Book Description
The first photographic tour of the surface of another planet has now been accomplished. Those who thrilled to the lunar beauty of Full Moon and the IMAX smash Roving Mars will marvel at this awesome, vivid, beautiful portrait of what it is like to take a stroll on Mars.
The most fantastic of all journeys—the Spirit and Opportunity mobile robot missions to the surface of Mars—produced over 150,000 astonishing photographs. While the images were made available on low-resolution computer screens as they were sent back across millions of space miles, no one until now has done the painstaking work of editing, cropping, and processing these massive (often larger than 100 megabytes) images.
The person to do it is Jim Bell, the scientist and photographer who led the photography team on this historic expedition. With his unique perspective, these photographs take us from the brave launches of these robots, to the alien landscape they discovered and the mysteries of the planet that they have helped to solve.
Over 150 lavish full-color-process prints bring the colors and textures of Mars to vivid life on the page. Four of the most impressive pictures are presented in their entirety as gatefold images— which extend over three feet in width—providing a view of the surface of another planet unprecedented in its detail and clarity. Postcards from Mars is the perfect gift to give readers who have their feet on the ground and their eyes on the heavens.
Average customer rating:
- Classic
- Not Free SF Reader
- Arguably the greatest work of Sci-fi of the past two decades
- Some enjoyable moments. But not quite worth the time spent reading the entire book.
- A realistic portrayal of what a human expedition to Mars would be like
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Red Mars (Mars Trilogy)
Kim Stanley Robinson
Manufacturer: Spectra
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Green Mars (Mars Trilogy)
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Blue Mars (Mars Trilogy)
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The Martians
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ASIN: 0553560735
Release Date: 1993-10-01 |
Amazon.com
Red Mars opens with a tragic murder, an event that becomes the focal point for the surviving characters and the turning point in a long intrigue that pits idealistic Mars colonists against a desperately overpopulated Earth, radical political groups of all stripes against each other, and the interests of transnational corporations against the dreams of the pioneers.
This is a vast book: a chronicle of the exploration of Mars with some of the most engaging, vivid, and human characters in recent science fiction. Robinson fantasizes brilliantly about the science of terraforming a hostile world, analyzes the socio-economic forces that propel and attempt to control real interplanetary colonization, and imagines the diverse reactions that humanity would have to the dead, red planet.
Red Mars is so magnificent a story, you will want to move on to Blue Mars and Green Mars. But this first, most beautiful book is definitely the best of the three. Readers new to Robinson may want to follow up with some other books that take place in the colonized solar system of the future: either his earlier (less polished but more carefree) The Memory of Whiteness and Icehenge, or 1998's Antarctica. --L. Blunt Jackson
Book Description
In his most ambitious project to date, award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson utilizes years of research and cutting-edge science in the first of three novels that will chronicle the colonization of Mars.
For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny.
John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic "alchemists, " Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life...and death.
The colonists place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light to the planets surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces--for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.
Brilliantly imagined, breathtaking in scope and ingenuity, Red Mars is an epic scientific saga, chronicling the next step in human evolution and creating a world in its entirety. Red Mars shows us a future, with both glory and tarnish, that awes with complexity and inspires with vision.
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Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars for $13.47.
Winner of the 1993 Nebula Award for Best Novel
In his most ambitious project to date, award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson utilizes years of research and cutting-edge science in the first of three novels that chronicle the colonization of Mars.
For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny.
John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic “alchemists,” Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life... and death.
The colonists place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light to the planet’s surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces—for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.
Brilliantly imagined, breathtaking in scope and ingenuity, Red Mars is an epic scientific saga, chronicling the next step in human evolution and creating a world in its entirety. Red Mars shows us a future, with both glory and tarnish, that awes with complexity and inspires with vision.
“An absorbing novel.... A scientifically informed imagination of rare ambition at work.”
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
“Promises to become a classic... This is epic science fiction in the best sense of the term—thoughtful, provoking and haunting.”
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
“A staggering book... The best novel on the colonization of Mars that has ever been written... It should be required reading for the colonists of the next century.”
ARTHUR C. CLARKE
“The best tale of space colonization—a lyrical, beautiful, accurate legend of the future by one of the best writers of our time.”
DAVID BRIN
Customer Reviews:
Classic.......2007-09-23
If you have read or are planning on reading this, do yourself a favor and read the whole trilogy! This is a classic Sci-Fi trilogy! I highly recomend it.
Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03
An outstanding novel. One hundred people are selected to go and establish a colony on Mars, and it looks at the physical, intellectual and psychological testing that is undergone to get into that group.
The main part of the book though is the travel and establishment of a base on Mars, and the relationships and conflicts that develop, particularly among the leaders of the group.
Research discovers a longevity treatment, and this has serious side effects on an Earth in crisis. Political factions develop on Mars on the best way to develop or not develop the planet, and whether to take any crap from the growing influence of Earth corporate power.
Arguably the greatest work of Sci-fi of the past two decades.......2007-08-16
I am just aghast at the number of non-five-star ratings this book has received. The answer probably likes in the sophistication of the particular reviewers who are underrating this masterpiece. I don't want to make this sound arrogant or patronizing, but the great thing about the Internet (and Amazon reviewing) is that anyone can review, while the awful thing about the Internet is that anyone can review. I'm not sure what else one could want out of a Sci-fi novel than what you find here. My guess is that those who dislike it tend to prefer space opera or pure adventure books. But if you have any capacity to read good literature this novel will almost undoubtedly knock your socks off.
