''[[Crescent in the Sky]]'' by [[Donald Moffitt]], where Arabs apply their experience with surviving in desert conditions to living in their new [[caliphate]] on a partially terraformed Mars, and the 1991 novel ''[[The Martian Viking]]'' by [[Tim Sullivan (writer)|Tim Sullivan]] where Mars is terraformed by [[Geats]] led by [[Hygelac]].<ref name="Baxter" /><ref name="MarkleyTransformingMars" /><ref name="CrossleyMarsRemade" />

The most prominent work of fiction dealing with the subject of terraforming Mars is the [[Mars trilogy|''Mars'' trilogy]] by Kim Stanley Robinson (consisting of the novels ''Red Mars'' from 1992, ''Green Mars'' from 1993, and ''Blue Mars'' from 1996),<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="WestfahlMars" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /> a [[hard science fiction]] story of a [[United Nations]] project wherein 100 carefully selected scientists are sent to Mars to start the first settlement there.<ref name="MammothPlanets" /><ref name="CrossleyBecomingMartian" /> The series explores in depth the practical and ideological considerations involved, the principal one being whether to turn Mars "Green" by terraforming or keep it in its pristine "Red" state.<ref name="MarkleyFallingIntoTheory" /><ref name="CrossleyBecomingMartian" /> Other major topics besides the [[ethics of terraforming]] include the social and economic organization of the emerging Martian society and its political relationship to Earth and the [[Multinational corporation|multinational]] economic interests that finance the mission, revisiting the earlier themes of Mars as a setting for utopia—albeit in this case one in the making rather than a pre-existing one—and Martian struggle for independence from Earth.<ref name="TheNewMartianNovel" /><ref name="MarkleyFallingIntoTheory" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Blackford |first=Russell |title=Science Fiction and the Moral Imagination: Visions, Minds, Ethics |date=2017 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-319-61685-8 |series=Science and Fiction |pages=187 |language=en |chapter=Conclusion: Great Power and Great Responsibility |quote=At the same time as they attempt to settle this debate, the colonists have to sort out the political relationship between their new home and Earth. |author-link=Russell Blackford |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jlU0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA187}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Franko |first=Carol |title=A Companion to Science Fiction |date=2005 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-0-470-79701-3 |editor-last=Seed |editor-first=David |editor-link=<!-- No article at present (April 2024); Wikidata Q112491049 --> |pages=544–555 |language=en |chapter=Kim Stanley Robinson: Mars Trilogy |quote=Meanwhile, two recurring themes in SF treating Mars is that of Mars as a locale for building Utopia (James 1996: 64–75) and of Martian societies gaining independence from Earth (Baxter 1996: 8–9). |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PiphRocVYRwC&pg=PA544}}</ref> 

Alternatives to terraforming have also been explored. The opposite approach of modifying humans to adapt them to the existing environment, known as [[pantropy]], appears in the 1976 novel ''[[Man Plus]]'' by [[Frederik Pohl]] but has otherwise been sparsely depicted.<ref name="GreenwoodMars" /><ref name="MammothPlanets">{{Cite book |last=Mann |first=George |title=The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |date=2001 |publisher=Carroll & Graf Publishers |isbn=978-0-7867-0887-1 |pages=498 |language=en |chapter=Planets |author-link=George Mann (writer) |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/mammothencyclope00mann/page/498/mode/2up}}</ref> The conflict between pantropy and terraforming is explored in the 1994 novel ''[[Climbing Olympus]]'' by [[Kevin J. Anderson]], as the humans that have been "areoformed" to survive on Mars do not wish the planet to be altered to accommodate unmodified humans at their expense.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="CrossleyBecomingMartian">{{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=284–306 |language=en |chapter=Becoming Martian |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3TDEDfEPdEC&pg=PA284}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Buker |first=Derek M. |title=The Science Fiction and Fantasy Readers' Advisory: The Librarian's Guide to Cyborgs, Aliens, and Sorcerers |date=2002 |publisher=[[American Library Association]] |isbn=978-0-8389-0831-0 |pages=26 |chapter=Mars |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/sciencefictionfa00buke_0/page/26/mode/2up}}</ref> Other works where terraforming is eschewed in favour of alternatives include the 1996 novel ''[[River of Dust]]'' by [[Alexander Jablokov]], where the settlers create a liveable environment by burrowing underground,<ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Di Filippo |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Di Filippo |date=October–November 1996 |editor-last=Dozois |editor-first=Gardner |editor-link=Gardner Dozois |title=Intruders in the Dust |url=https://archive.org/details/asimovs-v-20-n-10-11-1996-10-11/page/283/mode/2up |magazine=[[Asimov's Science Fiction]] |volume=20 |issue=10/11 #250/251 |pages=283–284 |issn=1065-2698}}</ref> and the 1999 novel ''[[White Mars, or, The Mind Set Free: A 21st-Century Utopia]]'' by [[Brian Aldiss]] and [[Roger Penrose]] where [[environmental preservation]] is prioritized and humans live in domed cities.<ref name="CrossleyBecomingMartian" />

