Venusians

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venusians 

Venusian

Planet Venus
Grouping	Extraterrestrial
Habitat	Venus

In science fiction and ufology, a Venusian (/vɪˈnjuːʒən, -ʃən/) or Venerian is a native inhabitant of the planet Venus. Many science fiction writers have imagined what extraterrestrial life on Venus might be like.

Etymology

The word Venusian – sometimes spelled Venutian – is a simple combination of the name of the planet Venus and the suffix -ian, formed by analogy to Martian and other similar demonyms.

The classically derived demonym would be Venerean or Venerian (cf. Latin: venereus, venerius "belonging to the goddess Venus"), but these forms have been used by only a few authors (e.g. Robert A. Heinlein). Scientists sometimes use the adjective Cytherean for things related to Venus, from the goddess' epithet Cytherea. The similarly derived Venereal is not used due to its association with venereal diseases, i.e. sexually transmitted diseases.

In fiction

Venusians appearing in works of fiction are usually fanciful, rather than plausible inhabitants of the planet. Before the mid 20th century, little was generally known about the planet except that it was solid and comparable in size to Earth; its cloud cover obscured remote observation of its environment. This allowed writers to speculate that Venusians might be similar to humans or other Earth species, much as they did for fictional Martians. As more was learned about Venus and the implausibility of humanoid or other life on it, Venusians became increasingly uncommon in science fiction.

In comics and manga

Cover of 1950 Avon comic adaptation of The Radio Man

• In early Captain Marvel stories, Venusians are giant frog-like amphibians which are ruled over by the evil mad scientist Doctor Sivana and his family. They are used to the tropical jungles of Venus and find Earth cold, and are quite savage. Venus is inhabited by other savage creatures, some which resemble prehistoric beasts, such as the centaur-like Gorillalion (which is half-gorilla half-lion).
• The Hydrads of Venus, who resemble huge animated sponges, appear in Planet Comics, in the Lost World section. If hurt, water can restore them to health. Though opposed to the Voltamen who have invaded Earth, they are also enemies to Hunt Bowman.
• In the Superman story which had the first appearance of the Legion of Super-Villains, one of the members was Cosmic King, a scientist who worked on transmuting elements, but when he was struck by the ray he gained the power to send those beams from his eyes. However, he was exiled from Venus for these experiments.
• In DC Comics' All-Star Comics #13 the JSA are gassed by Nazis and rocketed to different planets. Wonder Woman is sent to Venus and finds it to be inhabited by fairies led by Queen Desira, who worship Aphrodite, and claim to have been at peace for "a million years". She helps them in a war against the Meteor Men, large brutal males.
• In Showcase #23, Hal Jordan Green Lantern is sent by the Guardians, operating through the power battery to Venus where he meets blue-skinned primitive humanoids who are being attacked by pterosaur-like creatures. He seals the monsters in a cave, and leaves the world, saying the cavemen will one day be a great civilization.
• In the British comic Dan Dare (1950–1967), Venus is inhabited by green-skinned Treens and Therons, who are separated by a fire wall running across Venus. The Mekon, the Super-intelligent Treen leader is a primary villain. Most Treens are emotionless. The Therons are more friendly to Earth.
• Minako Aino of Sailor Moon is the reincarnation of the Princess of Venus. The Sailor V Manga shows a diamond shaped structure that is her castle.