RED MARS has been almost universally praised by Sci-fi writers and academics as one of the finest hard science Sci-fi novels in recent decades. Partly as a result of the influence of Philip K. Dick (my favorite Sci-fi writer, but someone who was almost completely uninterested in the "science" in Sci-fi but instead focused on metaphysical dilemmas), STAR TREK, and STAR WARS, Sci-fi has been less and less focused on science in the past few decades and instead has been more concerned with exploring questions like "what is real?" or adventure stories. Time was when the most denigrated form of Sci-fi was the space opera. Robinson's Mars Trilogy is the triumphant return of hard science in novelistic form. But RED MARS is far more than that. It is as political as it is scientific. I can imagine that a few of the people giving the novel low marks are troubled by Robinson's politics, which are further to the left than any prominent politician in America today. It isn't an accident that many Marxist writers, including Fredric Jameson, who Robinson thanks in the Acknowledgments, love Robinson's dystopian take on role of capitalism in forming the world we live in, either on earth (as in his Pacific trilogy) or on new worlds (as here in the Mars books). If you are a big fan of an unbridled free market capitalism (which by its very nature is utopian, in that it continually describes a world that doesn't exist, but insists could if only we would free the market from all political and social restraint) then this isn't a novel that will warm the laissez-faire cockles of your heart. This is capitalism as rapacious, inhuman, and imperialistic.
I find the epic sweep of Robinson's vision to be almost overwhelming. He balances almost perfectly scientific, political, social, and narrative concerns. His characters are both many and richly drawn. His Mars exists in a way that only rarely do Sci-fi writers make possible. I can't point to many writers who have made their imaginary world so tangible and believable. I don't have the scientific expertise to address the plausibility of the many terraforming and climate altering techniques and tactics addressed in the novels, but I never found anything in the book to be absurd or silly.
I loved the various components making up this book. And the characters are more developed and vivid than in most Sci-fi novels. While John Boone never really emerged for me as a believable character, many of the others like Frank, Maya, Nadia, the irrepressible Arkady, Ann, Sax, and many others did. Thanks to gene therapy that helps extend life by renewing the genetic structure of the body, many, though not all, of these characters make it into GREEN MARS or even into BLUE MARS. The trilogy itself extends over several decades. I can recommend few works of fiction as highly as I recommend this. But if you are looking for a great yarn rather than a great novel, look elsewhere. This probably isn't for you. But if you are instead looking for a truly great novel, for a trilogy that might represent the apex of Sci-fi writing of the past twenty years, do yourself a favor and read not just RED MARS, but the two other novels in the trilogy as well.
Some enjoyable moments. But not quite worth the time spent reading the entire book........2007-07-10
Pros: Robinson creates vivid images of life on Mars. For the most part, the technical aspects added an incredible amount of realism to the story. Which makes for the best kind of science fiction. I especially enjoyed the chapters that made the space elevator come alive in the imagination as we may never get to see it elsewhere.
Cons: His explorations into the sociology,sexuality, and psychology of his characters were often boring,always lengthy,and sometimes unexpectedly and disturbingly crass. (i.e. not for the kids to read)If that weren't bad enough,he also attacks Christianity of all types with a sledge hammer. Declaring it repeatedly as an archaic religion for a band of greedy idiots. All other types of faith are regarded as "interesting" and "progressive". Robinson could have introduced his ideas into the story without being so heavy handed and long winded. Unfortunately he did not.
A realistic portrayal of what a human expedition to Mars would be like.......2007-04-26
This book is about an expedition of 100 scientists from all over the world sent to colonize/terraform Mars for a permament human colony in the year 2026. These scientists left everything behind on Earth (they'll never go back), and they are chosen (after extensive pyschological testing) to go to Mars.
It doesn't have much action in the story. It is more a look at human behavior and actions, a plausible scenario of what could happen when you get a group of people together to colonize Mars. How they adapt and change to their new surroundings, the realization that things aren't the same as on Earth.
There is a lot of human drama and political/power moves within the group. Everyone has a different idea of how to go about colonizing Mars. Some, the geologists, want to keep Mars pure and don't terraform or disturb the planet. When it comes to society, some want to start fresh and leave all the human baggage behind on Earth.
The book is slow moving, and was a bit boring at times but it is an interesting look at human interactions within a group. This book is part of a trilogy. Green Mars and Blue Mars are books that come after this one.
If you have always been fascinated by Mars colonization stories, this is the story for you.
Book Description
teve Squyres is the face and voice of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission. Squyres dreamed up the mission in 1987, saw it through from conception in 1995 to a successful landing in 2004, and serves as the principal scientist of its $400 million payload. He has gained a rare inside look at what it took for rovers Spirit and Opportunity to land on the red planet in January 2004-and knows firsthand their findings.
Customer Reviews:
FACT MORE INTERSTING THAN FICTION.......2007-09-16
The author captures how difficult it is to explore another planet--and to be one of the leaders of the team that imagined, built, launched and drove two robots around the surface of Mars. While the story is true, the book is anything but dull. Dr. Squyers' book reads like a novel and portrays the trials and tribulations of engineers trying to build and test a machine that can travel a million miles, get bounced on Mars, unhook itself, stand up, crawl onto the Mars surface, take photos, scratch the surface of and analyze rocks, and-- travel for more miles and months than anyone's wildest dreams. All this in search of evidence of water. Read the book to learn if they succeeded.
Hard to get past the initial part.......2007-09-03
I've been to Steve Squyres lecture with the same title. The lecture, and Steve Squyres, were inspiring. So I bought the book. I'm still trying to get past the initial phase where Steve Squyres describes the hurdles of getting the project up and running. The book is tedious, with a lot of details that don't add to clarity, rather confuse with acronyms that hide the goal and the mission. If Steve Squyres' goal was to educate the reader as to how complex a problem it is to send a rover to Mars, more politically than technically, then he has succeeded. I was hoping to see more vision and insipration and maybe I'll get it once I get past the initital phase of getting the project off the ground.
