Reading Mars for an M.Phil in Popular Literature

According to an inactive blog about the M.Phil in Popular Literature at Trinity College Dublin, one of the courses offered back in 2007 was titled
"Mapping the Myths of Mars". Taught by Dr. Kate Hebblethwaite, here’s a description of that course:

“Both the nearest and most comparable planet in the solar system, yet so far unconquered by man, Mars shares an uneasy brotherhood with the Earth: remote, aloof, and until relatively recently, impenetrable except by terrestrial telescope. The scope for imaginative licence in representations of the planet has thus been limited solely by the gradual and intermittent scientific revelations about it. The examination of popular fiction's utilisation of Mars as a narrative location is therefore significant for the opportunity it offers authors to work with a conveniently isolated environment. An unchanging virgin world on which the projection of popular ideas and social criticism is the prerogative of the author alone, fictional representations of Mars are unique in the oppotunity they afford for the critical examination of changing cultural influences and concerns in popular literature.”

And here were the course’s "primary texts":

• The War of the Worlds (1898), by H. G. Wells

• A Princess of Mars (1917), by Edgar Rice Burroughs

• The War of the Worlds (1938), radio script by Howard Koch

• The Martian Chronicles (1950), by Ray Bradbury

• Martian Time-Slip (1964), by Philip K. Dick

• Man Plus (1976), by Frederick Pohl

• Farewell Earth's Bliss (1972), by D.G. Compton

• Blade Runner (1982), film directed by Ridley Scott

• The Mars Mystery (1998), by Graham Hancock

• The Martian Race (1999), by Gregory Benford

• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. II (2003), by Allan Moore & Kevin O'Neill

• The War of the Worlds (2005), film directed by Stephen Spielberg

A Subterranean interview with author Kage Baker

Thanks to a recent post on the blog SF Signal, I read
a fascinating interview between author Kage Baker and Nick Gevers of Subterranean Press. Covering a number of subjects, the interview includes a discussion of Baker’s new novel, The Empress of Mars (2008), which was published recently by Subterranean Press in a limited edition. Here’s a snippet from the interview:

Nick Gevers: Looking at your newest book, out from Subterranean in a limited edition now and from Tor in a few months: The Empress of Mars ... This is an expansion of a very well-received novella of a few years ago, isn’t it? How did you set about lengthening it, and what elements of the novel are entirely new?

Kage Baker: Yes, this is an expansion of the original novella. David Hartwell pointed out to me that it might make a good novel, as there were a number of themes I’d only skimmed over in the original work. I was disinclined to do it at first; in every review of any expanded novella I’ve ever read, the reviewer invariably falls back on the word “bloated”. I went ahead with the novel for a couple of reasons, however. One was that, since the original version was published, there have been a lot of fascinating new discoveries on Mars. We poor Yanks have evidently learned to do metric conversion now, and Spirit and Opportunity just keep clanking along like Wall-E. I’m fascinated by the images they send back, the alien landscapes.

The entire interview between Kage Baker and Nick Gevers is well worth reading.

Hadley Rille Books to reprint “Weird Fruits,” a short story by Camille Alexa

Author and poet Camille Alexa announced recently that her dark speculative fiction short story “Weird Fruits” will be reprinted in Push of the Sky, a collection of Alexa's short works to be published by Hadley Rille Books in Spring 2009.

Originally published in the little-known anthology It Came from Planet Mars (2008), “Weird Fruits” won the 2008 Marooned Award for Best Short Story, topping works by Paul Cornell, Geoff Ryman, and Jason Stoddard, among others.

Check out the cover art for the forthcoming Push of the Sky. It’s
“cool clockwork bird art by French artist Aurélien Police." Love the smokestacks!

Police Your Planet, a novel by Lester del Rey

Police Your Planet (1956), a novel by Erik van Lhin, a pseudonym of Lester del Rey

At left: Paperback (New York: Ballantine Books, 1975), 217 p., #24465, $1.50. Cover art by James Steranko. A gripping novel of the space frontier, here’s the blurb from the back cover:

“Bruce Gordon was an ex-fighter, ex-gambler, ex-cop, ex-reporter and now he was an ex-patriot of Earth. Security shipped him to Mars with a knife, 100 credits, and a yellow card that meant no return. He was also, he told himself, an ex-do-gooder. From then on he would take care of Number One! But in Marsport, nothing was that simple. Here the vices of Earth seemed tame and insipid. When he bought a commission in the Marsport police force, he found that graft was not only a fine art, but the official Martian way of life. So he joined the system. And then he met Sheila, who was out for blood -- his!”

The 1975 paperback has two interesting publishing notes:

• “An abridged version of this novel was published by Avalon Books, copyright, 1956, by Erik van Lhin.”

• “A somewhat shorter version of this novel was serialized in Science Fiction Adventures, copyright, 1953, by Future Publications, Inc.”

According to Robert Markley’s Dying Planet: Mars in Science and the Imagination (2005), “Other Martian novels in the 1950s appropriated the conventions of hard-boiled detective fiction and sent to Mars rugged loners seeking some semblance of justice on a corrupt and violent world. In Lester del Rey’s Police Your Planet ... Marsport becomes a science-fiction redaction of [Raymond] Chandler’s Los Angeles, and del Rey’s hero, Bruce Gordon, a disillusioned, futuristic version of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade ...”

Michael Ashley’s Transformations: Volume 2 in the History of the Science Fiction Magazine, 1950-1970 (2005) has a different view, stating that del Rey's Police Your Planet was a “reaction to the McCarthy era and reads rather like 1984 on Mars, although this tale of exiled colonists versus Security ends successfully for the colonists.”

You can download Police Your Planet as a free eBook from Project Gutenberg or ManyBooks.net.

A gallery of Police Your Planet cover art is posted at LibraryThing.

SF author Phyllis K. Twombly on self-publishing

While reading “Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab,” a recent article in The New York Times, I immediately thought of Canadian science fiction author Phyllis K. Twombly. The self-published author of the Martian Symbiont series of SF novels (Been Blued (2007), Martian Blues (2008), third novel forthcoming), Twombly provided excellent insight into the world of self-publishing in a recent two-part post on her blog (Part 1, Part 2). As Louise Burke, publisher of Pocket Books, said recently, self-publishing is
“no longer a dirty word.”