In prose

• In the "Venus series" of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Burroughs created a fictitious 'Venusian' alphabet supposedly used by the Venusians (or "Amtorians" - as "Amtor" is what the natives call their planet). His artificial Amtor letters flow nicely together like cursive writing.
• In Olaf Stapledon's 1930 novel Last and First Men, when the Moon threatens to slowly spiral down to crash into Earth, humans leave Earth and colonize Venus; in the process of doing so, humans totally exterminate Venus' native inhabitants, a semi-intelligent deep ocean marine species. The descendants of the invaders, Sixth to Eighth Men, can be considered Venerians themselves.
• In Charles R. Tanner's "Tumithak of the Corridors" (1932) and its sequels, Venus is the homeworld of the shelks, spider-like aliens who have conquered Earth and forced most of the few surviving humans underground.
• In William Lumley and H. P. Lovecraft's "The Diary of Alonzo Typer" (written in 1935 and published in 1938), part of the Cthulhu Mythos, there are mentions of the "Lords of Venus", and conflicting indications that the Serpent People originated there. The story was followed by "In the Walls of Eryx," co-written by Lovecraft and Kenneth J. Sterling, in which a prospector is trapped in a maze on Venus, apparently constructed by lizardmen.
• In C. S. Lewis' book Perelandra (1943), Professor Elwin Ransom travels to Venus (the title is the name of the planet in the Old Solar language), a planet mostly covered by water with floating islands on it, in order to fight a possessed Professor Weston and prevent the "Adam and Eve" of this young planet from bringing about the same fate that befell Earth (Thulcandra). In the book, Lewis depicts a wide variety of flora and fauna, with some animals close to being sentient. The King and Queen of the planet are humanoid, but green, and their commandment is for them not to sleep on the fixed land, a still island. When this happens, the Oyarsa of this world, a type of angel-like being who seems feminine like the classical goddess, tells Ransom that this will be the start of a new age.
• Before Eden, by Arthur C. Clarke, is about a manned expedition to Venus which discovers an animated form of plant life. However, after the humans leave, the creature eats their abandoned garbage and other things left behind and this contamination eventually wipes out all native life on the planet.
• The Space Merchants is a science fiction novel, written by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth in 1952, about the campaign by advertising agencies on an overpopulated Earth to convince humans to colonize Venus, which is depicted as having a harsh and stormy tropical climate.
• "I Am the Doorway", a short story in Stephen King's 1971 collection Night Shift, concerns an astronaut who returns from a tragic mission to Venus to find himself possessed by a murderously terrified alien entity.
• In Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (1972), Willy Wonka says that Venus used to be home to an alien race before they were "gobbled up" by Vermicious Knids.
• In Jacqueline Susann's romance Yargo (1979), Venus is said to be inhabited by bees that are as big as horses.
• In the self-help book by John Gray, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, women are occasionally (metaphorically) referred to as Venusians, while men are referred to as Martians.
• In the book Venus by Ben Bova, the inhabitants of Venus are strange snake-like creatures that use molten sulfur for blood. They are not sapient. There are also micro-organisms in the clouds that break down ceramics and metals.
• In Heinlein's story "Logic of Empire", the Venusians are an intelligent but primitive race of amphibians who trade valuable swamp roots to the human colonists in return for tobacco. In the novel Podkayne of Mars (depicting a fairly different Venus) Venusians are humanoids of great physical strength but also very primitive.
• The Gobsmacking Galaxy, an entry in the children's non-fiction series The Knowledge written by Kjartan Poskitt, humorously describes hypothetical alien life forms which might evolve on planets in the solar system; the Venusian creatures are small, squat and round to cope with Venus's atmospheric pressures and make their living selling life insurance to visiting astronauts (before they succumb to the planet's extreme heat and pressure).
• In Frederik Pohl's "Gateway", humans travel across the Galaxy using spaceships found on planet Venus, left there by its ancient civilization.

In film

• The creature in It Conquered the World (1956) was from Venus. It resembled a cone with a nasty grin. It Conquered the World was remade as Zontar, the Thing from Venus (1966), whose villain was also an alien from Venus.
• 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957) deals with the crash-landing on Sicily of a spaceship returning from an expedition to Venus and the resulting rampage by a creature which it brought back. The creature (called in production, but not in the film, a "Ymir") is a reptilian humanoid with perhaps the intelligence of a chimpanzee, which under Terran conditions grows to roughly 20 feet tall. The film was animated by Ray Harryhausen.
• Queen of Outer Space is a science fiction movie filmed in 1958 starring Zsa Zsa Gabor as Talleah, the Venusian leader of the resistance to overthrow cruel Queen Yllana.
• In the film Easy Rider, Jack Nicholson's character speaks of Venusians around a campfire after smoking marijuana.
• Venus Wars is a 1989 science fiction anime film about life on the planet Venus in the year 2089 after it has been colonized by humans.
• In the original Japanese version of Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Princess Selina Salno of the fictional country of Selginia claims to be a survivor of the destruction of Venus by King Ghidorah.