Absolute Must Read.......2007-06-07
Steven Squyres gives a detailed look into the world of NASA's space mission proposals, using his personal experiences. He explains how he completely messed up with the dimensions of his first proposal. Mr. Squyres has tendency to make others look bad and to make himself look good using 20/20 hindsight and probably omitting some credit to fellow scientists, especially when it comes to geology.
His account of the Rovers is something only he could do from his position as Principle Investigator. He points out the very important problems that the rovers encountered. I did not know that a heater on the opportunity's arm had malfunctioned and has been stuck on the whole time drawing a significant amount of the rover's energy and limiting what it can do in a sol (day) as a result.
His description of geology of the sites is amazing.
You have to read this book to understand what is happening in Mars research.
Quality Science Writing.......2007-05-05
I followed the Rovers from Finland via Webcasts, since the EU countries don't seem as interested in the success of the US space program, so there wasn't all that much material here on this project. However, I wasn't expecting a very well written book, since most of the Rover stuff on the web is either way too dumbed down or way too deep (and boring) geology discussions.
Steve Squyres managed to write a very interesting book which is interesting to me on many levels. First as an engineer and scientist, it was very interesting to follow the political as well as scientific background for this project. In my own line of work, as a telecom engineer, I'm also used to project deadlines, testing, failures, and murphy's law, but it seemed even more acute on this particular project.
Second, I always admire science writers who are able to weave in a story about the history and people involved in scientific works, not just a pure technical discussion, and I think he has done that quite well here.
The only criticism I have for this book, is to say that Dr. Squyres probably should have written/published this book a few years down the road rather than when he did so that he could have put a more in depth history/review of the Rover project and it's results. After all, the Rovers are still going strong and still producing science, whereas Steve seemed to be expecting failures due to power loss to end (at least for Spirit) back on Sol
<
< today. For example, this book has no inkling about the recent exploration by Opportunity of Victoria crater and the recent Mars Observer with the new visual evidence for water seeping down the side of a crater in comparative photos.
Latest ground news.......2007-01-17
This book is highly illustrative of our near cosmic neighbor, the photographs are excellent the written content is very well done, the authorship reflects those very closely connected with this particular space effort. It is well organized and highly entertaining for those interested in this topic. I highly recommend this publication.
Book Description
One of the least-known stories of World War II, Operation Mars was an epic military disaster. Designed to dislodge the German Army from its position west of Moscow, Mars cost the Soviets an estimated 335,000 dead, missing, and wounded men and over 1,600 tanks. But in Russian history books, it was a battle that never happened--a historical debacle sacrificed to Stalin's postwar censorship.
David Glantz now offers the first definitive account of this forgotten catastrophe, revealing the key players and detailing the major events of Operation Mars. Using neglected sources in both German and Russian archives, he reconstructs the historical context of Mars and reviews the entire operation from High Command to platoon level.
Orchestrated and led by Marshal Georgi Kostantinovich Zhukov, one of the Soviet Union's great military heroes, the twin operations Mars and Uranus formed the centerpiece of Soviet strategic efforts in the fall of 1942. Launched in tandem with Operation Uranus, the successful counteroffensive at Stalingrad, Mars proved a monumental setback. Fought in bad weather and on impossible terrain, the ambitious offensive faltered despite spectacular initial success in some sectors: Zhukov kept sending in more troops and tanks only to see them decimated by the entrenched Germans.
Illuminating the painful progress of Operation Mars with vivid battle scenes and numerous maps and illustrations, Glantz presents Mars as a major failure of Zhukov's renowned command. Yet, both during and after the war, that failure was masked from public view by the successful Stalingrad operation, thus eliminating any stain from Zhukov's public image as a hero of the Great Patriotic War.
For three grueling weeks, Operation Mars was one of the most tragic and agonizing episodes in Soviet military history. Glantz's reconstruction of that failed offensive fills a major gap in our knowledge of World War II, even as it raises important questions about the reputations of national military heroes.
This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.
Customer Reviews:
Welcome to the Meatgrinder.......2007-04-29
ZHUKOV'S GREATEST DEFEAT is an exhaustive and exacting study of one of the biggest and least-known land battles in history, the Battle for the Rzhev Salient, which took place west of Moscow over three weeks in late 1942. It was written by David M. Glantz, the director of the U.S. Army's Foreign Military Studies Office, who also penned two other Red Army studies, WHEN TITANS CLASHED and STUMBLING COLOSSUS. Like Mr. Glantz's other works, it is notable primarily for its extensive use of Soviet and Russian-language sources, which with the fall of the Soviet Union are becoming increasingly available to Western historians. Thanks to his diligent research, this gigantic clash of Nazi and Soviet armies that produced 400,000 (mostly Soviet) casualties, for decades effectively covered up by postwar Communist historians and generally ignored by westerners obsessed with the simultaneously-occurring Battle of Stalingrad, has now been lifted out of historical obscurity.
