- Hardcover: 219 pages
- Publisher: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd; First Edition edition (Dec 1951)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0283354178
- ISBN-13: 978-0283354175
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,157,648 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Arthur C. Clarke's second novel, "The Sands of Mars", published in 1951, differs greatly from his first novel. Whereas "Prelude to Space" was focused on the technical details of space travel, Clarke puts much more effort into character development in "The Sand of Mars". That is not to say that Clarke ignores the technical as much as he did the character development in his first novel. He has some interesting discussions on creating livable conditions on Mars for man, and he floats an idea which he would return to in "2010: The Year We Make Contact".
The story centers on Martin Gibson, a science fiction writer who has been invited to take a trip to Mars so that he can write about it. He is to ride aboard the Ares, which is a ship configured to start taking passengers to Mars. A fair amount of the story takes place on the Ares, as Gibson becomes acclimated to space and Clarke adds several incidents to the trip to keep the reader's interest while developing the characters. Clarke then plants the seeds for the big secret which Mars is keeping from Earth as Gibson arrives and is shown around the largest settlement.
The reader becomes acquainted with Mars through the eyes of Gibson and the events which occur around him. Using these events Clarke builds the reader's expectations for the secret, and also throws a few curves into the story itself, some of which aren't all that believable. In the end, the secret is revealed and along the way the reader has met some interesting characters, but all in all it is not one of Clarke's better works. There are just too many coincidences both in terms of character surprises as well as storyline ones to make it very believable.
The story centers on Martin Gibson, a science fiction writer who has been invited to take a trip to Mars so that he can write about it. He is to ride aboard the Ares, which is a ship configured to start taking passengers to Mars. A fair amount of the story takes place on the Ares, as Gibson becomes acclimated to space and Clarke adds several incidents to the trip to keep the reader's interest while developing the characters. Clarke then plants the seeds for the big secret which Mars is keeping from Earth as Gibson arrives and is shown around the largest settlement.
The reader becomes acquainted with Mars through the eyes of Gibson and the events which occur around him. Using these events Clarke builds the reader's expectations for the secret, and also throws a few curves into the story itself, some of which aren't all that believable. In the end, the secret is revealed and along the way the reader has met some interesting characters, but all in all it is not one of Clarke's better works. There are just too many coincidences both in terms of character surprises as well as storyline ones to make it very believable.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
10 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
A classic that stands the test of time!
29 May 2006
Format:Mass Market Paperback
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
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
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
I Liked It!
6 May 2003
Format:Paperback
I purchased "The Sands of Mars" years ago after I read another novel (The Songs of Distant Earth) which I adored.
I really enjoyed reading "The Sands of Mars". It was an unusual read since Mr. Clarke had written the novel many years ago - when many assumptions at that time about the moon and planets have been proven false today. In fact, Mr. Clarke mentions that in the preface of my book - and asks the readers to see how many they can spot (like plants that grow on the Moon and Mars, to name a few). These distractions should not at all take away from the novel. It's actually a simple and straightforward story. A writer (of Science-Fiction), named Martin, decides to go to Mars - which is still in it's infancy of colonialism. The story then relates of the colony's attempts at maintaining the colony on Mars as well as their attempt at terraforming the planet. It's a good story, that many should enjoy!
I really enjoyed reading "The Sands of Mars". It was an unusual read since Mr. Clarke had written the novel many years ago - when many assumptions at that time about the moon and planets have been proven false today. In fact, Mr. Clarke mentions that in the preface of my book - and asks the readers to see how many they can spot (like plants that grow on the Moon and Mars, to name a few). These distractions should not at all take away from the novel. It's actually a simple and straightforward story. A writer (of Science-Fiction), named Martin, decides to go to Mars - which is still in it's infancy of colonialism. The story then relates of the colony's attempts at maintaining the colony on Mars as well as their attempt at terraforming the planet. It's a good story, that many should enjoy!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Sands of Time...
22 Sep 2003
Format:Mass Market Paperback
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.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
