Saturday 24 March 2018

Martian Literary Groups

Maybe writers about Mars and Martians divide into literary groups? I can think of three (not exhaustive) groups:

Invasions;
Adventures on Mars;
American Future Histories.

Invasions
Wells wrote both a novel about Martians invading Earth and a future historical text book whereas Wells' successor, Stapledon, wrote a future historical text book recounting, among many other events, Martian invasions of Earth just as past historical text books recount the Norman Conquest of England.

Lewis, replying to Wells and Stapledon, presented an evil Earthman invading Mars and Venus. Lewis' Ransom visits Mars and later visits a sinless planet. Blish's Haertel visits Mars and later Haertel's successors visit a sinless planet.

Anderson's novel about Martians invading Earth has almost the same title as Wells'.

Adventures on Mars
Edwin Arnold was a possible inspiration for ERB who competed with Kline and was pastiched by Moorcock.

Poul Anderson wrote "War-Maid of Mars."

American Future Histories
Heinlein's Future History, Anderson's Psychotechnic History and Niven's Known Space future history all have Martians.

Poul Anderson is in all three groups.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I like Poul Anderson's THE WAR OF TWO WORLDS better than I did Wells THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. The aliens in Anderson's story, both kinds, were more plausible and fully described than Wells' Martians.

I had never heard of Edwin Arnold, that I recall, before you started mentioning him. But I will be looking him up.

Sean