Glantz's book primarily covers the period between November 25 and December 15, 1942, when the Red Army launched Operation Mars, a massive offensive on the northern-central sector of the Eastern Front to destroy two German armies poised in a 50 x 30 mile bulge that pointed threateningly towards Moscow. This so-called Rzhev Salient was viewed by Marshal Georgi Zhukov, the ablest of the Soviet generals, as a perfect staging ground for an massive encirclement operation of the type that was being carried out at that moment at Stalingrad. The two operations, it was hoped, would annihilate not merely one German army, but two complete Army groups, and caused a frontwide collapse of Nazi forces in Russia. Zhukov made pain-staking preparations and was fully confident that the cold, dispirited and understrength German divisions in the Salient would quickly fall prey to his massive pincer attack. As Glantz shows us, he was wrong. Poor weather, unsuitable terrain and a tenacious German resistance turned the glorious offensive into an enormous bloodbath. One Soviet brigade after another was shattered, driven back or wiped out completely, only to be replaced by still more who met the same fate. German lines were bent but obstinately refused to break as the Nazi commander, Walther Model, hurled in his last reserves to stem the enemy tide. Long after it was clear that Mars would not achieve any of its objectives, the pathologically stubborn Zhukov continued the attack, as if, in Glantz's words, "to punish" his armies for their failure. The result was 100,000 Russian dead, 235,000 wounded and missing and an incalculable amount of equipment destroyed or captured, for gains that nowhere exceeded more than a few kilometers. It was not for nothing the Soviet soldier dubbed the area of the Salient "the Rzhev meat-grinder."
ZHUKOV'S GREATEST DEFEAT is an important book on the Nazi-Soviet war, but it is clearly meant for hard-core fans of military history only. Glantz is a diligent, thorough, and methodical researcher, but unfortunately, his writing style has these same qualities. There is no attempt to edit, filter or streamline the vast amount of information which marches past on every densely-written page: we are treated to every brigade movement, every redeployment of a grenadier battalion, every argument between unit commanders over tactics and supplies. Stylistically, this reads like a military publication -- extremely heavy on tactical and logistical details, light on prose style. As a result, I often found myself in a Rzhev-like struggle to finish certain parts of the book. Many times I found myself longing for the stylistic skills of a John Keegan, Stephen Ambrose, David Irving or Alan Clark, and instead got fact-stuffed passages talking about how the 3rd Battalion of the 173rd Grenadier Regiment, 12th Panzer Division was replaced in the line by the 1st Battalion, 3rd Regiment, Grossdeutschland Motorized Division. Obviously this type of detail is necessary here and there in any battle-book, but after a couple hundred pages it wears on the eyes.
Having said this, I think ZHUKOV'S GREATEST DEFEAT is still something of a triumph. Mr. Glantz has done nothing less than resurrect a forgotten battle and reconstruct it before our eyes down to its smallest details. He may not be the most asthetically pleasing historian around, but he brings the same type of grim determination to tell the story that Zhukov displayed trying to win the battle. Unlike Zhukov, however, he succeeds.
Thank Goodness for David Glantz !.......2006-08-15
For those who forget the past are condemned to relive it. The supression of knowledge of Operation MARS as military history because of its failure can be dangerous. Failure can be just as instructive as success if not more so. With the addition of this book, we can place the Eastern Front in the broader context that has been missing. This book allows an examination beyond the dogmatic explanation from Soviet sources.
Detailed account of the (virtually unknown) Rzhev operation.......2006-05-24
This is an interesting and detailed account of Operation Mars, the Soviet offensive around the Rzhev salient in the fall of 1942. This massive attack was contemporaneous with the counterattack further south that ultimately led to the encirclement of Stalingrad, and of similar scale in terms of men and material. According to Glantz, this operation was a colossal failure and was largely covered up by the Soviet government. I'm not sure that I entirely agree with this assessment, but little has been written about this operation, and this book nicely fills a longstanding void. It may well have been the Soviet plan for the Stalingrad offensive to be the secondary front, but they would not have succeeded there without the tremendous sacrifice by the Red Army around Rzhev.
This book has several strengths, and I generally recommend this book to any student of the Eastern front. The operation is explained at both the strategic and operational level, and there are detailed maps to show the positions of the larger units (regiment and above) relative to each other and geographic features. The text is divided into five sections. The strategic situation of both sides is outlined in the first, the initial attack in the second, the containment of the offensive by the Germans in the third, the subsequent futile Soviet attacks and ultimate failure in the fourth, and an epilogue and summary in the fifth. This was a rather complex, multi-directional attack to reduce a salient, and the text could easily have been a muddled mess. Glantz does a good job (through the text and the maps) of keeping everything straight so the reader can follow events in both time and space. One feature I thought was particularly useful was that some maps are zoomed in on small regions of the front. Other reviewers expressed a dislike for the maps and symbols, but I thought they were fine.
There are several serious drawbacks to this book that prevent me from giving it 5 stars. First, Glantz's position is VERY pro-Soviet (this is common throughout virtually everything he writes). He pulls no punches here. Historians are often looking for balance, and admittedly for fifty years much of the history about the Eastern front in the West came from German sources, so that our knowledge been skewed. Glantz certainly references many German sources and is clearly very knowledgable in this area, but he has done a great disservice by taking such an evident pro-Soviet position. There is a blatant lack of balance in this work. Second, Glantz often refers to the detailed inner thoughts of commanders. I find it hard to believe that such extensive knowledge of the personal thoughts and feeling of the participants is known. This seriously detracts from this work as history. I got the impression that Glantz is directly putting his own views and interpretations into the narrative by claiming such detailed knowledge of the participants.
I give this book four stars because it is a solid effort written about a virtually unknown operation on the Eastern front. I would not argue with anybody who gave this three stars though, this work does have some serious problems. I found this book easy to read, although I admit that I'm obsessed with this era. This is a dense book packed with information and may not be to everyone's taste. For any serious student of the era, this is really a must have, even given its limitations. There is a wealth of information here, much of it taken from Soviet sources, that is likely to be unknown to the most well read student. For the more casual reader of this epoch, I cannot recommend this book, and suggest that you spend your money elsewhere.