Pictured above: Been Blued by Phyllis K. Twombly

Duet on Mars, a poem by John Updike (1932-2009)

Duet on Mars
by John Updike

Said Spirit to Opportunity,
   “I’m feeling rather frail,
With too much in my memory,
   Plus barrels of e-mail.”
Responded Opportunity,
   “My bounce was not so bad,
But now they send me out to see
   These dreary rocks, bedad!”
“It’s cold up here, and rather red,”
   Sighed Spirit. “I feel faint.”
Good Opportunity then said,
   “Crawl on, without complaint!
“This planet needs our shovels’ bite
   And treadmarks in the dust
To tell if life and hematite
   Pervade its arid crust.”
“There’s life, by all the stars above,
   On Mars—it’s you and I!”
Blithe Spirit cried. “Let’s rove, my love,
   And meet before we die!"

Published in the March 1, 2004, issue of The New Yorker.

Forthcoming: A poem by David Lunde and a novelette by Mary A. Turzillo

Thanks to recent announcements posted on the website SFScope, we have definitive dates for two forthcoming science fiction works that I assume are set on Mars. The first work is “First Beer on Mars," a poem by David Lunde, which will be published in the March 2009 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine. The second work is "Steak Tartare and the Cats of Gari Babakin," a cats-on-Mars novelette by Mary A. Turzillo, which will be published in the April 2009 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine.

Checklist of Mars works written by Henry Hasse

Thanks to the hard work of author, editor, and publisher Jean Marie Stine, Renaissance E Books, the Estate of Henry Hasse, the Ackerman Agency, Fictionwise, Google Book Search, and the Internet Database of Speculative Fiction, I was able to compile a checklist of works written or co-written by the often-overlooked author Henry Hasse:

• “The Thief of Mars,” short story (Planet Stories, Winter 1941)

• “Mission Unknown!” novella (Super Science Novels, May 1941)

• “Mars Warning,” short story (Super Science Stories, August 1942)

• “City of the Living Flame,” novella (Planet Stories, Fall 1942)

• “The Angular Stone,” novella (Super Science Stories, May 1943)

• “Don't Come to Mars!” short story, co-written by Emil Petaja (Fantastic Adventures, April 1950)

• “Three Lines of Old Martian,” short story (Space Stories, February 1953)

• “Via Paradox,” short story, co-written by Albert dePina (Spaceway, December 1954)

Additions or corrections are welcome. Thanks!

Science: Figuring out Twitter's burn rate

Twitter's Burn Rate: Our Search Gets Closer
The Industry Standard
January 27, 2009

It's impossible to tell if the new $250 million valuation of Twitter makes it a bargain buy, or a money-eating monster. That's because no one has ever published a serious dollar estimate of how much Twitter spends per month sending out tweets (the short text updates typed by members) for free as SMS messages. Twitter the company pays for those itself, so a fast-growing audience means a fast-growing phone bill.

Yesterday I listed the missing stats we need ...

Read the entire article by Paul Boutin in The Industry Standard.

Rex Dexter of Mars, a Golden Age comic

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across a neat comic from the late 1930s and early 1940s titled Rex Dexter of Mars. According to various online sources, Rex Dexter of Mars, a Flash Gordon-like character created by artist Dick Briefer, appeared in several issues
of Mystery Men Comics from 1939 to 1941, as a daily strip in early 1940, and as a one-shot comic book in the fall of 1940. Here’s a summary of the Rex Dexter story, provided by fan Igor Studenkov:

“Rex Dexter was the son of Montague Dexter, a scientist. When the 1939 World Fair came around, he used it as an opportunity to demonstrate his newest invention - an inter-planetary rocket ship. He and his wife boarded it and headed for Mars. But the ship broke down and crashed as soon as it reached its destination. It took Montague 60 years to repair the ship. By that time, he was too old to fly it, so he entrusted the task to his young Martian-born son, Rex. The first few issues touched on Rex's culture shock at discovering an Earth that was much more advanced then the world his father left behind (with Cynde serving as his guide/potential love interest), but before long, he became yet another space adventurer living on the futuristic Earth. Oh, and according to the early strips, in the year 2000, Europe is a wasteland devastated by a terrific war that took place in the 1950s.”

New Flash Fiction: “Patience in a Handful of Dust” by James C. Clar

The free science fiction story site 365 tomorrows has a new piece of flash fiction titled “Patience in a Handful of Dust” (2009), by James C. Clar. It’s about a soldier on Mars, his wife on Earth, and a Martian named Zadok.

The Guardian: 1000 novels everyone must read

The Guardian, a prominent newspaper in the United Kingdom, recently published a long list of books titled “1000 Novels Everyone Must Read.” The list has received quite a bit of press and has some readers restructuring their own reading lists. Interestingly, of the 124 Science Fiction & Fantasy books on the Guardian 1000, only three are about Mars or Martians:

• The War of the Worlds (1898), by H. G. Wells
"The most read, imitated and admired invasion fantasy of the 19th century. The Martians, a cold-bloodedly cerebral species, driven by the inhospitability of their dying planet and superior technology, invade Earth. Their first cylinders land at Horsell Common and are followed by an army of fighting machines equipped with death rays. Humanity and its civilisation crumple under the assault, which is witnessed by the narrator, a moral philosopher. Finally, in the wasteland of 'dead London', mankind's salvation is found in the disease germ: 'there are no bacteria on Mars'. The novel can be read as an allegory of imperialism. As the narrator muses: 'The Tasmanians were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of 50 years.'"

• A Princess of Mars (1912), by Edgar Rice Burroughs
“John Carter, a Confederate veteran turned gold prospector, is hiding from Indians in an Arizona cave when he is mysteriously transported to Mars, known to the locals as Barsoom. There, surrounded by four-armed, green-skinned warriors, ferocious white apes, eight-legged horse-substitutes, 10-legged 'dogs', and so on, he falls in love with Princess Dejah Thoris, who might almost be human if she didn't lay eggs. She is, naturally, both beautiful and extremely scantily clad ... Burroughs's first novel, published in serial form, is the purest pulp, and its lack of pretension is its greatest charm.”

• Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), by Robert A. Heinlein
“Amateur stonemason, waterbed designer, reformed socialist, nudist, militarist and McCarthyite, Heinlein is one of the most interesting and irritating figures in American science fiction. This swinging 60s bestseller (working title: The Heretic) is typically provocative, with a central character, Mike Smith, who is raised by Martians after the death of his parents and questions every human assumption -- about sex, politics, society and spirituality -- on his arrival on Earth. Smith's religion, with its polyamory, communal living and ritual cannibalism, inspired the neo-pagan Church of All Worlds.”

