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A review by weaselweader
Het rode zand van Mars by Arthur C. Clarke
4.0
A classic that stands the test of time!
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
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