Customer Reviews

Mars Probes

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Peter Crowther collects sixteen stories about Mars. They differ in tone and in their vision of the red planets future. We have learned a great deal about the fourth planet since Edgar Rice Burroughs populated it with alien life and human passions. These stories reflect that evolving perspective. Crowther sees real-world Mars colonies in our future and believes we can prepare for them by examining these well-envisioned fictional futures of Mars.

My favorite three of the sixteen stories:

Ray Bradbury's "The Love Affair" takes us to a Mars where the men and women of Earth are colonizing and growing in number, while the Martians are hiding and dying. One Martian is drawn by the beauty and danger of a woman alone.

In Alastair Reynolds' "The Real Story" a reporter interviews a man who may or may not be the first person to set foot on Mars.

In James Lovegrove's "Out of the Blue, Into the Red" a father and son exchange letters while the son is away on an expedition to Mars. Their respective views of the sky are different, yet touchingly similar.

This is an enjoyable collection with a wide range of perspectives on Mars. The story quality is moderately high, not as common for a themed collection as it is for Best of the Year anthologies. Recommended for those interested in possible futures of the red planet and also for plain, ordinary science fiction fans like me.

In terms of the arts and sciences, Mars apparently has been a fad as it has appears in several movies last year, space probes have visited the red planet and now this anthology center on either a voyage to or surviving on the "Angry Red Planet". The films were fine, the probes fascinating, but this collection is fabulous. The sixteen strong tales are all but one brand new. The exception is a reprint from Ray Bradbury, perhaps one of the top two well known chroniclers of the planet. Each tale brings to life Mars though the contributions vastly differ in content. The book is worth reading for its entertainment value and comparing its scientific premises to the knowledge that the NASA probes have brought with its data and pictures from the fourth planet from the sun.

Harriet Klausner