=== Robinsonades ===
Martian [[robinsonade]]s—stories of [[astronaut]]s stranded on Mars—emerged in the 1950s with works such as the 1952 novel ''[[Marooned on Mars]]'' by Lester del Rey, the 1956 novel ''[[No Man Friday]]'' by [[Rex Gordon]], and the 1959 short story "[[The Man Who Lost the Sea]]" by [[Theodore Sturgeon]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /> Crossley writes that ''No Man Friday'' is in some respects an "anti-robinsonade", inasmuch as it rejects the underlying colonialist attitudes and portrays the Martians as more advanced than humans rather than less.<ref name="CrossleyThreshold" /> Robinsonades remained popular throughout the 1960s; examples include the 1966 novel ''[[Welcome to Mars]]'' by [[James Blish]] and the 1964 film ''[[Robinson Crusoe on Mars]]'', the latter being significantly if unofficially based on ''No Man Friday''.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="GreenwoodMars" /> The subgenre was later revisited with the 2011 novel ''[[The Martian (Weir novel)|The Martian]]'' by [[Andy Weir]] and its [[The Martian (film)|2015 film adaptation]],<ref name="WestfahlMars" /> in which an astronaut accidentally left behind by the third mission to Mars uses the resources available to him to survive until such a time that he can be rescued.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Miller |first=Thomas Kent |title=Mars in the Movies: A History |date=2016 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-2626-0 |pages=126–128 |language=en |chapter=''The Martian'' (2015) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y7R5DQAAQBAJ&pg=PT136}}</ref>

== 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>

== First landings and near-future human presence ==
Stories about the first [[human mission to Mars]] became popular after US president [[George H. W. Bush]] announced the [[Space Exploration Initiative]] in 1989, which proposed to accomplish this feat by 2019,<ref name="SFEMars" /> though the concept had earlier appeared indirectly in the 1977 film ''[[Capricorn One]]'', wherein [[NASA]] fakes the Mars landing.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="HotakainenMarsFiction" /><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2021 |title=Capricorn One |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/capricorn_one |access-date=2022-04-26 |edition=4th |author1-last=Brosnan |author1-first=John |author1-link=John Brosnan |author2-last=Nicholls |author2-first=Peter |author2-link=Peter Nicholls (writer) |author3-last=Langford |author3-first=David |author3-link=David Langford |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}</ref> Among these are the 1992 novel ''[[Beachhead (novel)|Beachhead]]'' by [[Jack Williamson]] and the 1992 novel ''[[Mars (Bova novel)|Mars]]'' in [[Ben Bova]]'s [[Grand Tour (novel series)|''Grand Tour'' series]],<ref name="SFEMars" /> both of which emphasize the barrenness of the Martian landscape upon arrival and contrast it with a desire to find beauty there.<ref name="TheNewMartianNovel" /> The idea was spoofed in the 1990 novel ''[[Voyage to the Red Planet]]'' by [[Terry Bisson]], which posits that a mission like that could only get funding by being turned into a movie.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="StablefordMars" /><ref name="CrossleyBeingThere" /><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2022 |title=Bisson, Terry |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/bisson_terry |access-date=2023-07-15 |edition=4th |author1-last=Clute |author1-first=John |author1-link=John Clute |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}</ref> Stephen Baxter's 1996 novel ''[[Voyage (novel)|Voyage]]'' depicts an [[alternate history]] where US president [[John F. Kennedy]] was not [[Assassination of John F. Kennedy|assassinated in 1963]], ultimately leading to the first Mars landing happening in 1986.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="MarkleyTransformingMars">{{Cite book |last=Markley |first=Robert |title=Dying Planet: Mars in Science and the Imagination |date=2005 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-8727-5 |pages=269–270, 272, 276–277, 288–290, 293–297, 299 |language=en |chapter=Transforming Mars, Transforming "Man": Science Fiction in the Space Age |quote=By the early 1950s, scientific assessments of Mars had made the colonization of an earthlike twin seem unlikely. Although the composition of the atmosphere would not be understood until the Mariner era, best-guess estimates of available water and oxygen placed the inventories of those resources far below what would be necessary to sustain human life. |author-link=Robert Markley |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=loalUL6vakoC&pg=PA288}}</ref><ref name="SFEBaxter">{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2023<!-- 25 September --> |title=Baxter, Stephen |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/baxter_stephen |access-date=2023-12-03 |edition=4th |author1-last=Clute |author1-first=John |author1-link=John Clute |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=D'Ammassa |first=Don |title=Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |date=2005 |publisher=Facts On File |isbn=978-0-8160-5924-9 |pages=29 |language=en |chapter=Baxter, Stephen |author-link=Don D'Ammassa |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofsc0000damm/page/29/mode/2up}}</ref> The 1999 novel ''The Martian Race'' by Gregory Benford adapts the [[Mars Direct]] proposal by [[aerospace engineer]] [[Robert Zubrin]] to fiction by depicting a [[private sector]] competition to conduct the first crewed Mars landing with a large monetary reward attached. Zubrin would later write a story of his own along the same lines: the 2001 novel ''[[First Landing]]''.