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The planet Mars. Named after the Roman/Greek god of war. Fourth from our sun. A frigid desert, with gravity 38 percent Earthen level, and many secrets lurking in its frozen rock. This world looms large in the public imagination, thanks in part to the many fantastical stories orbiting this alien land. From princesses and Tharks, to inspiration for Arrakis, and from high fantasy and hard sci-fi, how and why does this crimson circle shine bright in our skies?

Episode sponsors

1. Enclave Publishing: Embergold by Rachelle Nelson
2. Sunrise Publishing: Lord of Winter by Jill Williamson and Andrew Swearingen
3. Fragments by J. A. Webb

Mission update

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• The new Book Quest for Above the Circle of Earth started Monday, March 10

1. Early myths: glimpses of the Red Planet

• Mars got created, with other planets, likely on day 4 (Gen. 1:16).
• It’s famously a “throwaway line”: “He also made the stars” (NIV).
• Later, Mars was named after the Romans’ version of the Greek god Ares
• It’s one of those “wandering stars” that flummoxed early sky-watchers
• Telescopes finally opened the sky to better theories of the solar system
• Astronomers found features of Mars, making little “fiction” on the way
• Giovanni Schiaparelli in 1877 first observed Martian “canali” or channels
• Some mistranslated his Italian as “canals,” assuming they were manmade
• That led to a lot of fun speculation about the civilizations on Mars

2. Pulp adventure: Man’s first steps on Mars

• British author Percy Greg actually beat Burroughs there by 30 years
• His novel Across the Zodiac portrayed an 1830 hero’s journey to Mars
• He’s credited him for effectively creating the “swords and planets” genre
• Greg actually seems to have invented the very term “astronaut”!
• His book also features alternative energy, a spaceship, and alien beings
• Other tropes originated: likely the first alien language in all of fiction
• 1889: Camille Flammarion’s Urania got mystical about Mars
• 1898: H. G. Wells wrote The War of the Worlds about evil Martians
• Then, in 1912, Burroughs began publishing his Barsoom stories
• They were originally serialized in The All-Story Magazine that year
• John Carter first “projects” himself to the planet in A Princess of Mars
• Burroughs wrote at least 10 Barsoom novels from 1912 to 1941
• An eleventh book, John Carter of Mars, included work from his son

3. Deeper on Mars: literary, scientific, beyond

• From here, other authors decided to get deeper about Martian stories.
• 1938: C. S. Lewis explored Mars (“Malacandra”) in Out of the Silent Planet
• 1949: Robert A. Heinlein wrote the boys’ adventure novel Red Planet
• His take features a more “libertarian” take on Mars, emphasizing humans
• 1950: Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles stories also got more artful
• 1951: Arthur C. Clarke “terraformed” the planet in The Sands of Mars
• Alas, the 1960s space race overthrew some romantic notions about Mars
• 1965: Mariner 4’s photos exposed a lot of our happy Martian mythology
• Authors largely turned toward this view of Mars, without native Martians
• Others, like Frank Herbert with Dune (1965), created other desert planets
• 1992: Ben Bova’s Mars about a joint American/Soviet colony project
• 1992–1996: Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars
• Martian fiction’s popularity faded during the late ’90s and 2000s
• Two movies, Mission to Mars and Red Planet (both in 2000) bombed
• Disney even dropped “of Mars” from John Carter of Mars (2012)
• 2011: Some interest in Mars returned thanks to Andy Weir’s The Martian
• Ridley Scott’s 2015 film adaptation broke the “curse” of Martian movies
• 2014–present: Pierce Brown’s far-future Red Rising series, involving Mars

Com station

• What’s your favorite planet in science fiction, real or fictional?

Zack Hindes has also felt the ‘vibe shift’ (episode 251)

Been thinking in this for a couple years now and have certainly felt a shift in the churches and circles I run in saying much of the same thing. Definitely online as well.

Next on Fantastical Truth

What if you woke up in a crumbling mountain castle with the beast of your nightmares? Then discovered this kindly dragon speaks like a man and reads books? And, whether literary or not, how would such a dragon—the mascot of traditional fantasy—fare in a battle against spaceships? That’s the burning question behind next week’s book “battle” between E. Stephen Burnett and author Rachelle Nelson, author of next week’s Enclave release: Embergold.