In television

• Venusian visitors sometimes appeared on The Twilight Zone, (including the episodes "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" and "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?"), as a means of further twisting stories already featuring Martian visitors with similar goals. In "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?," a Venusian appears disguised as a human chef with three eyes where the third eye is under his hat.
• Although never seen or actually discussed in Doctor Who, the Third Doctor was a master of a martial art known as Venusian Aikido (or Karate). Also, the Doctor spoke the words of a Venusian lullaby in "The Dæmons", sang the lullaby (to the tune of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen") in The Curse of Peladon, and was shown to carry a toothbrush containing "Venusian spearmint" in "The Shakespeare Code." In the spin-off novel Venusian Lullaby, the Venusians are revealed to be from our Solar System's distant past, before Venus had become the hellish world of today.
• Venusians work as members of the united galactic organisation in the 1962 television series Space Patrol.
• In the first episode of the show Futurama, graffiti written in "Alien Language 1" is translated "Go Home Venusians". In Season 5 Episode 4 a truck shows the words Earth Flag Company in English and then Venusian Corporation in Alien 2.
• In the second episode of Challenge of the Super Friends, Venus is shown to be inhabited by an advanced civilization called the Fearians. The Fearians are depicted as having three-heads with green skin and red eyes. The Fearian Leader (voiced by Michael Bell) form an alliance with the Legion of Doom, who trick the Super Friends into changing the world so it can support Fearian life. This will allow the Fearians to form a colony and the Legion will rule the world. The Super Friends are trapped by the Fearian Leader in a force field. However, Green Lantern makes them invisible, causing the Leader to think they have escaped and turn off the field. He is defeated by Black Lightning and Green Lantern sends him back to Venus. The Super Friends then restore the world.
• In National Kid, the Inca Venusians are an alien race who National Kid defends the Earth from.

In ufology

In the 1950s, a group of contactees told stories in which they claimed to be in contact with friendly, light-haired, light-skinned humans from the planet Venus, as well as other planets in Earth's solar system. The first contactee, and the most famous, was George Adamski of Palomar Mountain, California. He claimed that on November 20, 1952 he met a Venusian named Orthon in a California desert. Adamski said that Orthon had communicated with him via telepathy about the dangers of nuclear war and that he left behind footprints with mysterious symbols on them. Adamski also displayed numerous photographs that he claimed showed the Venusian UFOs, and he said some of the photos had been given to him by Orthon. Copies of these photos were sold to visitors at Adamski's campground and restaurant at Palomar Mountain, but later studies by UFO investigators indicated that the photos were fakes; one scientist who analyzed the photos of a Venusian "scout ship" said the UFO's "landing struts" were General Electric light bulbs.

Adamski wrote or co-wrote three books in the 1950s and early 1960s about his meetings with Orthon and travels in a Venusian UFO through Earth's solar system; the first two books, Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953), and Inside the Space Ships (1955), were both bestsellers. Following Adamski's story, others, such as Howard Menger, George Hunt Williamson, Truman Bethurum, George Van Tassel, and Daniel Fry, also wrote books and gave lectures in which they claimed to have met similar friendly, light-skinned humanoids from Venus and other planets in Earth's solar system, and to have taken trips with them in their spaceships. These humanoids were later called Nordic aliens.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the contactee movement garnered some popular interest through books, lectures, and conventions, such as the annual Giant Rock UFO conventions in California. In May 1959, Adamski had a private audience with Queen Juliana of the Netherlands to discuss his claimed UFO experiences, which caused some controversy in the Netherlands.