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="CrossleyBeingThere" /> In a variation on the theme, [[Ian McDonald (British author)|Ian McDonald]]'s 2002 short story "[[The Old Cosmonaut and the Construction Worker Dream of Mars]]" (included in the aforementioned anthology ''Mars Probes'') portrays the lingering yearning for Mars in a future where the intended first Mars landing was cancelled and the era of space exploration has come to an end without the dream of a human mission to Mars ever being realized.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="CrossleyMarsUnderConstruction">{{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=307–309 |language=en |chapter=Mars under Construction |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3TDEDfEPdEC&pg=PA307}}</ref>

Beyond the events of the first crewed landing on Mars, this time period also saw an increase in portrayals of the early stages of exploration and settlement happening in the near future, especially following the 1996 launches of the ''[[Mars Pathfinder]]'' and ''[[Mars Global Surveyor]]'' probes.<ref name="SFEMars" /> In the 1991 novel ''[[Red Genesis]]'' by {{Interlanguage link|S. C. Sykes|qid=Q1253960}}, settlement of Mars begins in 2015, though the bulk of the narrative is set decades later and focuses on the social—rather than technical—challenges of the project.<ref name="CrossleyBeingThere" /> The 1997 novel ''Mars Underground'' by William K. Hartmann also deals with the early efforts of establishing a permanent human presence on the red planet.<ref name="SFEMars" /> The members of the third human mission to Mars are forced to trek across the planet's surface in the 2000 novel ''[[Mars Crossing]]'' by [[Geoffrey A. Landis]] to reach a return vehicle from a previous mission after theirs is damaged beyond repair.<ref name="CrossleyBeingThere" />

== In the new millennium ==
{{Quote box|quote=[Mars] offers an accessible and somewhat-known-but-somewhat-mysterious setting for all kinds of imaginative storylines. For this reason, video games love using Mars-related maps or themes – colonisation, space travel, dying and dystopian societies, scientific research settlements gone wrong, cosmic war, aliens, the unknown. |author=Nicky Jenner |source=''4th Rock from the Sun: The Story of Mars''<ref name="JennerMarvin" /> |width=400px}}
In the year 2000, Westfahl estimated the total number of works of fiction dealing with Mars up to that point to exceed five thousand<!-- "During one month, employing only standard references and searchable Internet databases, I managed, without really working up a sweat, to compile a bibliography of almost 1,100 novels, stories, poems, plays, films, and television programs that featured Mars and/or Martians in some fashion; should I continue the project, I have little doubt that I could eventually come up with 5,000 relevant items." – Westfahl, 2000 -->.<ref name="ReadingMars" /> Depictions of Mars have remained common since then, though without a clear overarching trend—rather, says ''[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]]'', Mars fiction has "ramified in several directions".<ref name="SFEMars" /> [[Monster movie]]s set on Mars have appeared throughout this time period including the 2001 film ''[[Ghosts of Mars]]'', the 2005 film ''[[Doom (film)|Doom]]'' (based on [[Doom (franchise)|the video game franchise]]), and the 2013 film ''[[The Last Days on Mars]]''.<ref name="HistoricalDictionaryOfScienceFictionCinemaMars">{{Cite book |last=Booker |first=M. Keith |title=Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Cinema |date=2020 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-5381-3010-0 |edition=Second |pages=274–276 |language=en |chapter=Mars |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_C_YDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA274}}</ref> In the 2003 novel ''[[Ilium (novel)|Ilium]]'' by [[Dan Simmons]] and its 2005 sequel ''[[Olympos (novel)|Olympos]]'', the [[Trojan War]] is reenacted on Mars,<ref name="CrossleyAlternativeVisions" /> and the 2011 animated film ''[[Mars Needs Moms]]'' revisits the older theme of evil Martians coming to Earth, though with more modest ambitions than launching an all-out invasion.<ref name="ReadingMars" /> The 2011–2021 novel series ''[[The Expanse (novel series)|The Expanse]]'' by [[James S. A. Corey]] (joint pseudonym of [[Daniel Abraham (author)|Daniel Abraham]] and [[Ty Franck]]), starting with ''[[Leviathan Wakes]]'', is a [[space opera]] set in part on Mars that was originally based on a [[role-playing game]] and later adapted to [[The Expanse (TV series)|a television series starting in 2015]].<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref>{{multiref2|{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2023<!-- 24 july --> |title=Abraham, Daniel |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/abraham_daniel |access-date=2023-09-02 |edition=4th |author1-last=Langford |author1-first=David |author1-link=David Langford |author2-last=Clute |author2-first=John |author2-link=John Clute |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}|{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2022 |title=Franck, Tyler Corey |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/franck_tyler_corey |access-date=2023-09-02 |edition=4th |author1-last=Clute |author1-first=John |author1-link=John Clute |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}}}</ref> [[Tom Chmielewski]]'s 2014 novel ''[[Lunar Dust, Martian Sands]]'' is a piece of [[noir fiction]] set partially on Mars.