I’m genuinely surprised that Out of the Silent Planet (1938), by British author C. S. Lewis, is not part of the Guardian 1000.

Pictured above: Cover of The War of the Worlds, Magnum Books, paperback, 1967.

Subterranean Press to reprint Jesus on Mars, a novel by Philip José Farmer

Author Philip José Farmer announced recently that Subterranean Press will reprint his classic novel Jesus on Mars (1979) as part of a Farmer omnibus titled The Other in the Mirror. The omnibus will be released in March 2009. Bob Eggleton is doing the cover art and Christopher Paul Carey is writing the introduction.

Here’s a description of Jesus on Mars, taken from the website of Subterranean Press: “Richard Orme and the crew of the Barsoom embark on the first manned mission to the Red Planet, intent on investigating what seemed to be evidence of life beamed back to Earth by a robotic survey satellite. But Orme discovers in the hollowed-out Martian caverns what he and the scientists back home least expect: a group of aliens, as well as humans transplanted from first century A.D. Earth, led by a being who claims to be Jesus of Nazareth Himself. Soon Orme and his crew are shocked to find that The Other they face is made all that more alien because of its similarity to humanity’s past.”

Note that Bob Eggleton has just completed the artwork for The Other in the Mirror. It’s a scene from the surface of Mars and it looks much better than the advance uncorrected proof pictured above!

Pyr editor Lou Anders shares a photo of his library

Lou Anders, editor of Pyr Books, has a cool photo of his personal library posted on his blog Bowing to the Future.

Books: Sleep-walking into economic extinction?

Here are a few interesting articles about the future of books and the publishing industry worth reading:

• “Google & the Future of Books,” by Robert Darnton, The New York Review of Books, February 12, 2009

• “Stimulating Reading,” by Katha Pollitt, The Nation magazine, January 22, 2009

• “Books Gone Wild: The Digital Age Reshapes Literature,” by Lev Grossman, Time magazine, January 21, 2009

Note that I took the phrase "sleep-walking into economic extinction" from Nicholas Denton, whose Gawker Media empire was once worth $150 million. Considering Denton worked for the Financial Times and co-authored All That Glitters: The Fall of Barings (1996), I wonder if he is long collectable books and short the British pound?

The New York Times newspaper in Philip K. Dick’s novel Martian Time-Slip

I’m about half-way through reading Martian Time-Slip (1964), a novel written by author Philip K. Dick. On the surface, the plot is about the scarcity of water on Mars and the power of the planet’s plumbing union, but underneath are stronger currents, including the role of technology and disadvantaged individuals in society. Among the handful of major characters is Arnie Kott, king of the plumbing union, who enjoys reading The New York Times:

When he had been dressed by the attendant, in his gray flannel trousers and T-shirt, soft leather boots, and nautical cap, he left the steam bath and crossed the corridor of the Union Hall to his dining room, where Helio, his Bleekman cook, had his breakfast waiting. Shortly, he sat before a stack of hotcakes and bacon, coffee and a glass of orange juice, and the previous week’s New York Times, the Sunday edition.

“Good morning, Mr. Kott.” In answer to his button-pressing, a secretary from the pool had appeared, a girl he had never seen before. Not too good-looking, he decided after a brief glance; he returned to reading the newspaper. And calling him Mr. Kott, too. He sipped his orange juice and read about a ship that had perished in space with all three hundred aboard killed. It was a Japanese merchantman carrying bicycles. That made him laugh. Bicycles in space, and all gone, now; too bad, because on a planet with little mass like Mars, where there was virtually no power source -- except the sluggish canal system -- and where even kerosene cost a fortune, bicycles were of great economic value. A man could pedal free of cost for hundreds of miles, right over the sand, too. ...

Reading the New York Times made him feel for a little while as if he were back Home again, in South Pasadena; his family had subscribed to the West Coast edition of the Times, and as a boy he remembered bringing it in from the mailbox, in from the street lined with apricot trees, the warm, smoggy little street of neat one-story houses and parked cars and lawns tended from one weekend to the next without fail. It was the lawn, with all its equipment and medicines, that he missed most -- the wheelbarrow of fertilizer, the new grass seed, the snippers, the poultry-netting fence in the early spring ... and always the sprinklers at work throughout the long summer, whenever the law allowed. Water shortage there, too. Once his Uncle Paul had been arrested for washing his car on a water-ration day.

Reading further in the paper he came upon an article about a reception at the White House for a Mrs. Lizner who, as an official of the Birth Control Agency, had performed eight thousand therapeutic abortions and had thereby set an example for American womanhood. Kind of like a nurse, Arnie Kott decided. Noble occupation for females. He turned the page.

There, in big type, was a quarter-page ad which he himself had helped compose, a glowing come-on to get people to emigrate. Arnie sat back in his chair, folded the paper, felt deep pride as he studied the ad; it looked good, he decided. It would surely attract people, if they had any guts at all and a sincere desire for adventure, as the ad said.

The ad listed all the skills in demand on Mars, and it was a long list ...

Pictured above: Cover of the 1964 Ballantine paperback.

A short review of Kage Baker’s new novel The Empress of Mars

Earlier in January, Mark Graham of the Rocky Mountain News provided a short review of The Empress of Mars (2008), a new full-length novel by Kage Baker that was recently published by Subterranean Press as a limited edition. Giving the novel a grade of “A,” here’s Graham’s final word: “This is the most enjoyable science fiction novel I've read in a long time." A less-expensive trade edition of The Empress of Mars is scheduled to be published by Tor Books in Spring 2009.

Lake of the Sun, a novel by Wynne Whiteford

Lake of the Sun (1989), a novel by Wynne Whiteford

At left: Paperback original (New York: Ace Books, 1989), 249 p., $3.50. Cover art by Don Dixon. Here
is the blurb from the back cover of the book:

"When the explosions began, shaking the very roof of his world, only Rah had the courage to climb to the surface to investigate. There he found a strange machine, tended by two-eyed creatures with silvery skin. Aliens! A deep chill touched Rah’s very soul. The unbelievable had finally happened. Mars had been invaded!"