Glantz's research is shoddy.......2006-02-08
David Glantz's research for this book would be unacceptable ,if he were writing a book ,say, on the American Civil War.His access to original sources was inadequate.Therefore, I would take the information in this book with a grain of salt.He exaggerates the casaulty figures of Operation Mars. Operation Mars was meant as a diversion.Glantz has a bias against Zhukov.In his lastest book ,however, he seems to have come to a more objective assessment of Zhukov. Save your money.
Too much detail.......2005-12-05
This ought to to have been a ground-breaking book on the war in Russia, and the tenacity of Hitler's military machine.
But the author seems to have no sense of what is important and what is speculation. The book is overloaded with unnecessary detail. Like most historians, Glantz is a big paragraph man.
No one has ever told him that short paragraphs are easier to read.
I fear in his case, even this slight modification would be of no help.
A ruthless editor should get to work on it and cut through the verbiage to leave what's important.
And other reviewers are right: the maps are appalling.
Amazon.com
Mars holds a special fascination for us, because it is the most Earth-like planet we've yet encountered. As we continue to explore the red planet, geological evidence mounts that long ago water flowed freely across its surface, begging the question: If there was water, was there life? Graham Hancock thinks so. In fact, Hancock, a former journalist and the author of several books, including Fingerprints of the Gods, believes that certain formations on the Martian surface are the remnants of an ancient civilization--one strikingly similar to ancient Egypt--that was destroyed by a cataclysmic deep impact. Further, Hancock claims that NASA's reluctance to give credence to "The Face," "The Pyramids," and other things people see in images of the Martian surface is evidence that the U.S. space agency is motivated by cold war paranoia and mistrust. Hancock seems to be more fair-minded than many NASA critics, stating that, "what we see is a mindset, here, not a conspiracy." And indeed, one is hard-pressed to imagine why NASA isn't agreeing wholeheartedly with Hancock, since his ultimate point is that we should be paying more attention to our planetary neighbors and the skies above, lest we suffer the same fate as the Martians. Hancock raises many intriguing questions in this synthesis of unorthodox Mars theory, but those looking for applications of Ockham's razor had best search elsewhere--Hancock's theories require a leap of faith as surely as NASA's do. --Therese Littleton
Book Description
An asteroid transformed Mars from a lush planet with rivers and oceans into a bleak and icy hell. Is Earth condemned to the same fate, or can we protect ourselves and our planet from extinction?
In his most riveting and revealing book yet, Graham Hancock examines the evidence that the barren Red Planet was once home to a lush environment of flowing rivers, lakes, and oceans. Could Mars have sustained life and civilization?
Megaliths found on the parched shores of Cydonia, a former Martian ocean, mirror the geometrical conventions of the pyramids at Egypt's Giza necropolis. Especially startling is a Sphinx-like structure depicting a face with distinguishable diadem, teeth, mouth and an Egyptian-style headdress. Might there be a connection between the structures of Egypt and those of Mars? Why does NASA continue to dismiss these remarkable anomalies as "a trick of light"? Hancock points to the intriguing possibility that ancient Martian civilization is communicating with us through the remarkable structures it left behind.
In exploring the possible traces left by the Martian civilization and the cosmic cataclysm that may have ended it,
The Mars Mystery is both an illumination of our ancient past and a warning--that we still have time to heed--about our ultimate fate.
Customer Reviews:
surprisingly enlightening!.......2007-05-20
You could read the title as "A warning from history that could save life on earth" or you could read the book and justify that it should have read "A rambling from conspirators that could ignite paranoia on earth."
Joke beside, this was actually very enlightening. I just thought it's be some crackpot ideas about Mars. I was 95% sold on the idea when they got into the mathmatics, which match those of ancient earth monuments. Reading that part alone sent me into shivers with a wide-eyed gaze. The second part which grabbed me was the section on camets and astroids. The truth is straight told and this alone will leave you wide-eyed. Getting into the speculation will just send your eyes drooping from their sockets.
So, the mathmatics and the comets were the best parts of the book. The rest was just filler - getting from one point to another.
The Mars Mystery.......2007-03-09
This book is right on the subject for me. Could this be true???? I think so
Mars: A Part of the Human saga?.......2006-04-13
This is among the earlier of Graham Hancock's remarkable series of books on unknown Human History. It concerns a possible connection in the ancient human past between Earth and Mars, which the writer postulates hosted a Human civilisation before it got destroyed in a cataclysm caused by a cometary or asteriod impact. Either there was a sister civilisation on Earth, or the remnants from the Martian one escaped and came here to start afresh, and thus Ancient Egypt was where they "unloaded" their legacy. He dated Ancient Egypt's legacy as belonging far back in the hidden mists of millenia untold, linking it to this Martian civilisation, instead of its "official" starting date of circa 3100 BCE. The "story" therefore is remarkable and astounding. But Hancock, in this book, also deliberately deconstructs his previous, equally remarkable and plausible ice-age theory for the destruction of such an ancient technological global, antediluvian civilisation for which he cites the theories of Charles Hapgood and others, and for which overwhelming evidence otherwise exists, transcending interdisciplinary boundaries. This theory was based on the Earth's cyclical axial precession as well as the related possibility of its crust shifting catastrophically, and was at the core of his "debut" book, "Fingerprints of the Gods". His new asteroid-impact theory is as equally as forceful as the axis-shift one he replaces, and such abrupt changes of view could cause doubt in the minds of his readers, even those with superior intellects and education who could reconcile both these aspects of view. He does touch upon this disparity of his on P.254 of the book, but cursorily and briefly.