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=2022 |title=Chmielewski, Tom |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/chmielewski_tom |access-date=2023-05-19 |edition=4th |author1-last=Langford |author1-first=David |author1-link=David Langford |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight}}</ref> ''The Martian''—book and film—is [[hard science fiction]]; the film adaptation was described by the production team as being "as much science fact as science fiction".<ref name="JennerDeathStars" /> The 100th anniversary of Burroughs's ''A Princess of Mars'' in 2012 saw the release of both the film adaptation ''[[John Carter (film)|John Carter]]'' and an anthology of new ''[[Barsoom]]'' fiction: ''[[Under the Moons of Mars: New Adventures on Barsoom]]'' edited by [[John Joseph Adams]].<ref name="SFEMars" /> In [[Polish science fiction]], [[Rafał Kosik]]'s 2003 novel ''{{ill|Mars (Kosik novel)|lt=Mars|pl|Mars (powieść)}}'' depicts people migrating to Mars to escape an Earth ravaged by [[overpopulation]], and an anthology of short stories titled ''Mars: Antologia polskiej fantastyki'' (''Mars: An Anthology of Polish Fantasy'') was published in 2021.<ref name="MarsAntologiaPolskiejFantastyki" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Smolik |first=Bartosz |date=2017 |title=Wizje podboju Marsa. Od literackiej dystopii do kluczowych decyzji politycznych |trans-title=The Vision of Conquering Mars. From Literary Dystopia to Key Political Decisions |url=https://studiapolitologica.up.krakow.pl/article/view/4502/4230 |journal=Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis. Studia Politologica |language=pl |volume=18 |issue=247 |pages=123 |doi=10.24917/20813333.18.10 |s2cid=240170651 |issn=2081-3333|doi-access=free }}</ref> Mars has also made frequent appearances in [[video game]]s; examples include the 2001 game ''[[Red Faction (video game)|Red Faction]]'' which is set on Mars and the 2014 game ''[[Destiny (video game)|Destiny]]'' where Mars is an [[Unlockable (gaming)|unlockable]] setting.<ref name="JennerMarvin" /> In addition, Mars continues to make regular appearances in stories where it is not the main focus, such as [[Joe Haldeman]]'s 2008 novel ''[[Marsbound]]''.<ref name="SFEMars" /><ref name="MarsAntologiaPolskiejFantastyki">{{Cite book |last=Sedeńko |first=Wojtek |title=Mars: Antologia polskiej fantastyki |date=2021 |publisher=Stalker Books |isbn=978-83-66280-71-7 |editor-last=Sedeńko |editor-first=Wojtek |pages=<!-- ??? --> |language=pl |trans-title=Mars: An Anthology of Polish Fantasy |chapter=Przedmowa |trans-chapter=Foreword}}</ref> Says Crossley, "Where imagined Mars will go as the twenty-first century unfolds cannot be prophesied, because—undoubtedly—improbable, original, and masterful talents will work new variations on the matter of Mars."<ref name="CrossleyMarsUnderConstruction" />

== Moons ==
[[File:Laputa - Grandville.jpg|alt=An illustration of the floating island Laputa in Gulliver's Travels|thumb|The [[Floating cities and islands in fiction|flying island]] of [[Laputa]] in ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]''. The mention that its astronomers have discovered two [[Martian moons]] is their earliest appearance in fiction.]]
[[Moons of Mars|Mars has two small moons]], [[Phobos (moon)|Phobos]] and [[Deimos (moon)|Deimos]], which were both discovered by [[Asaph Hall]] in 1877.<ref name="StablefordMars" /> The first appearance of the moons of Mars in fiction predates their discovery by a century and a half; the satirical 1726 novel ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'' by [[Jonathan Swift]] includes a mention that the advanced astronomers of [[Laputa]] have discovered two Martian moons.{{Efn|See {{section link|Moons of Mars|Jonathan Swift}} for further details.}}<ref name="JennerDeathStars" /><ref name="SheehanMars">{{Cite book |last=Sheehan |first=William |title=The Planet Mars: A History of Observation & Discovery |date=1996 |publisher=University of Arizona Press |isbn=978-0-8165-1641-4 |pages=204–205 |language=en |chapter=The Hurtling Moons of Mars |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qSy6Hhbpjw4C&pg=PA204}}</ref> The 1752 work ''[[Micromégas]]''<!-- No English title --> by [[Voltaire]] likewise mentions two moons of Mars; [[History of astronomy|astronomy historian]] {{Interlanguage link|William Sheehan (astronomer)|lt=William Sheehan|qid=Q111504276}} surmises that Voltaire was inspired by Swift.<ref name="SheehanMars" /> German astronomer {{Interlanguage link|Eberhard Christian Kindermann|de}}, mistakenly believing that he had discovered a Martian moon, described a fictional voyage to it in the 1744 story "[[Die Geschwinde Reise]]"<!-- Ashley mistakenly gives the title as "Der Geschwinde Reise". --> ("The Speedy Journey").<ref name="AshleyLostMars" />

