Tuesday, 16 April 2013

Mars

Unfortunately, I think that Welcome To Mars and "No Jokes On Mars" are too incompatible to fit into a single timeline. Some editing would have become necessary if any attempt had been made to fit them into a Haertel equivalent of the Cities In Flight sequence.

The Martian desert, lichen and animals are identical in detail. However, "Jokes," informs us that it is sometimes suggested that the dune cat "...may be descended from the long-extinct Canal Masons of Mars..." (Anywhen, New York, 1970, p. 145), whereas, in Welcome, the "canals" are impact fissures around craters and the last member of the dominant Martian race died in front of the first man on Mars, Adolph Haertel.

Other than this, it is clearly the same vision of Mars in both works. Thus, some editing or further explanation would have sufficed to fit them into a single series.

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