According to Strange Constellations: A History of Australian Science Fiction (1999), by Russell Blackford, Van Ikin and Sean McMullen, Lake of the Sun is “a novel of first contact between Martians and humans, although both of these groups also subdivide, and it turns out they are closely related genetically, sharing a history in the deep past. The Martians, who live deep underground where there is water and breathable air, have a basic industrial technology with spring-driven motors and primitive electrical devices. They fall into the two categories of the Gulf People (or vora) and a smaller number of one-eyed Lake People (or ashti), who were originally outcasts but are now a more biologically evolved and technologically advanced group. Those humans who have become adapted to the low gravity of Mars are spider-like, with seemingly globular bodies (as observed from the viewpoint of Earth visitors) and elongated limbs. The presence of humans on Mars exacerbates difficulties between the Gulf and Lake peoples almost precipitating an arms race and a destructive war between these otherwise peaceful groups. A headstrong young member of the Gulf People, Vordok, emerges as the villain, contemplating a personal empire brought about by violence.”

Wynne Whiteford’s Lake of the Sun won the Ditmar Award in 1990 for Best Australian Long Fiction.

Three Mars novels make author Don D'Ammassa's list of recommended titles for 2008

Author, reviewer, and longtime science fiction fan Don D'Ammassa has written an excellent essay titled
“2008: The Year in Science Fiction Literature” in which he recommends reading three of the year’s Mars novels: Mars Life by Ben Bova, Marsbound by Joe Haldeman, and Rolling Thunder by John Varley.

Cheers to John DeNardo of the blog SF Signal for the tip!

Win a Mars book in Sci-Fi photo caption contest

Gary Robbins, Sciencedude of California’s Orange County Register, is hosting a science fiction photo caption contest. The reader who comes up with the best caption for this photo of a UFO over the White House will win a copy of author Andrew Chaikin’s nonfiction book,
A Passion for Mars: Intrepid Explorers of the Red Planet (2008).

Coming Attractions: The Lost Hieroglyph, a film of Brackett & Burroughs adventure

Thanks to an update from independent filmmaker Steve Weintz of Big Sur, California, you can view
a promotional poster for his forthcoming film,
The Lost Hieroglyph, a retro sci-fi adventure in
the tradition of Brackett and Burroughs.

The Lost Hieroglyph is still in pre-production, but the pilot script
is complete and a five-minute trailer is being prepared. Here's the pitch, which Weintz was gracious enough to share with me last December:

Working Title: The Lost Hieroglyph

Genre: Retro sci-fi adventure

Format: Stop-motion animated miniseries

Premise: An adventurer-writer couple goes to Mars to find a missing brother and a lost book; they foil a plot to destroy the Martians and enslave Earth.

Special: Style is period sci-fi/noir: "2001 as imagined in 1949"; characters are modeled after 1940s-1950s actors; puppets played by contemporary actors are modeled on their likenesses.

Podcast: Author Robert Zubrin on The Space Show

Dr. Robert Zubrin, noted author, aerospace engineer, and president of The Mars Society, appeared recently as a guest on The Space Show, a California radio program hosted by Dr. David Livingston that focuses on issues influencing the development of outer-space commerce and space tourism.

In a lengthy conversation that lasted nearly 90 minutes and which you can listen to as a podcast, Dr. Zubrin and Dr. Livingston discussed Mars, Methane and life on Mars, human missions to Mars, President Obama's space policy, the Moon vs. Mars, NASA, terraforming Mars, space solar power for Mars, and Dr. Zubrin's new book How to Live on Mars: A Trusty Guidebook to Surviving And Thriving on the Red Planet (2008).

For a detailed summary of the conversation, read Dr. Livingston's notes.

Subterranean Press to reprint “The Toad Prince," a Martian fairy tale by Harlan Ellison

Subterranean Press announced that it will reprint “The Toad Prince or, Sex Queen of the Martian Pleasure-Domes” (2000), a fairy tale by Harlan Ellison, and eight other stories in Son of Retro Pulp Tales, a new anthology edited by Joe R. Lansdale and Keith Lansdale. Continuing in the vein of the award-winning Retro Pulp Tales, the forthcoming Son of Retro Pulp Tales contains “everything from Lovecraftian monsters to demons to hardboiled shootouts to plain ole unchained oddness" and will be published in May 2009.

From books, President Obama found voice

From Books, New President Found Voice
The New York Times
January 18, 2008
By Michiko Kakutani

WASHINGTON -- In college, as he was getting involved in protests against the apartheid government in South Africa, Barack Obama noticed, he has written, “that people had begun to listen to my opinions.” Words, the young Mr. Obama realized, had the power “to transform”: “with the right words everything could change -- South Africa, the lives of ghetto kids just a few miles away, my own tenuous place in the world.”

Much has been made of Mr. Obama’s eloquence -- his ability to use words in his speeches to persuade and uplift and inspire. But his appreciation of the magic of language and his ardent love of reading have not only endowed him with a rare ability to communicate his ideas to millions of Americans while contextualizing complex ideas about race and religion, they have also shaped his sense of who he is and his apprehension of the world. ...

Read the entire article in The New York Times.

Farewell, Earth’s Bliss, a 1966 novel written by D. G. Compton

Farewell, Earth’s Bliss (London, 1966), a novel by
D. G. Compton

At left: Paperback (New York: Ace Books, 1971), #22830, 188 p., 75¢. Cover painting by Karel Thole. Here’s the blurb from the back cover of the book:

"The time is the future; space travel has encompassed Mars, finding it barren, without mineral resources, useful only as a dumping ground for socially unacceptable humanity -- a latter-day convict settlement. A new shipload of deportees lands, and the twenty-four new colonists, male and female alike, have to adjust themselves to the harsh life here, and to the unexpected new social patterns that have developed for defense against the hostile Martian environment. Before long, as the colony is shaken by dangers from within and without, the struggle becomes the most basic of all -- not for comfort, but for survival itself."

Two stanzas of a poem, England in Time of Pestilence by Thomas Nashe (1567-1601), are printed on a page inside the front cover. The first line: “Adieu, farewell earth’s bliss.”