The moons' small sizes have made them unpopular settings in science fiction,{{Efn|In the catalogue of [[early science fiction]] works compiled by [[E. F. Bleiler]] and [[Richard Bleiler]] in the [[reference work]]s ''[[Science-Fiction: The Early Years]]'' from 1990 and ''[[Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years]]'' from 1998, the Martian moons only appear in 8<!-- listed together --> (out of 2,475) and 11<!-- 5 for Deimos and 7 for Phobos, with 1 in common --> (out of 1,835) works respectively,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bleiler |first=Everett Franklin |title=[[Science-Fiction: The Early Years|Science-fiction, the Early Years: A Full Description of More Than 3,000 Science-fiction Stories from Earliest Times to the Appearance of the Genre Magazines in 1930: with Author, Title, and Motif Indexes]] |date=1990 |publisher=Kent State University Press |others=With the assistance of [[Richard Bleiler|Richard J. Bleiler]] |isbn=978-0-87338-416-2 |pages=907 |language=en |chapter=Motif and Theme Index |author-link=E. F. Bleiler |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KEZxhkG5eikC&pg=PA907}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Bleiler |first1=Everett Franklin |title=[[Science-fiction: The Gernsback Years : a Complete Coverage of the Genre Magazines ... from 1926 Through 1936]] |last2=Bleiler |first2=Richard |date=1998 |publisher=Kent State University Press |isbn=978-0-87338-604-3 |pages=632, 674 |language=en |chapter=Motif and Theme Index |author-link=E. F. Bleiler |author-link2=Richard Bleiler |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PbMdeizaCNcC&pg=PA632}}</ref> compared to 194 for Mars itself and 131 for Venus in ''The Gernsback Years'' alone.<ref name="Westfahl2022Venus" />}} with some exceptions such as the 1955 novel ''[[Phobos, the Robot Planet]]'' by [[Paul Capon]] and the 2001 short story "[[Romance with Phobic Variations]]" by [[Tom Purdom]] in the case of Phobos, and the 1936 short story "Crystals of Madness" by [[D. L. James]] in the case of Deimos.<ref name="StablefordMars" /> Phobos is turned into a small [[star]] to provide heat and light to Mars in the 1951 novel ''The Sands of Mars'' by Arthur C. Clarke.<ref name="HotakainenMarsFiction" /> The moons are revealed to be alien spacecraft in the 1955 [[juvenile novel]] ''[[The Secret of the Martian Moons]]'' by [[Donald A. Wollheim]].<ref name="MarkleyLimitsOfImagination" />

==See also==
* [[Mars in culture]]
* [[List of films set on Mars]]
* {{annotated link|Great Science Fiction Stories About Mars|''Great Science Fiction Stories About Mars''}}
{{clear}}

==Notes==
{{Notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
{{Commons category}}
<!-- Includes sources cited in the article per MOS:FURTHER, since "the References section is too long for a reader to use as part of a general reading list" -->
;Books
* {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HQGfEAAAQBAJ |title=The Book of Mars: An Anthology of Fact and Fiction |date=2022 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-80110-929-1 |editor-last=Clark |editor-first=Stuart |editor-link=Stuart Clark (author) |language=en |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Crossley |first=Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3TDEDfEPdEC |title=Imagining Mars: A Literary History |date=2011 |publisher=Wesleyan University Press |isbn=978-0-8195-6927-1 |pages= |language=en |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XjIglebU6CIC |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= |language=en |editor-last2=Slusser |editor-first2=George |editor-link2=George Slusser |editor-last3=Rabkin |editor-first3=Eric S. |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Jenner |first=Nicky |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=od7oDAAAQBAJ |title=4th Rock from the Sun: The Story of Mars |date=2017 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4729-2251-9 |pages= |language=en |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Markley |first=Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=loalUL6vakoC |title=Dying Planet: Mars in Science and the Imagination |date=2005 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-8727-5 |pages= |language=en |author-link=Robert Markley |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=May |first=Andrew |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZKTRDgAAQBAJ |title=Destination Mars: The Story of our Quest to Conquer the Red Planet |date=2017 |publisher=Icon Books |isbn=978-1-78578-226-8 |language=en |author-link=<!-- No article at present (May 2023); Ph.D. in astrophysics from Manchester University; not one of the people listed at [[Andrew May]] --> |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Miller |first=Thomas Kent |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y7R5DQAAQBAJ |title=Mars in the Movies: A History |date=2016 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-2626-0 |pages= |language=en |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Morton |first=Oliver |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7Hs4_2pXRlwC |title=Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination and the Birth of a World |date=2012 |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers |isbn=978-0-00-739705-1 |language=en |author-link=Oliver Morton (science writer) |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Rabkin |first=Eric S. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a2QP30zybNkC |title=Mars: A Tour of the Human Imagination |date=2005 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-275-98719-0 |language=en |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Shindell |first=Matthew |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qSi4EAAAQBAJ |title=For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet |date=2023 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0226821894 |language=en |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Stanley |first1=O'Brien |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8_ljDwAAQBAJ |title=Martian Pictures: Analyzing the Cinema of the Red Planet |last2=Michalski |first2=Nicki L. |last3=Roth |first3=Lane "Doc" |last4=Zani |first4=Steven J. |date=2018 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-3170-7 |language=en |ref=none}}