He treats the example of the present day scarred and desolate planet Mars as a warning for what could happen to our present "high" civilisation now populating Earth. Elsewhere, he also speculates on a conspiracy by the powers-that-be to conceal what happened to Mars - and therefore Mankind's actual history - so as to be able to control their societies, which might otherwise become restive and panick stricken in the face of such knowledge and eventualities. After all, the elites are mature and powerful enough to be able to contemplate awful disasters coolly and in the face - which an ordinary Tom, Dick and Harry can't otherwise even think of, let alone bear! In the last chapter of this book titled "Dark Star", he writes mournfully to the effect that just as humanity seems to be lifting itself to superior levels of cultural, technological and spiritual expression, along comes a global cataclysm forcing them back to square one: to begin as mountain shepherds and hunters all over again, carrying with them the tales of lost Golden Ages of science and culture. This forces him to contemplate mournfully, along Gnostic lines, as to whether God is indeed all-good and love as the "classic" scriptures would have one believe - or whether "He" is a Duality: Evil as well as Good. He then supplies the answers, and so do his other excellent books which I recommend to Amazon readers, "The Lords of Poverty" and "Journey Through Pakistan". The influence of devilish forces aside, it seems we ourselves become The Devil when our lofty achievements get overtaken and harnessed to base desires and consumeristic greed, leading inevitably to some kind of disaster... That is evident right now, in this most critical time recorded Human history has ever known.
Good. Not Great. Just good........2005-09-23
I enjoyed this book. I had some problems with some of the odd logic he used in some areas, but I'd still favor this book as a good read. His "Sign and the Seal" book was far better.
WELL-REASONED ACCOUNT OF "THE FLAYED PLANET".......2005-08-29
This may be the most speculative of all Hancock's books, but he gives you plenty to think about. I wondered if this book would just be another rehashing of Richard Hoagland's ideas about the artificiality of the "monuments" of the Cydonia region of Mars, but instead it's pure Graham Hancock. He connects some dots from his previous books, looking again at the significance of the layout of the Giza plateau in Egypt as well as Teotihaucan in Mexico and speculating about whether the ancients have left us a message. It's a dire warning that our planet may be in for a pounding by explosive projectiles from space - the same dangerous objects that may have destroyed the planet Mars.
Hancock provides plenty of background on the swarm of comets and asteroids that are on Earth-crossing orbits and how they got there. It seems as our galaxy makes its great circle over millions of years it periodically encounters the galactic arm which is full of debris. Some of this debris remains with our solar system, but on unstable orbits. Comets, it turns out, can begin as huge objects many miles across. They generally break up at some point into smaller more numerous objects and work their way from the far end of our solar system to closer to the sun - and, of course, passing by Earth. And yes, comets CAN hit planets as we learned with the explosive impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on the planet Jupiter in 1994. One of the impact craters it left is larger than Earth!
Hancock explores the photos we have of Mars that show it must have had liquid water in its past. He gives us a complete summary of the structures found at Cydonia, including the famous face. Despite NASA's release of a picture that made the face look like a bunch of random scratches, the speculation of artificiality is very much alive. NASA was deceptive in releasing a "raw" photo, something they normally do not do. It is obvious they wanted to put an end to the public's fascination with the face. Even cleaned up, the photo shows an irregular structure that only looks a bit like a face. But the whole concept of Cydonia as a place with constructed monuments never rested solely on the face. There is the matter of the geometry of the area, which seems to have encoded a lot of the same numbers as the pyramids of Giza and other ancient Earth monuments.
In true Hancock fashion, the author provides us with penty of food for thought. He carefully labels his ideas as speculation, not fact, but he conjectures that the damage to Mars could have been recent, not millions of years ago, and it could have coincided with the great flood stories of Earth and an apparent disaster or series of disasters in the time frame of 9000 to 12,000 years ago. These may have involved a scattering of comets and other space objects that are still a danger to Earth; that previous cycles of these swarms from space wiped out the dinosaurs and caused other mass extinctions on Earth.
Hancock goes on to speculate that disasters on earth may not be purely geological events, but may have to do with man's treatment of his fellow man and his respect (or lack of it) for his world. He laments that the nations of Earth are doing almost nothing to search the solar system for the danger that may be awaiting our home. Is it just hubris that makes up think we are the culmination of all previous generations of humankind? Or are we dead wrong, and is human civilization destined to experience cycles of destruction? Will our Mother Earth become a dead place like Mars? As always, Graham Hancock provides entertaining reading whether you buy into it or not.
Customer Reviews:
It's The Red Planet's Time To Shine........2005-09-05
Eurocentric in the Mediterranean (meaning "inner sea" in Greek) in the sixth century discovered the human mind. "This discovery was undoubtedly the most fateful of all history...which would one day lead on to Mars." What Mount Everest and the Moon were to the 20th centruy, Mars will be to the 21st. John Milton wrote in PARADISE LOST: "Their wandering course now high, now low' then hid, Progressive retograde or standing still." Mercury and Venus are known as the evening and morning stars.
Mars, on the other hand, uses zig-zagging movements while Jupiter and Saturn are slow creepers across the universe. Superior planets are those in orbit beyond that of Earth; the Inferior are Mercury and Venus are closer than our to the Sun. Mars prances with grandeur and grace with its red color (for fire) which makes it stand out. Mars has a rhythm, a musical harmony, to its flight across the sky.
Mars is the outermost of the inner group and has a substantial orbital distance from the Sun, taking longer than Earth to complete an orbit -- almost two years. Mars' retrograde "loop" perplexed ancient astronomers. Most of the time, it moves eastward; when Earth speeds past on its smaller, shorter orbit and overtakes Mars, it appears to move retrograde ("backwards") until a distance away and the eastward movement resumes. Earth knocks it for a loop.