Here's what Robert Markley says in his scholarly study Dying Planet: Mars in Science and the Imagination (2005): “In his underrated classic Farewell Earth’s Bliss (1971) the British novelist D. G. Compton depicts the socio-political and psychological effects of the isolation, loneliness, and suffering that the Martian environment represents. Prisoners from Earth exiled to the arid, nearly lifeless planet find themselves confined in an autocratic penal colony. Jacob, a newcomer, lands on Mars and barely survives a dust storm that rages for thirty-seven days and kills many of his fellow prisoners. When the dust clears, he views a landscape that mirrors his psychological state [...] Compton’s description paradoxically pays homage to and rejects romanticized visions of Mars. The harshness of the environment becomes an apt image of both external forms of repression and internalized mechanisms of self-policing. As with oxygen regulators and heat coils, so it is with human will, imagination, and freedom on this Kafkaesque Mars."

Science fiction author, editor, and publisher Donald A. Wollheim owned a copy of Farewell, Earth’s Bliss, according to the Guide to the Donald A. Wollheim Collection at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.

Edgar Allan Poe on Mars: The Further Memoirs of Gullivar Jones

Here’s an interesting science fiction novel that I learned about several months ago: Edgar Allan Poe on Mars: The Further Memoirs of Gullivar Jones (2007) by Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier. Here’s a description of the novel, taken from website of Black Coat Press, the publisher:

"A legendary warrior from Mars' ancient past. A struggling young writer from 1827 Baltimore. Soon, cosmic events put in motion by the Enchanter Montressor and his ward Ligeia cause the two to meet. Gullivar Jones and Edgar Allan Poe must then learn to work together, if they are to stop the machinations of Rodrik-Usher the Damned ... or both their worlds will be destroyed! An original fantasy in which the famous American writer meets the hero
created by Edwin Arnold in his classic 1905 Martian novel."

According to a posting on the MySpace page of Black Coat Press, Edgar Allan Poe on Mars: The Further Memoirs of Gullivar Jones received a positive review in the December 2008 issue of The New York Review of Science Fiction.

Happy Birthday to Edgar Allan Poe, who was born in Boston in 1809!

And, a belated Happy Birthday to Martin Luther King, Jr., who was born in Atlanta in 1929!

Pictured above: Cover of Edgar Allan Poe on Mars: The Further Memoirs of Gullivar Jones.

An Interview with a Martian coordinator from author Phyllis K. Twombly's universe of blue

Andrea Smart of the e-zine Smart Interface interviews a Martian coordinator at Scifialiens’s Weblog. It’s part of the fascinating collection of supplemental material Canadian author Phyllis K. Twombly has written to accompany her self-published Martian Symbiont series of science fiction novels. Previous interviews included conversations with Kelly Ravell, a Martian matriarch, Jerod Ravell, her husband, and Dr. Coren Ravell, a chief geneticist.

Twombly’s Martian Symbiont series consists of two novels to date: Been Blued (2007) and Martian Blues (2008). A third novel, which I'm looking forward to reading, is due out in early 2009.

Book sale: Every Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel from 1953 to the present!

Thanks to a fantastic blog post by Capt. Xerox of The Website at the End of the Universe, I learned about a rare and collectable book dealer (David Aronovitz of The Fine Books Company in Michigan) who is offering a complete run of hardcover first editions for every Hugo Award and Nebula Award-winning novel from 1953 to present! The description posted on AbeBooks is a bit sparse (lists authors only) and the asking price is a tad steep ($116,000), but the lot of 126 items presumably includes these treasured works of Martian science fiction:

• Double Star (1956), by Robert A. Heinlein -- Hugo

• Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), by Robert A. Heinlein -- Hugo

• Man Plus (1976), by Frederik Pohl -- Nebula

• Red Mars (1992), by Kim Stanley Robinson -- Nebula

• Green Mars (1993), by Kim Stanley Robinson -- Hugo

• Moving Mars (1993), by Greg Bear -- Nebula

• Blue Mars (1996), by Kim Stanley Robinson -- Hugo

Pictured above: First Edition cover of Heinlein’s Double Star (1956).

New Piece of Flash Fiction: “Sunset on Mars” by Laura Bradford

The free science fiction story site 365 tomorrows has an excellent piece of flash fiction titled “Sunset on Mars” (2007), by Laura Bradford. It’s about two lovers who are separated by space, time, and a sunset on Mars. Here’s the first line: “He chased her even as her ship touched the stars.”

Paizo Publishing resurrects Otis Adelbert Kline’s The Outlaws of Mars

After painstaking work, the folks at Paizo Publishing have succeeded in resurrecting from the literary graveyard the original, unabridged version of The Outlaws of Mars, a classic sword-and-planet tale by Otis Adelbert Kline that was first published as a seven-part serial in Argosy magazine in 1933 and 1934. According to James Sutter, the editor of Paizo's Planet Stories series, Kline's novel has “sword-swinging adventure on other worlds with strange creatures, bizarre cultures, scantily-clad princesses, and two-fisted plot advancement on every page.” Paizo's reprint of The Outlaws of Mars goes on sale next month, February 2009.

Meanwhile, check out this cool tattered cover of the November 25, 1933, issue of Argosy magazine, pictured above.

Mars art by SF artist Bob Eggleton

Bob’s ART du Jour, the blog of award-winning science fiction, fantasy, and horror artist Bob Eggleton, has images of two beautiful 8x10 oil paintings depicting rockets on Mars: “Mars Lift Off” and “Martian Mists.” Both paintings have been sold.

Eggleton is in the process of doing the artwork for two book covers that have Mars as the theme. Meanwhile, check out some of his earlier book covers:

• Labyrinth of Night (1992), by Allen Steele

• Man O’War (1996), by William Shatner

• Rainbow Mars (1999), by Larry Niven

• Martians and Madness: the Complete SF Novels of Fredric Brown (2002), by Fredric Brown, published by the New England Science Fiction Association

• The Martian War: a Thrilling Eyewitness Account of the Recent Invasion as Reported by Mr. H.G. Wells (2005), by Gabriel Mesta

New reference book: Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Liz Henry of Feminist SF – The Blog! has cool photos of an interesting new reference book to which she and Laura Quilter contributed: Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Robin Anne Reid (Greenwood Press, December 2008, 2 Vols.). Here’s a description of the work, taken from the website of Greenwood Press:

"Students and general readers love science fiction and fantasy. And science fiction and fantasy works increasingly explore gender issues, feature women as central characters, and are written by women writers. Older works demonstrate attitudes toward women in times past, while more recent works grapple with contemporary social issues. This book helps students use science fiction and fantasy to understand the contributions of women writers, the representation of women in the media, and the experiences of women in society.