;Encyclopedia entries
* {{Cite encyclopedia |year=2024<!-- 6 May --> |title=Mars |encyclopedia=[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]] |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mars |access-date=2023-05-09 |edition=4th |author1-last=Killheffer |author1-first=Robert K. J. |author2-last=Stableford |author2-first=Brian |author2-link=Brian Stableford |author3-last=Langford |author3-first=David |author3-link=David Langford |editor1-last=Clute |editor1-first=John |editor1-link=John Clute |editor2-last=Langford |editor2-first=David |editor2-link=David Langford |editor3-last=Sleight |editor3-first=Graham |editor3-link=Graham Sleight |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Stableford |first=Brian |title=[[Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia]] |date=2006 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-0-415-97460-8 |pages=281–284 |language=en |chapter=Mars |author-link=Brian Stableford |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uefwmdROKTAC&pg=PA281 |ref=none}}
* {{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=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Westfahl |first=Gary |title=[[Science Fiction Literature through History: An Encyclopedia]] |date=2021 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-4408-6617-3 |pages=427–430 |language=en |chapter=Mars and Martians |author-link=Gary Westfahl |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WETPEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA427 |ref=none}}

;Essays, articles, and book chapters
* {{Cite book |last=Ashley |first=Mike |title=Lost Mars: Stories from the Golden Age of the Red Planet |date=2018 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-57508-7 |editor-last=Ashley |editor-first=Mike |editor-link=Mike Ashley (writer) |pages=7–26 |language=en |chapter=Introduction |author-link=Mike Ashley (writer) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hOl3DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA7 |ref=none}} <!-- Also available at https://lithub.com/a-brief-history-of-sci-fis-love-affair-with-the-red-planet/?single=true -->
* {{Cite journal |last=Bakoš |first=Juraj |author-link=<!-- No article at present (July 2023); does not appear to be the same person as [[Juraj Bakoš]] --> |date=2016 |editor-last=Suk |editor-first=Jan |title=Northrop Frye Flies to Mars: Theory of Modes across Martian Fiction |url=http://pdf2.uhk.cz/hkjas/pi/pdf/vol3nr1_2016.pdf#page=20 |journal=Hradec Králové Journal of Anglophone Studies |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=20–25 |issn=2336-3347 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite web |last=Ballero |first=Silvia Kuno |date=2018-07-31 |title=Visioni di Marte |trans-title=Visions of Mars |url=https://www.iltascabile.com/scienze/visioni-di-marte/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230201124109/https://www.iltascabile.com/scienze/visioni-di-marte/ |archive-date=2023-02-01 |access-date=2023-05-19 |website={{interlanguage link|Il Tascabile|it}} |language=it-IT |ref=none}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Baxter |first=Stephen |author-link=Stephen Baxter (author) |date=Autumn 1996 |title=Martian Chronicles: Narratives of Mars in Science and SF |magazine=[[Foundation (journal)|Foundation]] |publisher=[[Science Fiction Foundation]] |issue=68 |pages=5–16 |issn=0306-4964 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Booker |first=M. Keith |title=Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Cinema |date=2020 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-5381-3010-0 |edition=Second |pages=274–276 |language=en |chapter=Mars |ref=none |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_C_YDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA274}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Calanchi |first=Alessandra |date=2022 |title=Out of Exception, Into Emergency: Fast-forward to Earth Zero |url=https://www.aisna.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Calanchi.pdf |journal=RSA Journal |publisher=AISNA |issue=33 |pages=29–46 |oclc=742528412 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Cambias |first=James L. |title=GURPS Mars |date=2002 |publisher=[[Steve Jackson Games]] |isbn=978-1-55634-534-0 |pages=5–12 |language=en |chapter=Mars Observed |author-link=James Cambias |ref=none}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Crossley |first=Robert |date=Winter 2004 |title=H. G. Wells, Visionary Telescopes, and the 'Matter of Mars' |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/211162206 |journal=[[Philological Quarterly]] |publisher=[[University of Iowa]] |issue=1 |pages=83–114 |volume=83|issn=0031-7977 |id={{ProQuest|211162206}} |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Crossley |first=Robert |title=Histories of the Future: Studies in Fact, Fantasy and Science Fiction |date=2000 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-4039-1929-8 |editor-last=Sandison |editor-first=Alan |pages=152–167 |language=en |chapter=Sign, Symbol, Power: The New Martian Novel |editor-last2=Dingley |editor-first2=Robert |editor-link2=<!