NASA's Mars Exploration Program uses robots to explore the planet, dispatched to sites where water could have been eons ago. Thick deposits of salt, likely formed when water evaporated from an ancient sea have been found. There is dry ice at the poles. Mars has seen ice ages leaving icy polar caps. Volcanoes have formed deep valleys and large mountain ranges. They have their own Grand Canyon of enormous size, so vast that it takes up one-sixth of Mars' circumference. The atmosphere is thin, about one-hundredth of that on Earth.
NASA names prominent landmarks; like the United States postage stamps, the features are not named after living people. One was named after the former Columbia shuttle commander. University of Tennessee astronomers who work in conjunction with Cal Tech's Jet Propulsion Lab named a mountain ridge Cumberland Ridge.
Through trials and tribulations, the scientists show strength in the face of criticism and bask in the glories of their successes in this exploration of Mars. In 1971, the spacecraft Mariner 9 started the deal. In 1993, there was a failure to reach Mars with the Observer which had a ruptured fuel line. Four years later, on July 4, 1997, the Pathfinder lander with Sojourner rover made its way to the spot where Viking I lander had explored twenty-one years earlier and sent transmissions for six years back to Earth. Then came the rover Spirit and Oportunity, robotic explorers to look for samples of rocks, soil and other materials to help us to determine if Mars had indeed been a planet such as ours in many centuries past.
A manned flight is in the not-too-distant future. In 2007, Mars will be in the Taurus border in the early morning sky, closer to Earth; the United Kingdom will have the best view that winter of 2007 and 2008 around Western Europe. In November of that year, it will be the brightest object in the late evening sky. On Christmas Eve, it will be as far north as it can be on the celestial sphere with peak brightness next to a Full Moon. What a sight! By February to mid-April, 2008, it will end its spectacular show. By the end of May, it is muted in the bright sky and, on December 5, 2008, it reaches conjunction beyond the Sun.
Come fly with me to the Heavens and observe all these happenings. It doesn't take an astronomer or a space ship to enjoy the wonders of the universe.
"The Mars we are trying to explore does not exist!".......2001-04-24
This quote by Mike Malin sets the scene for the study of the red planet, as dreamed and hoped by mankind - scientist and layman alike. Over the centuries, Mars has confounded our attempts to describe it in Earth-like terms and Sheehan and O'Meara do a grand job of describing the history of hopes, dreams, and disappointments as the reality of Mars is discovered.
The book is set on epic scale and almost any paragraph rings with grand prose. At times this can be a little overpowering, but the canvas of the Authors is, after all, the entire celestial sphere and the history of human endeavour!
For Mars nuts this is a must buy and is compelling reading. It won't be everyone's cup of tea but it is a vital step in understanding how Mars has disappointed us in the past and may do so again.
Of course, I must declare an interest. Bill Sheehan included some of my own stories about dry Mars in this compendium. I am honoured to be included as a postscript to the legends of Mars' history.
Book Description
Devon Island in the Canadian High Arctic is the world’s largest uninhabited island, a place the size of West Virginia nine hundred miles from the North Pole. In its center is the world’s only impact crater in a polar desert, a hole twelve miles across and almost a thousand feet deep formed by an asteroidal comet hitting the Earth 38 million years ago. Every July, two dozen scientists set up camp on the rim of the Haughton Crater, a setting which duplicates as close as any place on Earth the barren Martian landscape. It’s one of a handful of analog environments for Mars — places where the harsh climate, severe geology, and unfamiliar terrain mimic conditions of the planet. Its environment is so hostile that no one has ever colonized more than small areas of its coastline for brief periods, and it's where the NASA practices people on Mars.
Driving to Mars recounts William L. Fox's three trips to Devon, working with the NASA Haughton-Mars Project. This book tells why we explore, how we see the world, and how we see ourselves in it. The flip sides of a single issue will ultimately determine whether or not we can stay alive on Earth.
Customer Reviews:
Exploration, Science, and Art: Driving to Mars.......2007-06-17
When it comes to exploration, there's nothing like being there. Yet at some point, all explorers need to tell others what they have seen - as well as find a way to understand and recall the experience themselves. Exploration is pointless if it is not shared.
The first humans to explore new places would return home with verbal descriptions of where they had been and what they had seen. These stories would fade and lose accuracy with each retelling, yet they still had the power to inform and inspire. Over time, the invention of writing and art allowed these tales to take on a greater amount of clarity.
Soon, professional illustrators and then photographers would be enlisted. Accurate as these captured impressions were - they were just that: captured impressions - by someone else. Of course, the only way to get beyond that barrier is to go to these places and see things for yourself.
Yet even when someone makes the trip, they have to take in what they see before they can appreciate where they are. Some vistas and locations are so utterly alien and novel that explorers need a context with which to integrate what they see. And of course, even the most incredible adventure will fade over time in the mind of an explorer. As such recorded impressions also serve to aid one's own memory of events in years to come.
It is the process whereby explorers put new vistas and experiences into a context they can internalize - and then how these impressions are shared with others that fascinates author William Fox. This book chronicles a writer as he sees things for the first time. Yet it is also a book on polar science, astrobiology, planetary exploration, ecology - and art history. Weaved together as part travelogue - part natural history, these books are eminently readable. This book serves as a tutorial for anyone seeking to visit and explore other worlds.
