Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids.

[wombat_socho]

Apropos of nothing -well, maybe my brain starting to come out of the fog imposed by too much work, not enough sleep, and a few too many carbohydrates this weekend- it occurred to me that there are only a handful of SF stories that depict the exploration and conquest of Mars as the difficult, dirty and very likely lethal undertaking it'll probably be when we finally get around to it. The three stories that come to mind are all fairly old, too:

1. "What's It Like Out There?" by Edmond Hamilton


2. "Crucifixus Etiam" by Walter M. Miller Jr.


3. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

There are newer stories that show a Mars that's decayed into a galactic-scale slum world (Dan Simmons' Hyperion, for example, and James Daniel Ross' Radiation Angels stories) but none that are quite as bleak as Hamilton and Miller's Mars. Anyone know any others?

Comments

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

"Mechanicus" in the Warhammer 40K novels.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

I really need to read some more of those.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

"Birth of Fire" by Jerry Pournelle.

Hard SF, with the added bonus of nitwits who object to adding water because it'll change the environment.

I know Doc. He's not psychic... but he's the only person I've met that I'm certain is smarter than I am.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

I didn't get the impression that Kevin Senecal and his compatriots were living quite as squalidly as Hamilton's Third Expedition men or Miller's Project workers, but it's been a while since I read that Laser Books edition to death.

And yes, Dr. P is indeed scary smart; possessed of encyclopedic knowledge to boot.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Admittedly the people doing the work are making the policies. I never thought about it before, but that does seem to be the only way to get things done sensibly; consider NASA before the MBAs moved in.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

?

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Um... in the book? Birth of Fire? The colonists were living far better than in Crucifixus Etiam (DAYUM, Miller was a genius!) because the people doing the work were the ones setting the priorites. Consequently they did not have such problems as (to pick a totally hypothetical example) the main computer being located between the air filter and the toilet.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay. Didn't follow your chain of thought there.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

I wasn't overly impressed with it. Never finished the trilogy, and until you reminded me, completely forgot about it.

Red Mars - Kim Stanly Robinson

[chocol8fiend.livejournal.com]

Thought the series began like lightning ... ended like drizzle. Friend of mine commented - if you're going to write a trilogy don't kill off the 3 most interesting characters in the first book.

[otherles.livejournal.com]

Part of the novel I'm presently writing takes place in a Mars colony.

[otherles.livejournal.com]

OH! And The Martian Way by Issac Azimov.

Their method of dealing with the water shortage was awesome!

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

And imitated by many writers since. It's pretty much the obvious answer, really.