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To Mars via The Moon An Astronomical Story
This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.
266 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1911
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 15, 2021
I'm not sure this 1911 novel, if you could even call it a novel, fully warrants three stars, as it was so flawed on almost every level, but as a piece of history, I did find it fascinating enough to recommend it to students of astronomy and of the development of the science fiction genre. The author was Mark Wicks, and though that name sounds more appropriate for a pot-smoking executive in a West Coast tech company, he was actually an amateur scientist and tinkerer who was enamored with the study of Mars. He had only published one other book at the end of the 19th Century about home organ building and repair.
"To Mars via the Moon" has two distinct personalities. The first half is practically just a textbook of known information and recent scientific debate as of 1910 about our lunar baby sister and our Martian older brother. Wicks puts forth the noble effort of couching his scientific summaries in a loose fantasy plot about three guys traveling to Mars in their homebrewed spaceship in a way more easily digestible to young people and non-egghead types. However, the end result is still quite dry.
The second half concerns the first contact of the three explorers with Martian civilization. Here the book becomes pure speculative fiction, reminiscent of the popular socialist propaganda fantasies of the era, where wooden narrators are guided around a utopian world and have a wonderous time seeing the sights. There is little plot beyond this.
So what are the good points? Well, I was amazed at how over 100 years ago the technology to study our interplanetary neighbors must have been sufficient to give us some general data about the Moon and Mars that has not been updated much to this day! For instance, the size of certain mountains and craters and the diameter of the two moons of Mars were all surprisingly on the nose. Wicks himself weighed in on some more controversial theories at the time, believing that the composition of the martian polar ice caps consists of a combination of frozen water and carbon dioxide, and now we know he was right. But where he gets things wrong is equally fascinating. He believed, as did many others, that the darker patches on the surface of Mars as seen through telescopic examination was live vegetation on the bottoms of extinct sea beds. Of course, there is plenty of discussion too about the canals of Mars. Wicks was one of the believers that the canals were real technological innovations of either an existing or past intelligent civilization, but he admitted that a more accepted belief in his day was that the canals are optical illusions which is what is generally accepted today after the Rover landings. He even talks about an experiment involving school children who were asked to copy a picture of a globe covered in spots from a distance, and in many of their renditions, the kids drew lines where there were none, thus showing how the mind tends to integrate otherwise disconnected points.
But now let's talk about the bad. Well, I've read quite a few of these early space science textbooks disguised as science fiction, and this book suffers from the same affliction as it's contemporaries--dullness. And when the book is not dull, it is unintentionally hilarious.
For example, this had to be the most unqualified crew of astronauts I've ever encountered in literature. Some of the things they say are so incredibly ignorant that it is hard to imagine they studied anything about space and space travel. But what really takes the cake was when one crew member goes off because he can't find his tobacco.
“Do you call it reasonable, Professor, to ask a man who is a lover of his pipe to go all the way to Mars and stay there for months without any tobacco!”
Really? You are the lucky three who shall go where no man has gone before. You have supposedly planned and trained for this trip for a lifetime. And then this? Poor baby.
The "Professor" tries to sooth his jonesing comrade by saying Mars has plenty of vegetation and would sure have an adequate substitute for tobacco. It didn't occur to him until much later to tell his addicted pal that there was no way they were going back 57,000,000 miles to fetch his forgotten tobacco!
And this scene goes on and on. As I said, boring and unintentionally hilarious.
The only crew member who isn't an ass is M'Allister, but Wicks kept reminding us the character was Scottish by having him say "Hey, mon!" so often that it got on my ever-loving last nerve. But I swear this guy had to be the inspiration for Star Trek's Scotty. M'Allister is the ship engineer, and is constantly shouting from his post in his richest brogue things like:
“Professor, I don’t know what is wrong, but the machinery is slowing down so much that I am afraid we shall soon come to a dead stop! I have switched on more power, but it does not seem to make any difference!”
Translated: "I'm givin' her all she's got, Cap'n!"
And once this motley crew arrives on Mars, you'd have to be Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to buy in to the rest of this book, about how great it is that no one owns property, and how no one has to work more than six hours a day, and how wonderful and wise the government is.
SPOILER ALERT FOR THIS PARAGRAPH!!! The ending is a doozy and left me scratching my head for hours. We learn that evidently these three knuckleheads developed a sophisticated plan and means for traveling to Mars without anyone else having a clue, and then leave with no fanfare or witnesses from the scientific community. So why would they come back thinking they could casually talk about having just come from the moon and Mars as if they just returned from a trip to a Sandals resort? If you think this is ridiculous, you will find the end result to be more believable, and let's just say they deserve what they get.
And so, I've probably told you enough about this book that you don't need to bother to read it if you had been at all curious, and yet still peaked your interest enough if you are one of the chosen audience for this kind of thing. This is one of those very rare Radium-Age science fiction novels that are just starting to be revisited by modern eyes due to being preserved through Project Gutenberg and by scifi scholars like Ron Miller. As such, I'm sure many of you will find this to be a real treat, even if like that taro-root pastry you bought in a shop in Chinatown, a bland one.