The set covers a wide range of media and genres, including fiction, nonfiction, film, television, music, graphic novels, comics, and art. The first volume offers survey essays on topics essential to women in science fiction and fantasy, including: Art and Illustrations, Arthurian Fantasy, Cloning, Fandom, Feminist Spirituality, Gaming, Girls and the Fantastic, Intersections of Class and Gender, Men Writing Women, Science Fiction Novels and Short Fiction, 1900-1960, Sexual Identities, Women's Writing Groups.

The second [volume] offers alphabetically arranged short entries on more specific subjects, such as Amazons, Margaret Atwood, Children's and Young Adult Literature, China, Arthur C. Clarke, Nicola Griffith, Hindu Mythology, Magical Realism, Toni Morrison, Neurodiversity, Quest Fantasy, Utopias, Vampires."

Since Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy is a reference work, it's expensive: $250. Here's the link to Amazon, where you might find pre-owned copies in the near future.

Author Caitlín R. Kiernan considers the science of putting zeppelins on Mars

Eagerly awaiting the return of “Bradbury Weather,” a novella by Caitlín R. Kiernan that was first published in Subterranean magazine issue #2 (2005) and will be reprinted in her forthcoming collection A is for Alien (Subterranean Press, February 2009), I’ve been reading through Kiernan's Low Red Moon journal, which spans the years 2001 to 2005. While she reveals that “the best science-fiction authors recognize that the science must be peripheral to the heart of a story,” Kiernan also believes “a science-fiction writer has an obligation to get the science as ‘right’ as she can at the point in time she's writing a story."

Wednesday, September 01, 2004 ...

I spent several hours researching zeppelins, Martian aerodynamics, hydrazine, nitrogen tetroxide oxidizers, entomopters, and the problems one encounters with propellers and rotors in a thin atmosphere. Turns out, putting zeps on Mars is not as easy as I'd hoped (but nothing ever is). Consider the following:

On Mars, with a sea level equivalent pressure of only 0.7 percent that of Earth, a ten-foot cube of hydrogen would weigh about seven one thousandths as much as on Earth, or about 3.5 thousandths of a pound. But even the Martian atmosphere, at a near vacuum, only weighs in at about a tenth of a pound. So the net difference in weight would be about ninety-six and a half thousandths of a pound. This means that to get a full 73 pounds of lift, we would need about 760 such cubes. Fortunately, Martian gravity is only thirty seven percent that of Earth. So we need even fewer cubes, about 280 cubes. So to carry the same payload on Mars as on Earth we are looking at a design that begins almost 300 times as large as a similar vehicle on Earth [italics mine - CRK]. This sounds extreme, but amounts to a cube of hydrogen on Mars of 67 feet on a side producing our net 27 pounds of lift. Ignoring such pesky add-ons such as structural weight, a dirigible made to lift one person of 200 Earth pounds, or 74 Martian pounds, would need about three Mars-sized cubes for lift. Four people would need a dozen, plus another dozen for payload, and another couple of dozen for fuel and structure. This means a spherical balloon would need to hold almost 50 volumes of a third of a million cubic feet each to be useful. A dirigible of 17 million cubic feet is called for, about triple the size of the Hindenburg.

And I need zeps that can carry dozens of people and a significant cargo payload.

Pictured above: Subterranean #2, depicting a zeppelin on Mars.

Webcomic Marooned: A Space Opera in the Wrong Key places third in global competition

Outer Space Meets Cyberspace: There's Life on the Web for Comic Strip about Mars
By Emily McFarlan
The Courier News (Elgin, IL)
January 11, 2009

WEST DUNDEE -- Try explaining the expression "in a pickle" to a Martian.

That's one of the first problems astronaut Captain John and his not-so-faithful robot companion, Asimov, encountered when they crash-landed on Mars in a Web comic penned by West Dundee resident Tom Dell'Aringa.

Dell'Aringa publishes his comic, "Marooned: A Space Opera in the Wrong Key," every Monday and Thursday online on www.maroonedcomic.com. And last month, the 42-year-old interface designer's science-fiction adventure and humor beat out
84 competitors from across the globe to place third in the annual Webcomic Idol competition sponsored by Bomb Shelter Comics. ...

Read the entire article in The Courier News.

Pictured above: Captain John. Artwork by Tom Dell'Aringa.

PKD: Martians come in clouds

No, not the latest science news from NASA that clouds of methane gas may mean life on Mars, but
an old, often-overlooked short story by Philip K. Dick entitled “Martians Come in Clouds,” which was published in the first issue of Fantastic Universe magazine (June-July 1953).

I haven’t read PKD’s story, but according to Aaron Barlow's book How Much Does Chaos Scare You? Politics, Religion, and Philosophy in the Fiction of Philip K. Dick (2005), “Dick illustrates the basic misunderstanding in almost any culture of the alien outsiders. Here, it is Martians who are brutally attacked and destroyed each time they appear on Earth. All they want, it turns out, is permission to live on the seas, where there are no humans.”

Pictured above: The June-July 1953 issue of Fantastic Universe.

Poll: Should Oprah’s Book Club read the classic Burroughs novel A Princess of Mars?

I’m taking a poll as to whether Oprah’s Book Club should read A Princess of Mars (1912/1917), the classic novel written by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

The poll is near the top of the right-hand column of this blog, just below the cover art of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles.

If you have time, please consider voting, or feel free to leave a comment.

Also, thanks to a post by the blog SF Signal, I just viewed a beautiful gallery of John Carter of Mars artwork put together by The Crotchety Old Fan.

A reading of two 1930s Martian short stories by Stanley G. Weinbaum

Thanks to a recent post by Dave Tackett of the blog QuasarDragon, I just learned about a new audio recording of the Collected Public Domain Works of Stanley G. Weinbaum, which is archived at Librivox. Here’s a description of the recording, provided by the reader, Gregg Margarite:

"Stanley G. Weinbaum is best known for his short story “A Martian Odyssey” which has been influencing Science Fiction since it was first published in 1934. Weinbaum is considered the first writer to contrive an alien who thought as well as a human, but not like a human. "A Martian Odyssey" and its sequel are presented here as well as other Weinbaum gems including 3 stories featuring the egomaniacal physicist Haskel van Manderpootz and his former student, playboy Dixon Wells.”

