Seeing Mars

"Neptune Diary."

Sometimes parallel timelines and alternative histories almost meet:

"Here we sat thirteen years ago, among our sort, throughout a long night until that first picture from Mars unrolled, line by line, before the eyes of Robert Heinlein...." (p. 27)

The Mars in Heinlein's Future History has a traditional Grand Canal.

In the Prologue of SM Stirling, In The Courts of the Crimson Kings (New York, 2008), a Russia probe has shown:

"Dinosaurs and Neanderthals and beautiful blond cave-princesses in fur bikinis..." (p. 11)

- on Venus. Now an American lander approaches Mars where there is already evidence of free oxygen, structures and cities. At the 1962 Chicago Worldcon, a bunch of people in a hotel suite see pictures and hear sounds from Mars:

the viewpoint character, Fred, dislikes advertisers;

Bob wrote a Mars book in the early '50s where oxygen-mask-wearing colonists skated on the canals and he later considered another Mars book about an orphan adopted by Martians;

the screen shows a Martian landship and Poul, who likes "...messing about in boats...," murmurs "...about pointing into the wind..." (p. 16);

Poul reminds Arthur that he, Arthur, had predicted TV relay satellites fifteen years previously;

Sprague comments that the Martian language, when heard, sounds "Tonal and monosyllabic...like Chinese..." (p. 19);

Beam, a crack shot, comments on the Martian guns;

Ray reminds everyone that Martian seasons are twice as long as Terrestrial;

Ted is Guest of Honour;

Jack had "...sold his first story to Gernsback in the '20s..." (p. 12);

the editor of Astounding insists that Terrestrials are "...the most advanced species in the solar system." (p. 17)

Also present are Isaac, Larry, Frank, Leigh, Catherine, Carol and Bob's red-haired wife.

That is what it would be like in a nearby universe.