Sands of Mars

by Arthur C. Clarke

Book Overview

Predating the earliest manned space mission: the first full-length science fiction novel from the acclaimed author of 2001: A Space Odyssey.First published in 1951, before the achievement of space... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553290959
• ISBN13: 9780553290950
• Release Date: June 1991
• Publisher: Spectra Books
• Length: 229 Pages
• Weight: 0.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

A compelling story of human and personal destiny

"The Sands of Mars" is an underrated masterpiece by the master of science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke. This is the story of the first human colonies on the planet Mars. In this story Clarke brilliantly weaves the personal saga of the story's protagonist against the panorama of Man's successful colonization of Mars. Clarke's speculations are dazzling, and as always, he weaves a touching personal story into a grander story of Mankind's expansion into the universe. There are, of course, the inevitable anachronisms in a story written more than 40 years ago. Clarke's protagonist uses a typewriter (typing on actual paper while in a spaceship) and they fax his manuscripts back to earth. Probably they used slide rules too. If some of Clarke's science in this novel is a bit out of step with what we now know (or think we know) about the planet Mars, it is not so far out as to detract from this story. This one has stood the test of time, and will not truly be dated until humanity has actually colonized Mars. In fact, "The Sands of Mars" accomplishes in a few hundred pages what Kim Stanley Robinsons' Red/Green/Blue Mars series never accomplishes in thousands of pages--Clarke creates a plausible and believable scenario for humanity's conquest of Mars, and tells an interesting story to boot. In Clarke's novel the people seem real, the science seems real, and the story moves along smartly at all times. The discerning reader will return to this novel more than once. Highly recommended.

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

Sands of Time...

I read the book about 23 years ago and have re-read it time and time again. What it lacks sytlistically it makes up for in sheer joy of discovery and achievement by its characters on a Mars that was a valid extrapolation from knowledge at the time (c.1950) of writing. Good SF is about real people in a world that really might be - hence the personal secrets that are discovered along-side the planetary ones as the novel progresses.Mars officially is a cold, lifeless world, but the author Arthur Clarke has endorsed recent claims of life evidenced in space-probe photos. He might be mistaking hype for science, and geology for biology, but he might also have "The Sands of Mars" in the back of his mind too.

Classic Clarke

Although not one of his absolute best stories, The Sands of Mars is a classic work of science fiction and one which has held up well over time. It starts out a little slow at first, but once the story gets a bit into the Mars landing part of the book it increasingly picks up steam. Once again, in the climax of the book, Clarke has a seemingly impossible thing happen and describes it in such a way as to make it believable. Maybe that is the mark of a good science fiction writer. Also, the characters in this book, unlike some other works of Arthur's where the characters tend to be flat and somewhat dull, are quite believable and likable. Certainly you should read 2001: A Space Odyssey, Rendezvous With Rama, and Childhood's End first, but if you are an Arthur C. Clarke fan then you should definately pick up The Sands of Mars.On a sidenote, ignore the reviewer below who refers to this novel as "Part of Clarke's one novel per planetary body pulp series". This is simply a ridicilous statement. First off, ACC DOES NOT have one novel per planetary body, and he, being of the leading and perhaps pioneering practicioners of hard SF, certainly does not write pulp. Indeed, if you read this book as part of the omnibus Prelude To Mars, you will read in the preface to Prelude To Space that that novel took Arthur 20 days to conceive and write, which is a record he has never since come close to equalling. Yeah, sounds like pulp to me. Sure. Forget the negative commentary and enjoy the book.

Cogent Clarke Carries Conviction

For a science fiction book written in the late 1940s, this is an amazingly undated piece of work. Oh, sure, there are a few anachronisms ~ vacuum tubes and the possibility of vegetation on Mars are the most obvious to my non-scientific mind ~ and we are not as close to having a colony there at the end of the Twentieth Century as Clarke expected, but almost nothing else is out of place. The plot itself is impeccable; Clarke has created likeable, fun, believable, cogent characters of whom it is a pleasure to read. Martin Gibson is a Terran writer journeying to Mars to report on the successes there; his discoveries, including the major one that life on a frontier is what he wants. Mars is on the cusp of starting to make itself independant of Earth by the success of a secret project that Warren Hadfield ~ Chief Executive ~ has had scientists working on: Nothing less, in fact, than the complete reformation of the planet is contemplated. There are surprises a-plenty and mountains of pleasure in this, Clarke's first great novel. It deserves more renown than it has.