Pictured above: Cover of A Martian Odyssey and Others (1949), a collection by Stanley G. Weinbaum

Building a one-book collection

Apparently, the January 2009 issue of Firsts: The Books Collector’s Magazine has an article about
“Building a One-Book Collection”: “To build a one-book collection, you have to buy more than one book. You have to buy the same book over and over again. And each time you buy it, the copy is different from any of the others you already have.” I’m in the process of building a one-book collection: English-language paperbacks of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles (1950).

Also, several articles in the back issues of Firsts look interesting:

• October 1991
A Burroughs Collection
Collecting Philip José Farmer

• February 1992
British Fiction Since 1950

• October 1992
Collecting H. G. Wells

• October 1993
Eccentric Classics of Science Fiction

• October 1994
Collecting Philip K. Dick

• October 1997
The Best SF of 1996
Collecting Leigh Brackett

• October 1998
The Best SF of 1997

• October 1999
Kim Stanley Robinson on Mars
Best SF of 1998

• October 2000
Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: The Best of 1999

• June 2001
Collecting Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury: A Space Legend
A Ray Bradbury Core Collection
A Ray Bradbury Checklist

• October 2001
Beyond the Limits: Time Travel Books
The Best of Science Fiction and Fantasy 2000

• October 2002
Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy: The Best of 2001

• October 2003
Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror: The Best of 2002

• October 2004
Collecting Jack Williamson: Master of Wonder
Jack Williamson: A Checklist
Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: Best of 2003
Ten Years Ago: Philip K. Dick

• October 2005
Collecting Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl: A Checklist of First Editions
Science Fiction Review: 2004

• November 2006
Special Robert A. Heinlein Issue
Introduction & Biography
An Annotated Checklist of the Primary First Editions
The Books: Collecting Robert A. Heinlein

Can hardly wait for an economic stimulus check from the Treasury!

Ace Double Novel: King of the Fourth Planet by Robert Moore Williams

King of the Fourth Planet (1962), a novel by Robert Moore Williams

At left: Paperback (New York: Ace Books, 1962), 126 p., #F-149, 40¢. Cover art by Ed Emshwiller. An Ace double novel, bound with Charles V. De Vet and Katherine MacLean’s Cosmic Checkmate.

Here’s the blurb from inside the front cover:

“John Rolf fled his own guilt when he abandoned the corruption of Earth for a life of meditation on the many levels of Mars’ mountain, ruled as tradition had it by a king with amazing powers. In this serene climate, Rolf perfected an invention that would explore the human mind -- and thereby unearthed a menace that threatened to annihilate the ancient Martian culture. The discovery confronted Rolf with the crisis of his loyalty and his past. To defy Earth, to save Mars? Yet only the King of the Fourth Planet would have the power to do so -- and everyone believed the king to be a myth.”

Williams' work was reviewed by critic Rich Horton. According to Google Book Search, SF author Lin Carter once called King of the Fourth Planet “a very forgettable novel.” Surprisingly, the book was included in a 2002 science fiction exhibit sponsored by the San Diego State University Library.

Robert Moore Williams is also the author of the collection When Two Worlds Meet: Stories of Men on Mars (1970).

An interview with John Carter of Mars film director Andrew Stanton

Sci Fi Wire received the latest news on the Disney-Pixar film John Carter of Mars in a January 12th exclusive interview with noted Hollywood film director Andrew Stanton. Stanton was attending the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award ceremony in Century City, California, where he accepted the award for best picture of 2008 for WALL-E.

Stanton confirmed to Sci Fi Wire that the film John Carter of Mars, based on the science fiction books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, will be live-action. "Yeah, I think that's the only way," Stanton said.

To learn more, read Sci Fi Wire's interview with Andrew Stanton.

John Carter of Mars is scheduled to land in theaters in 2012.

Editor Scott Edelman always got Mars stories

Scott Edelman is one of the more interesting and lighthearted characters in science fiction. A former assistant editor at Marvel Comics who later served as editor of Science Fiction Age magazine, Edelman is currently involved in the SciFi Channel’s newly christened Sci Fi Wire entertainment site. In a fascinating September 1997 interview with SF&F writer Jayme Lynn Blaschke that was published in Voices of Vision: Creators of Science Fiction and Fantasy Speak (2005), Edelman recalled how he always received stories about Mars:

Jayme Lynn Blaschke: You mentioned earlier that you, as an editor, are at the mercy of what writers submit. Have you noticed any current trends among the submissions that you receive?

Scott Edelman: It’s funny. The trends that I end up noticing are more political than anything else. I always get Mars stories. The stack of stories on my desk always has Mars in it. There was a period when I was getting O. J. Simpson stories. People wanted to do science fiction stories about O. J. in the future. Things like that happen. I don’t think any of those trends, when they occur, hurt an author in any way. If I buy a great Mars story, I’m not going to turn down another set on Mars just because I’ve already got one in inventory. I don’t think writers necessarily have to steer clear of those trends. It’s what the writer does with the building blocks that matters.

Speaking of building blocks, Scott Edelman constructed one of my favorite short stories: “Mom, the Martians, and Me” (2002), which was published in the anthology Mars Probes (2002).

Heinlein’s softer side: Stranger in a Strange Land

Sam Jordison of The Guardian’s Books Blog has a neat post titled “Robert Heinlein's softer side,” which discusses Stranger in a Strange Land, the winner of the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Among many interesting points, Jordison mentions that the book has sold more than 5 million copies.
No mention of Charles Manson.

Pictured: Paperback published in the United Kingdom in the 1980s.

NEA report: Fiction reading on the rise for adults

Fiction Reading Increases for Adults
The New York Times
January 11, 2009
By Motoko Rich

After years of bemoaning the decline of a literary culture in the United States, the National Endowment for the Arts says in a report that it now believes a quarter-century of precipitous decline in fiction reading has reversed.

The report, “Reading on the Rise: A New Chapter in American Literacy,” being released Monday, is based on data from “The Survey of Public Participation in the Arts” conducted by the United States Census Bureau in 2008. Among its chief findings is that for the first time since 1982, when the bureau began collecting such data, the proportion of adults 18 and older who said they had read at least one novel, short story, poem or play in the previous 12 months has risen. ...

Read the entire article in The New York Times.

