Mars, We Love You

by Jane Hipolito (Editor), Willis Everett McNelly (Editor)

introduction by Isaac Asimov

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Anthologies

379 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a big anthology of stories, excerpts, essays, poems, and articles about Mars that was published in 1971. The poems and a few of the stories are original to the book, but most are reprints. The pieces are introduced by Isaac Asimov, whose name is on the cover in far larger type than that used for the editors' names. There are essays by Percival Lowell and Giovanni Schiaparelli about the planet, and the oldest complete story is Stanley Weinbaum's A Martian Odyssey from 1934. The excerpts include the obvious choices of The War of the Worlds by Wells and A Princess of Mars by Burroughs and the unlikely one of Double Star by Heinlein. I don't think excerpts of novels are a particularly good thing; they should just tell you to read the complete book elsewhere. (And if you're going to include Heinlein for Mars, it seems to me that Stranger in a Strange Land is the obvious choice.) I enjoyed the poetry, one of which is by Frank Herbert. There's a good mix of classic sf, much of it from the Golden Age, including H. Beam Piper's Omnilingual, P. Schuyler Miller's The Cave, Ray Bradbury's The Lost City of Mars, as well as stories by Clarke, Boucher, George O. Smith, Knight, Harrison, Wollheim, Del Rey, Ellison, etc. I thought that as long as they had Asimov's name on the cover they should have included The Martian Way, and no sf book about Mars is complete without a Leigh Brackett story, but I guess they ran out of room. It's a somewhat uneven assemblage, but it does have some good stuff.

[Leothefox · Rating 2 out of 5]

We all know by now that collections are very problematic beasts, especially in a multi-author scenario. I was really looking forward to this one though. Who wouldn't wanna hear a bunch of badass Mars stories. The cover reads “Tales of Mars, Men, and Martians”.

When all was said and done, the best thing about this collection was that it included parts of “A Princess of Mars”, which I've naturally already read a few times. Boucher's “Expedition” was cute, much better than a slightly similar Arthur C. Clarke story that followed. I think I'd read the Damon Knight story before, which is decent but pretty wide of the mark for what I wanted to be reading. H. Beam Piper's “Omnilingual” is pretty darn solid because it's very visual and it's about archeologists. The Weinbaum story is alright, and the Wollheim and Del Rey contributions are adequate.

Everything after page 260 was like a sleeping-pill to me, which is the major downside to a collection going in chronological order: it starts out energetic and fun and ends up introspective and sad. We all have different tastes, and for my part my shelf has very little from Bradbury, Harrison, Herbert, or Heinlein. Oops, almost forgot Harlan Ellison was in there, he's a-okay.

I think a dark corner must have been turned by the writing universe in 1943, or else I have no explanation for George O. Smith's “Lost Art”. I couldn't finish it. Two “regular” electronics enthusiasts (in the 40s I guess this meant a ham-radio geek) debating over turning on an ancient Martian circuit did not amount to entertainment or much else.

While they were stuffing this 400-page mattress, why couldn't the authors fins a little room for Clark Ashton Smith's “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis” or maybe an excerpt from Edwin L. Arnold's Mars book? Even something out of Michael Moorcock's Mars pastiche would have been better than some of the late 60s stuff that made it in.

Meh. I shoulda known I was in for it when they used Asimov's name on the cover. It's nice to sample some new authors in this way, but for the most part this only reinforced how I already felt.

[Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mine has a different cover. You know, I like this collection of Martian related tales pretty well but it's also irritating. When I was a kid and read it I didn't realize that in several cases it's only got "selections" of much longer stories. For example, there's a piece of War of the Worlds and a piece of A princess of mars. It's a kind of sampler then, and not all with completed stories.

[Edward ott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like any collection of stories you will like some more than others.

[Bob R Bogle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Contains Frank Herbert poem "Carthage: Reflections of a Martian."