-- No article at present (June 2022); Senior Lecturer in English at the University of New England, NSW --> |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0p0YDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA152 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite magazine |last=Crossley |first=Robert |date=August 2012 |title=Why Earthlings Are Attracted to Mars |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/why-mars-4081563/ |url-status=live |magazine=[[Smithsonian Magazine]] |issn=0037-7333 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230129221250/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/why-mars-4081563/ |archive-date=2023-01-29 |access-date=2023-09-02 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite web |last=Fayter |first=Paul |date=2013 |title='Some Eden Lost in Space': The wider contexts of Frederick Philip Grove's 'The Legend of the Planet Mars' (1915) |url=https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/23227/1/SF2013_McMaster_Fayter_P.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200318093501/https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/23227/1/SF2013_McMaster_Fayter_P.pdf |archive-date=2020-03-18 |series=Science Fiction: The Interdisciplinary Genre |publisher=[[McMaster University]] |ref=none}}
* {{Cite web |last=Fraknoi |first=Andrew |author-link=Andrew Fraknoi |date=January 2024 |title=Science Fiction Stories with Good Astronomy & Physics: A Topical Index |url=https://astrosociety.org/file_download/inline/7b5edc23-7a89-46c1-a6b3-33a30ed4c876 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240210011957/https://astrosociety.org/file_download/inline/7b5edc23-7a89-46c1-a6b3-33a30ed4c876 |archive-date=2024-02-10 |archive-format=PDF |access-date=2024-03-23 |website=[[Astronomical Society of the Pacific]] |pages=11–12 |format=PDF |edition=7.3 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Hartzman |first=Marc |title=The Big Book of Mars: From Ancient Egypt to The Martian, A Deep-Space Dive into Our Obsession with the Red Planet |date=2020 |publisher=Quirk Books |isbn=978-1-68369-210-2 |pages=148–201 |language=en |chapter=Mars Invades Pop Culture |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4W-2DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA157 |ref=none}}
* {{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=201–216 |language=en |chapter=Little Green Persons |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sPs3S5TYOEMC&pg=PA201 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite news |last=Laskow |first=Sarah |date=2016-01-05 |title=A Short History of Martians |language=en-US |work=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]] |url=https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/01/how-humans-have-imagined-martians-and-mars-in-literature-and-other-media-since-the-late-19th-century.html |url-status=live |access-date=2023-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230330092820/https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/01/how-humans-have-imagined-martians-and-mars-in-literature-and-other-media-since-the-late-19th-century.html |archive-date=2023-03-30 |issn=1091-2339 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite magazine |last=Liptak |first=Andrew |date=May 2015 |title=Destination: Mars |url=https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/liptak_05_15/ |magazine=[[Clarkesworld Magazine]] |issue=104 |issn=1937-7843 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite journal |last1=Lockard |first1=Joe |last2=Goggin |first2=Peter |author-link2=<!-- No article at present (May 2023); not the same person as [[Peter Goggin]] --> |date=2023 |title=Teaching Mars Literature |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11191-022-00333-3 |journal=[[Science & Education]] |language=en |volume=32 |issue=3 |pages=821–844 |doi=10.1007/s11191-022-00333-3 |bibcode=2023Sc&Ed..32..821L |s2cid=247847200 |issn=1573-1901 |ref=none}}
* {{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=1–11 |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/1/mode/2up <!-- Also available at https://books.google.com/books?id=ACtmCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT6, though without proper pagination --> |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Mlejnek |first=Josef |title=Historik mezi politology |date=2022 |publisher=Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press |isbn=978-80-246-4995-5 |editor-last=Říchová |editor-first=Blanka |editor-link=<!-- No article at present (July 2023); not the same person as [[Blanka Říhová]] --> |pages=207–219 |language=cs |trans-title=A Historian among Political Scientists<!-- machine-translated from the original --> |chapter=Kráska z Marsu: Příspěvek k tématu extraterestriálních politických systémů |trans-chapter=A Beauty from Mars: A Contribution to the Subject of Extraterrestrial Political Systems<!-- machine-translated from the original --> |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KS9yEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA207 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Morrissey |first=Thomas J. |author-link=<!-- No article at present (March 2023) --> |date=2000 |title=Ready or Not, Here We Come: Metaphors of the Martian Megatext from Wells to Robinson |url= |journal=[[Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts]] |volume=10 |issue=4 (40) |pages=372–394 |issn=0897-0521 |jstor=43308403 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite magazine |last=Moskowitz |first=Sam |author-link=Sam Moskowitz |date=February 1960 |editor-last=Santesson |editor-first=Hans Stefan |editor-link=Hans Stefan Santesson |title=To Mars And Venus in the Gay Nineties |url=https://archive.org/details/Fantastic_Universe_v12n04_1960-02/page/n45/mode/2up |magazine=[[Fantastic Universe]] |volume=12 |issue=4 |pages=44–55 |id=[https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?18631 ISFDB series #18631] |ref=none}}
