Sands of Mars [Paperback]

Arthur C. Clarke (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd; New edition edition (September 2, 1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0283983515
• ISBN-13: 978-0283983511
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

More About the Author

"SIR ARTHUR C. CLARKE (1917-2008) wrote the novel and co-authored the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey. He has been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, and he is the only science-fiction writer to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. His fiction and nonfiction have sold more than one hundred million copies in print worldwide.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A classic that stands the test of time!, May 29, 2006

By 

Paul Weiss (Dundas, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sands of Mars (Mass Market Paperback)

The Sands of Mars is a joy - a lightweight, easy-reading, far-sighted hard sci-fi novel that addresses the broad topics of interplanetary travel and colonization, development and terraforming of the hostile extra-terrestrial Martian environment. One could quibble, I suppose, that the science is slightly dated and there were certainly a couple of predictions that have since been proven incorrect but, for my money, the story is made all the more exciting and amazing for the degree to which it is now, fifty years later, approaching reality and the possibility of achievement!

Martin Gibson, a celebrated science fiction writer, has been invited to be the first and only passenger on the maiden voyage of Ares, the first interplanetary vessel that will be devoted to passenger travel. A simple thesis indeed for a marvelous novel - Gibson's job is to report back to earth on the trip and his perceptions of the progress that the first colonists have made in their establishment of a flourishing base on Mars. Unlike Asimov's "The Gods Themselves" which addresses the philosophical and psychological impact of living in an alien environment on Earth's moon, The Sands of Mars restricts itself almost exclusively to addressing the hard core physical and scientific issues. Not to suggest that makes it less interesting or a weaker novel - that's just the side of the sci-fi coin that turned up when Clarke flipped it, I suppose! There certainly wasn't any shortage of topics - oxygen, air pressure, weather, heat, buildings, local travel (both on the planet and to Mars' moons, Phobos and Deimos), interplanetary travel back and forth to Mars, emergency preparedness, government, effective utilization of limited manpower, biology and zoology (or at least Clarke's rather exciting vision of what is possible), communication and more!

I also appreciated the fact that, while the science was straightforward and not particularly complex, neither was it dumbed down or patronizing. For example, when Ares first left Earth's orbits to begin the long trip to Mars, it was described as follows:

" ... she would pull away out of the orbit in which she was circling and had hitherto spent all her existence, to swing into the long hyperbola that led to Mars."

I haven't been a big fan of Arthur C Clarke's other more open-ended esoteric novels such as "Against the Fall of Night" but I certainly enjoyed this one!

Paul Weiss

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I Liked It!, May 5, 2003

By 

Aubrey (Jasper, Texas USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sands of Mars (Signet) (Paperback)

I purchased "The Sands of Mars" years ago after I read another novel (The Songs of Distant Earth) which I adored.
I really enjoyed reading "The Sands of Mars". It was an unusual read since Mr. Clarke had written the novel many years ago - when many assumptions at that time about the moon and planets have been proven false today. In fact, Mr. Clarke mentions that in the preface of my book - and asks the readers to see how many they can spot (like plants that grow on the Moon and Mars, to name a few). These distractions should not at all take away from the novel. It's actually a simple and straightforward story. A writer (of Science-Fiction), named Martin, decides to go to Mars - which is still in it's infancy of colonialism. The story then relates of the colony's attempts at maintaining the colony on Mars as well as their attempt at terraforming the planet. It's a good story, that many should enjoy!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sands of Time..., September 22, 2003

By 

Mr A. Crowl "qraal" (Brisbane, QLD Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sands of Mars (Mass Market Paperback)

I read the book about 23 years ago and have re-read it time and time again. What it lacks sytlistically it makes up for in sheer joy of discovery and achievement by its characters on a Mars that was a valid extrapolation from knowledge at the time (c.1950) of writing. Good SF is about real people in a world that really might be - hence the personal secrets that are discovered along-side the planetary ones as the novel progresses.

Mars officially is a cold, lifeless world, but the author Arthur Clarke has endorsed recent claims of life evidenced in space-probe photos. He might be mistaking hype for science, and geology for biology, but he might also have "The Sands of Mars" in the back of his mind too.