However, numerous investigations of the contactee movement revealed many flaws and inaccuracies in the contactees' claims that led most researchers to conclude that their stories were hoaxes. Among the pieces of evidence noted by critics was that Venus has an environment that is extremely hostile to human life, and that none of the other planets in Earth's solar system are capable of supporting humanoid life. Also, investigators such as USAF Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the head of the Air Force's Project Blue Book, and ufologist James W. Moseley conducted extensive investigations into the claims and backgrounds of Adamski, Williamson, and other contactees, and concluded that they were either con artists or simply not being truthful in their stories and claims.

In religion

• In the teachings of the UFO religion the Unarius Academy of Science, the capital of Venus, which, like the Venusians themselves, is said to exist on a higher vibratory plane, is called Azure.
• Theosophical guru Benjamin Creme subscribes to the Theosophical view that the Nordic aliens (like those seen by George Adamski—Creme accepts Adamski's UFO sightings as valid) pilot flying saucers from a civilization on Venus that exists on the etheric plane (Theosophists believe that since the Venusians' civilization is on the etheric plane, the heat does not affect them) and are capable of stepping down the level of vibration of themselves and their craft to the slower level of vibration of the atoms of the physical plane. It is also believed in Theosophy that the governing deity of Earth, Sanat Kumara , is a Nordic alien originally from Venus. Sanat Kumara is said to live in a palace in a mythical city on the etheric plane of Earth called Shamballa, which is said by Theosophists to be located above the Gobi Desert.

Golden Age of Science Fiction

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Science_Fiction 

 

The first Golden Age of Science Fiction, often recognized in the United States as the period from 1938 to 1946, was an era during which the science fiction genre gained wide public attention and many classic science fiction stories were published. In the history of science fiction, the Golden Age follows the "pulp era" of the 1920s and 1930s, and precedes New Wave science fiction of the 1960s and 1970s. The 1950s are a transitional period in this scheme; however, Robert Silverberg, who came of age in the 1950s, saw that decade as the true Golden Age.

According to historian Adam Roberts, "the phrase Golden Age valorises a particular sort of writing: 'Hard SF', linear narratives, heroes solving problems or countering threats in a space-opera or technological-adventure idiom."

From Gernsback to Campbell

One leading influence on the creation of the Golden Age was John W. Campbell, who became legendary in the genre as an editor and publisher of science fiction magazines, including Astounding Science Fiction, to such an extent that Isaac Asimov stated that "...in the 1940s, (Campbell) dominated the field to the point where to many seemed all of science fiction." Under Campbell's editorship, science fiction developed more realism and psychological depth to characterization than it exhibited in the Gernsbackian "super science" era. The focus shifted from the gizmo itself to the characters using the gizmo.

Most fans agree that the Golden Age began around 1938-39, slightly later than the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, another pulp-based genre. The July 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction  is sometimes cited as the start of the Golden Age. It included "Black Destroyer", the first published story by A. E. van Vogt, and the first appearance of Isaac Asimov ("Trends") in the magazine. Science fiction writer John C. Wright said of Van Vogt's story, "This one started it all." The August issue contained the first published story by Robert A. Heinlein ("Life-Line").

Robert Silverberg in a 2010 essay argued that the true Golden Age was the 1950s, saying that “Golden Age” of the 1940s was a kind of "false dawn". "Until the decade of the fifties", Silverberg wrote, "there was essentially no market for science fiction books at all"; the audience supported only a few special interest small presses. The 1950s saw "a spectacular outpouring of stories and novels that quickly surpassed both in quantity and quality the considerable achievement of the Campbellian golden age", as mainstream companies like Simon & Schuster and Doubleday displaced specialty publishers like Arkham House and Gnome Press.

Developments in the genre

Many of the most enduring science fiction tropes were established in Golden Age literature. Space opera came to prominence with the works of E. E. "Doc" Smith; Isaac Asimov established the canonical Three Laws of Robotics beginning with the 1941 short story "Runaround"; the same period saw the writing of genre classics such as the Asimov's Foundation and Smith's Lensman series. Another frequent characteristic of Golden Age science fiction is the celebration of scientific achievement and the sense of wonder; Asimov's short story "Nightfall" exemplifies this, as in a single night a planet's civilization is overwhelmed by the revelation of the vastness of the universe. Robert A. Heinlein's 1950s novels, such as The Puppet Masters, Double Star, and Starship Troopers, express the libertarian ideology that runs through much of Golden Age science fiction.