* {{Cite journal |last1=O'Brien |first1=Stanley |last2=Michalski |first2=Nicki L. |last3=Stanley |first3=Ruth J. H. |date=March 2012 |title=Are There Tea Parties on Mars? Business and Politics in Science Fiction Films |url=https://www.academia.edu/4903396 |url-status=live |journal=Journal of Literature and Art Studies |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=382–396 |issn=2159-5836 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230901154557/https://www.academia.edu/4903396/Are_There_Tea_Parties_on_Mars_Business_and_Politics_in_Science_Fiction_Films |archive-date=2023-09-01 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite web |last=Proietti |first=Salvatore |date=2004-03-20 |title=America marziana |trans-title=Martian America |url=https://www.fantascienza.com/6657/america-marziana |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210623153312/https://www.fantascienza.com/6657/america-marziana |archive-date=2021-06-23 |access-date=2023-06-19 |website={{interlanguage link|Fantascienza.com|it}} |language=it |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Sedeńko |first=Wojtek |title=Mars: Antologia polskiej fantastyki |date=2021 |publisher=Stalker Books |isbn=978-83-66280-71-7 |editor-last=Sedeńko |editor-first=Wojtek |pages=<!-- ??? --> |language=pl |trans-title=Mars: An Anthology of Polish Fantasy |chapter=Przedmowa |trans-chapter=Foreword |ref=none}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Smolik |first=Bartosz |date=2017 |title=Wizje podboju Marsa. Od literackiej dystopii do kluczowych decyzji politycznych |trans-title=The Vision of Conquering Mars. From Literary Dystopia to Key Political Decisions |url=https://studiapolitologica.up.krakow.pl/article/view/4502/4230 |url-status=live |journal=Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis. Studia Politologica |language=pl |volume=18 |issue=247 |pages=121–123 |doi=10.24917/20813333.18.10 |s2cid=240170651 |issn=2081-3333 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210716101045/https://studiapolitologica.up.krakow.pl/article/download/4502/4230 |archive-date=2021-07-16 |ref=none |doi-access=free}}
* {{Cite web |last=Stanway |first=Elizabeth |author-link=<!-- No article at present (July 2024); Stanway is an astrophysicist at the University of Warwick who has been published in [[Foundation (journal)]], among others (see https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/astro/people/stanway/sciencefiction); Wikidata Q127710708 --> |date=2022-01-09 |title=Survival on Mars |url=https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/astro/people/stanway/sciencefiction/cosmicstories/survival_on_mars |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240228183805/https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/astro/people/stanway/sciencefiction/cosmicstories/survival_on_mars/ |archive-date=2024-02-28 |access-date=2024-03-26 |website=[[Warwick University]] |series=Cosmic Stories Blog |ref=none}}
* {{Cite web |last=Stanway |first=Elizabeth |author-link=<!-- No article at present (July 2024); Stanway is an astrophysicist at the University of Warwick who has been published in [[Foundation (journal)]], among others (see https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/astro/people/stanway/sciencefiction); Wikidata Q127710708 --> |date=2023-02-26 |title=We are the Martians |url=https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/astro/people/stanway/sciencefiction/cosmicstories/we_are_the |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230402120633/https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/astro/people/stanway/sciencefiction/cosmicstories/we_are_the/ |archive-date=2023-04-02 |access-date=2024-03-26 |website=[[Warwick University]] |series=Cosmic Stories Blog |ref=none}}
* {{Cite magazine |last=Webster |first=Bud |author-link=Bud Webster |date=2006-07-01 |title=Mars — the Amply Read Planet |url=http://www.philsp.com/articles/pastmasters_01.html |url-status=live |magazine=[[Helix SF]] |id=[https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?32655 ISFDB series #32655] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211004211726/http://www.philsp.com/articles/pastmasters_01.html |archive-date=2021-10-04 |access-date=2022-06-21 |ref=none}}
* {{cite magazine |last=Westfahl |first=Gary |author-link=Gary Westfahl |date=December 2000 |title=Reading Mars: Changing Images of Mars in Twentieth-Century Science Fiction |magazine=[[The New York Review of Science Fiction]] |issue=148 |pages=1, 8–13 |issn=1052-9438 |ref=none}}
** {{Cite book |last=Westfahl |first=Gary |title=The Stuff of Science Fiction: Hardware, Settings, Characters |date=2022 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-1-4766-8659-2 |pages=146–163 |language=en |chapter=Mars—Reading Mars: Changing Images of the Red Planet |author-link=Gary Westfahl |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q7WREAAAQBAJ&pg=PA146 |ref=none}} (updated version of the above)
* {{Cite magazine |last=Zorpette |first=Glenn |author-link=Glenn Zorpette |date=2015-09-30 |title=At Last, the Great Martian Movie |url=https://spectrum.ieee.org/at-last-the-great-martian-movie |url-status=live |magazine=[[IEEE Spectrum]] |issn=0018-9235 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230813090431/https://spectrum.ieee.org/at-last-the-great-martian-movie |archive-date=2023-08-13 |access-date=2023-09-02 |ref=none}}

{{Astronomical locations in fiction}}
{{Mars}}
{{Portal bar|Astronomy|Solar System|Science|Literature}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mars In Fiction}}
[[Category:Works set on Mars| ]]
[[Category:Fiction about planets]]