"To Mars via the Moon" has two distinct personalities. The first half is practically just a textbook of known information and recent scientific debate as of 1910 about our lunar baby sister and our Martian older brother. Wicks puts forth the noble effort of couching his scientific summaries in a loose fantasy plot about three guys traveling to Mars in their homebrewed spaceship in a way more easily digestible to young people and non-egghead types. However, the end result is still quite dry.
The second half concerns the first contact of the three explorers with Martian civilization. Here the book becomes pure speculative fiction, reminiscent of the popular socialist propaganda fantasies of the era, where wooden narrators are guided around a utopian world and have a wonderous time seeing the sights. There is little plot beyond this.
So what are the good points? Well, I was amazed at how over 100 years ago the technology to study our interplanetary neighbors must have been sufficient to give us some general data about the Moon and Mars that has not been updated much to this day! For instance, the size of certain mountains and craters and the diameter of the two moons of Mars were all surprisingly on the nose. Wicks himself weighed in on some more controversial theories at the time, believing that the composition of the martian polar ice caps consists of a combination of frozen water and carbon dioxide, and now we know he was right. But where he gets things wrong is equally fascinating. He believed, as did many others, that the darker patches on the surface of Mars as seen through telescopic examination was live vegetation on the bottoms of extinct sea beds. Of course, there is plenty of discussion too about the canals of Mars. Wicks was one of the believers that the canals were real technological innovations of either an existing or past intelligent civilization, but he admitted that a more accepted belief in his day was that the canals are optical illusions which is what is generally accepted today after the Rover landings. He even talks about an experiment involving school children who were asked to copy a picture of a globe covered in spots from a distance, and in many of their renditions, the kids drew lines where there were none, thus showing how the mind tends to integrate otherwise disconnected points.
But now let's talk about the bad. Well, I've read quite a few of these early space science textbooks disguised as science fiction, and this book suffers from the same affliction as it's contemporaries--dullness. And when the book is not dull, it is unintentionally hilarious.
For example, this had to be the most unqualified crew of astronauts I've ever encountered in literature. Some of the things they say are so incredibly ignorant that it is hard to imagine they studied anything about space and space travel. But what really takes the cake was when one crew member goes off because he can't find his tobacco.
“Do you call it reasonable, Professor, to ask a man who is a lover of his pipe to go all the way to Mars and stay there for months without any tobacco!”
Really? You are the lucky three who shall go where no man has gone before. You have supposedly planned and trained for this trip for a lifetime. And then this? Poor baby.
The "Professor" tries to sooth his jonesing comrade by saying Mars has plenty of vegetation and would sure have an adequate substitute for tobacco. It didn't occur to him until much later to tell his addicted pal that there was no way they were going back 57,000,000 miles to fetch his forgotten tobacco!
And this scene goes on and on. As I said, boring and unintentionally hilarious.
The only crew member who isn't an ass is M'Allister, but Wicks kept reminding us the character was Scottish by having him say "Hey, mon!" so often that it got on my ever-loving last nerve. But I swear this guy had to be the inspiration for Star Trek's Scotty. M'Allister is the ship engineer, and is constantly shouting from his post in his richest brogue things like:
“Professor, I don’t know what is wrong, but the machinery is slowing down so much that I am afraid we shall soon come to a dead stop! I have switched on more power, but it does not seem to make any difference!”
Translated: "I'm givin' her all she's got, Cap'n!"
And once this motley crew arrives on Mars, you'd have to be Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to buy in to the rest of this book, about how great it is that no one owns property, and how no one has to work more than six hours a day, and how wonderful and wise the government is.
SPOILER ALERT FOR THIS PARAGRAPH!!! The ending is a doozy and left me scratching my head for hours. We learn that evidently these three knuckleheads developed a sophisticated plan and means for traveling to Mars without anyone else having a clue, and then leave with no fanfare or witnesses from the scientific community. So why would they come back thinking they could casually talk about having just come from the moon and Mars as if they just returned from a trip to a Sandals resort? If you think this is ridiculous, you will find the end result to be more believable, and let's just say they deserve what they get.
And so, I've probably told you enough about this book that you don't need to bother to read it if you had been at all curious, and yet still peaked your interest enough if you are one of the chosen audience for this kind of thing. This is one of those very rare Radium-Age science fiction novels that are just starting to be revisited by modern eyes due to being preserved through Project Gutenberg and by scifi scholars like Ron Miller. As such, I'm sure many of you will find this to be a real treat, even if like that taro-root pastry you bought in a shop in Chinatown, a bland one.
April 26, 2016
A quaint period piece published in 1911 about a journey to the moon and Mars. A snapshot of the theories about both in discussions amonst the travelers. Was a free download of a book in the public domain.
May 9, 2013
i'm the universe :)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews