ISBN: B0006AT546

The Sands of Mars

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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 flight, Arthur C. Clarke created this visionary tale. Renowned science fiction writer Martin Gibson joins the spaceship Ares, the world's first interplanetary ship for passenger travel, on its maiden voyage to Mars. His mission: to report back to the home planet about the new Mars colony and the progress it has been making.In The Sands of Mars, Clarke addresses hard physical and scientific issues with aplomb-and the best scientific understanding of the times. Included are the challenges of differing air pressures, lack of oxygen, food provisions, severe weather patterns, construction on Mars, and methods of local travel-both on the surface and to the planet's two moons."[Clarke is] one of the truly prophetic figures of the space age." -The New Yorker This description may be from another edition of this product.

Format:Hardcover

Language:English

ISBN:B0006AT546

Release Date:January 1952

Publisher:Gnome Press

Length:216 Pages

Weight:0.25 lbs.

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Arthur C. Clarke has long been considered the greatest science fiction writer of all time. He was an international treasure in many other ways, including the fact that a 1945 article by him led to the invention of satellite technology. Books by Clarke -- both fiction and nonfiction -- have sold more... Learn More About This Author

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Rated 5 stars
A compelling story of human and personal destiny

By Thriftbooks.com User, July 21, 2009

"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...

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Rated 4 stars
A classic that stands the test of time!

By Thriftbooks.com User, May 29, 2006

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...

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Rated 5 stars
Sands of Time...

By Thriftbooks.com User, September 22, 2003

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...

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Rated 4 stars
Classic Clarke

By Thriftbooks.com User, December 15, 2000

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...

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Rated 4 stars
Cogent Clarke Carries Conviction

By Thriftbooks.com User, December 8, 2000

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...

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