(This volume was published in 2018. James Blish's Cities In Flight, Volume I: They Shall Have Stars, was alternatively titled Year 2018!)
In 2004, human beings have been on Mars for thirty years. In that time, they have built cities, mined, smelted and ranched. On this Mars, there are bogs at the poles, woods at the equator, animals and even a few secretive natives left. Martian organisms can sleep through drought and cold. Human beings might derive suspended animation from this but there is no further development of that idea later in the series.
The Martian natives are dying out, of course.
Earlier sf: Martians.
Later sf: no Martians.
Intermediate stages: Martians dying out; Martians extinct; extra-solar colonists of Mars in Anderson's Technic History.
Retro-sf: Martians in alternative timelines.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
There's also Anderson's TWILIGHT WORLD, where mutated humans from an Earth devastated by a nuclear war arrived on Mars.
Another example is Anderson's THE WAR OF TWO WORLDS, where native Martians, far from being extinct or dying out, were powerful enough to be rivals of Earth. A riff on Wells WAR OF THE WORLDS, and better than Wells' pioneering effort.
And there's a scattering of other stories by Anderson set on Mars, such as "The Martian Crown Jewels." We see a Martian analog of Sherlock Holmes in that story.
And I hope Elon Musk manages to found real bases and colonies on Mars within a few years. Then we can talk about people actually on Mars--and becoming Martians!
Happy New Year! Sean
It's interesting how late concepts of an inhabitable/inhabited Mars persisted.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
True, down to the late 1950's. And Mars USED to be much more habitable a billion years ago, with plenty of liquid water. Seas, in fact!
Robert Zubrin, in books like THE CASE FOR MARS, gives long and serious thought to how Mars could be made habitable again.
Happy New Year! Sean
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