“The Martian Crown Jewels,” a Sherlockian Sci-Fi mystery by Poul Anderson

Originally published in the February 1958 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, “The Martian Crown Jewels,” by Poul Anderson, is a Sherlockian “locked room” science fiction mystery. The plot revolves around the theft of the Martian crown jewels (worth half a billion UN dollars), which are being transported back to Mars from Earth aboard the robot spaceship Jane Brackney. A seven-foot-tall Martian named Syaloch, the most renowned private detective on the Red Planet, is called upon to solve the case. One of the suspects: a technician named John Carter.

Here are the opening lines of the story:

"The signal was picked up when the ship was still a quarter million miles away, and recorded voices summoned the technicians. There was no haste, for the ZX28749, otherwise called the Jane Brackney, was right on schedule; but landing an unmanned spaceship is always a delicate operation. Men and machines prepared to receive her as she came down, but the control crew had the first order of business. ..."

Apparently, the SciFi Channel did an Internet radio adaptation of
“The Martian Crown Jewels” for its Seeing Ear Theatre, which aired between 1997 and 2001. To my knowledge, that adaptation, which starred Bronson Pinchot as Syaloch, is not archived on the Internet.

Review of In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, a novel by S.M. Stirling

Noted SF&F critic Rich Horton has written a lengthy, informal review of S.M. Stirling’s novel In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, which was published by Tor Books in March 2008. To make a long story short, Horton says “I thought the actual final conclusion a bit too much of a deus ex machina, and not quite what I had in mind. Which of course isn't necessarily an author's obligation -- he's writing his book, not mine -- but still! Anyway ... I liked the book, as light entertainment.”

The prologue and first six chapters of In the Courts of the Crimson Kings are posted on Stirling’s website.

This is one of several books I did not have an opportunity to read in 2008. I'm debating whether or not to read it in 2009.

Ruth Nestvold’s short story “Mars: A Traveler’s Guide” makes Preliminary Nebula Awards Ballot

“Mars: A Traveler’s Guide,” a short story by Ruth Nestvold which was published in the January 2008 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, is on the 2008 Preliminary Nebula Award Ballot.

A clever story told through a rover computer system's responses to queries from a desperate tourist on Mars, the opening lines of “Mars: A Traveler’s Guide” are available at AccessMyLibrary.com.

I just read this wonderful short story and several other readers seem to have enjoyed it:

• “This one is great satire on the drawbacks of computerized help systems.” Sam Tomaino of SFRevu

• “Those who have studied transport disasters will recognize the horrific inevitability of supposed fail-safes not working in a cascade. [...] an object lesson in how to write very short stories.” Colin Harvey of The Fix: Short Fiction Review

• “Had a clever concept, and was short enough that it didn't wear it out, but it almost did. I skipped the infodumps several times, because the story was really between the lines here. A tough thing to manage, but mostly succeeded for me.” Jeremiah Tolbert, writer and contributor to Thaumatrope: The Twittering E-zine

• “Areological technological assistance breakdown. 4 out of 5.”
Blue Tyson, SF megafan

• “An extreme example of the conceit dominating the story. In fact there is no story, only the hint of one glimpsed through the entries accessed on a traveler’s encyclopedia of Mars. A clever bit of work.” Andy Spackman, librarian and aspiring author

• “Nestvold builds an eerie suspense through the limitations of the perspective that's highly effective by the end of the story. A gimmick story, in a sense, but very well-done.” Russ Allbery

• “The perfect parody of everything that is wrong with the computerized phone systems so many companies now use. [...] Now imagine that sort of set up in the wastelands of Mars.” Puss Reboots

To learn more about “Mars: A Traveler’s Guide,” read John Joseph Adams’s comments about his 2007 interview with Ruth Nestvold. According to Nestvold, the seed for her story was "a lecture Michael Swanwick gave at a workshop I once attended that he called How to Win a Hugo."

You can purchase the January 2008 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, which contains "Mars: A Traveler's Guide," through Fictionwise.

Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest

William Ledbetter announced that the third annual Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest, sponsored by Baen Books and the National Space Society, is open to submissions through April 1, 2008.

The contest is looking for stories about Moon bases, Mars colonies, orbital habitats, space elevators, asteroid mining, artificial intelligence, nano-technology, realistic spacecraft, heroics, danger, sacrifice, and adventure. The stories will be judged by Hank Davis, Eric Flint, and Mike Resnick. The winner will receive several prizes, including being published in a future issue of Jim Baen's Universe.

For complete details and contest rules, please see the website of William Ledbetter, contest administrator.

Pictured above: Noted science fiction publisher and editor Jim Baen, who died in June 2006.

"Pictures from an Expedition": Barbarella on Mars

With the new John Carter of Mars painting by esteemed artists Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell conjuring up images of Barbarella, it is worth recalling this foreboding passage from “Pictures from an Expedition” (2003), a short story by Alex Irvine in which character Jami "Barbarella" Salter ends up voluntarily marooning herself on Mars:

Some interplanetary sex symbol, she kidded herself. Running to the john every hour. But she was due to make the crew’s daily media dispatch today, and she didn’t want to be drumming her feet on the deck in front of the time-delayed pupils of Earth. The PR hacks at Gates had told her that her dispatches drew ratings fifty percent better than any other crew member’s, and even though she knew this was just a temporary skewing of the audience composition toward young, male, and horny, she had come to feel an odd sort of duty to live up to the standard that had been set for her. So she washed her hair when it was her day to dispatch, and touched a little makeup here and there. Katherine and Debbie kidded her about it, but they knew the score, and Jami thought they were a little grateful that she
was taking the pressure off them.

Said gratitude did not prevent them from nicknaming her Barbarella, though.

All in a day’s work, when the day was spent working for the largest private space venture in the history of humankind. They were seventy-five million kilometers from Earth, and the time delay was now almost four minutes each way. The lag hung between Argos I and Earth as much as the distance itself. Every time they spoke to friends or family or (more often) media, it felt more and more like they were speaking to the silence and less like any real human beings existed on the other side of the commlink.

She had written those words down in a leather-bound journal she was keeping: speaking to the silence. It had been hard not to write them again. And again.

Barbarella is not coping, she said to herself.

"Pictures from an Expedition" was first published in the September 2003 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It was reprinted in Fourth Planet from the Sun: Tales of Mars from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (2005), an anthology edited by Gordon Van Gelder.