As I was reading this book, I was reminded of the way the James Michener often opened his books so as to give readers a portrait of a certain place and time. Michener also sought to show how that place came to be over a broad canvas of history - covering thousands and (sometimes) millions of years. Fox also makes sure that you know who visited these places first - and how these first feats of exploration echo forward to the present day.
You also get a sense of the future in what Fox writes. It was little surprise to see such an influence given Fox's friendship with author Kim Stanley Robinson and the referencing of his books "Red Mars" and "Antarctica". People are learning as they explore. They also seek to apply what they have learned - here and off world.
In Fox's book you find descriptions of people who are often quite ordinary - yet in many ways are extraordinary, placed in utterly alien and hostile locations. In some ways how they adapt is unusual - yet they also bring a surprising amount of their lives back in the real world with them.
Yet despite attempts not to spoil the very location they have come to study, these modern explorers transform these locations (or at least small portions) nonetheless. This is an issue that concerns Fox - and it will be an issue that will face us as we travel outward from Earth to explore and live on other worlds.
The arctic offers many locations that are analogous to what we may find on Mars - and elsewhere in the solar system. In particular, Devon Island, home to the Haughton Mars Project (HMP) is such a location. While you can fly to the hamlet of Resolute Bay in an hour - and to full-fledged civilization in a few more hours, this logistics chain can be cut at a moment's notice - and you are left with what you have on hand to survive. The veneer of connectivity to the rest of Earth is much, much thinner here. That is part of the value - and the allure.
HMP base camp is located next to the 38 million year old Haughton impact crater in a polar desert less than a thousand miles from the North Pole. Devon Island is largest uninhabitable island on Earth and is located in a region visited by many expeditions in the 19th century in search of knowledge - and the fabled Northwest Passage. Past, present, and future exploration co-exist in this place.
Visiting Devon Island evokes some truly alien impressions on all who visit. Having spent two one-month stints there myself, I speak from experience. There are places where your brain has no problem grappling with the idea that you are on Mars. It is there where I first met Fox who was researching Driving to Mars.
Driving to Mars is focused on this one location - and the natural history that makes it a good analog for Mars. You get to travel with Fox - on ATVs, modified Humvee rovers, and leap frogging in Twin Otter airplanes as he traverses the island. His travels take him to various locations where astrobiologists and geologists seek to understand this place on Earth - and yet place it into the broader context of comparative planetology. You also get to meet people who are trying to figure out how spacesuits need to be outfitted so as to allow people to truly explore the surface of Mars.
As you roam across Devon Island with Fox, you meet a variety of characters along the way (yes, I am one of them) who come from a variety of backgrounds. Everyone comes to this island every summer to not only study the place, but also learn how to conduct scientific and engineering research in a remote, hostile other worldly environment. All of these people also need to take something back from this place when they leave - their recollections being one of the most important.
Reading this book, you get a very good sense of place - not just what it is like to be there - but also what it is like for current visitors to walk in the footsteps of explorers who came before them - and (in the case of Devon Island) the indigenous peoples who explored the area thousands of years earlier.
The core theme of this book is how people take in what they see and then how they convey the experiences to others. Having spent two months myself doing precisely that in one of the locations Fox portrays (Devon Island), I have to say that he has aptly captured what it is like to be there - and the process whereby those experiences get interpreted and distributed.
As I write this review, new pictures are arriving on Earth from Mars. One set of imagery comes from the rim of Victoria crater as the Mars rover Opportunity seeks to find a way down inside. Meanwhile overhead the newly operational Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has begun sending back stunning high-resolution images of Mars. The first color image to be sent back shows the stunning vista of Victoria from above - including a recognizable speck on its rim - Opportunity itself. Yet as stunning and enticing as these images are - they are being sent back to us by a robot - without a human context. It can't tell us what it is like to be there.
Right now we are exploring Mars by proxy using our amazingly resilient rovers. One day we will go there ourselves. Only then will we truly begin to know the planet in a human context. And when we do go there we will make the planet our own as we explore it, understand it, and then tell folks all about it back home. In so doing we'll always be trying to strike a balance between what it is we have come to visit, what we bring with us, what we leave behind, and what we take back with us.
If you want to understand the people who are trying to figure out how to do this - and travel to remote locations on Earth in order to do so, then I heartily recommend this book.
Book Description
"Marvin Bell has the largest heart since Walt Whitman."
-Harvard Review
In a recent interview Marvin Bell said, "I've been trying for thirty years to figure out how best to put the news into poems-what other people would call politics. But there are some hairy aesthetic questions connected to overtly political poems."
Mars Being Red is the most political book of Bell's storied career-and one of his most beautiful. Infuriated by our country's military aggression and destructive politics, Bell asks,
What shall we do, we who are at war but are asked / to pretend we are not? What Bell has done is craft a book of urgency and insight, anger and action:
. . . I am, like you, a witness
to the coffins that were Viet Nam and Iraq,
to a political machine that came up three lemons . . .
I am the big ears and the wide eyes
to whom time happened. I lived in stormy weather
writing songs of love because, tell me
if you know, who can help it?
Marvin Bell served on the faculty at the Iowa Writers' Workshop for over thirty years. He is the first and current poet laureate of Iowa.
Book Description
Set your radar for the fourth planet from the sun! This easy-to-read science book covers it all-from little green men to the most recent discoveries made by long-distance space travelers, Pathfinder and Sojourner!
Customer Reviews:
Mars for Kids.......2000-07-19
This easy to read science book has information on Mars, from little green men to the discoveries made by long-distance space travelers, Pathfinder and Sojourner. Youngsters will enjoy the illustrations.
Average customer rating:
|
Mars: The Red Planet
Mick Farren
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
General
| Science Fiction
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0345358090
Release Date: 1990-02-13 |
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