Algis Budrys in 1965 wrote of the "recurrent strain in 'Golden Age' science fiction of the 1940s—the implication that sheer technological accomplishment would solve all the problems, hooray, and that all the problems were what they seemed to be on the surface". The Golden Age also saw the re-emergence of the religious or spiritual themes—central to so much proto-science fiction before the pulp era—that Hugo Gernsback had tried to eliminate in his vision of "scientifiction". Among the most significant such Golden Age narratives are Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, Clarke's Childhood's End, Blish's A Case of Conscience, and Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz.

Cultural significance

Many scientists deeply involved in the exploration of the solar system (myself among them) were first turned in that direction by science fiction. And the fact that some of that science fiction was not of the highest quality is irrelevant. Ten year‐olds do not read the scientific literature.

— Carl Sagan, 1978

As a phenomenon that affected the psyches of a great many adolescents during World War II and the ensuing Cold War, science fiction's Golden Age has left a lasting impression upon society. The beginning of the Golden Age coincided with the first Worldcon in 1939 and, especially for its most involved fans, science fiction was becoming a powerful social force. The genre, particularly during its Golden Age, had significant, if somewhat indirect, effects upon leaders in the military, information technology, Hollywood and science itself, especially biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry.

Prominent Golden Age authors

A number of influential science fiction authors emerged in the early Golden Age (1938–1946), including the following:

• Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)
• Alfred Bester (1913–1987)
• James Blish (1921–1975)
• Nelson S. Bond (1908–2006)
• Leigh Brackett (1915–1978)
• Ray Bradbury (1920–2012)
• Fredric Brown (1906–1972)
• A. Bertram Chandler (1912–1984)
• John Christopher (1922–2012)
• Hal Clement (1922–2003)
• L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000)
• Lester del Rey (1915–1992)
• Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988)
• L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986)
• Henry Kuttner (1915–1958)
• Fritz Leiber (1910–1992)
• C. L. Moore (1911–1987)
• Frederik Pohl (1919–2013)
• Ross Rocklynne (1913–1988)
• Eric Frank Russell (1905–1978)
• Clifford D. Simak (1904–1988)
• E. E. "Doc" Smith (1890–1965)
• Theodore Sturgeon (1918–1985)
• William Tenn (1920–2010)
• A. E. van Vogt (1912–2000)
• Jack Vance (1916–2013)
• Jack Williamson (1908–2006)
• John Wyndham (1903–1969)

and in the later Golden Age (1947–1959):

• Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008)
• Poul Anderson (1926–2001)
• Philip K. Dick (1928–1982)
• James Gunn (1923–)
• C. M. Kornbluth (1923–1958)
• Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1923–1996)
• Chad Oliver (1928–1993)

End of the Golden Age

Asimov said that "The dropping of the atom bomb in 1945 made science fiction respectable" to the general public. He recalled in 1969 "I'll never forget the shock that rumbled through the entire world of science fiction fandom when ... Heinlein broke the 'slicks' barrier by having an undiluted science fiction story of his published in The Saturday Evening Post". The large, mainstream companies' entry into the science fiction book market around 1950 was similar to how they published crime fiction during World War II; authors no longer could only publish through magazines. Asimov said, however, that

I myself was ambivalent ... There was a tendency for the new reality to nail the science fiction writer to the ground. Prior to 1945, science fiction had been wild and free. All its motifs and plot varieties remained in the realm of fantasy and we could do as we pleased. After 1945, there came the increasing need to talk about the AEC and to mold all the infinite scope of our thoughts to the small bit of them that had become real.

He continued, "In fact, there was the birth of something I called 'tomorrow fiction'; the science fiction story that was no more new than tomorrow's headlines. Believe me, there can be nothing duller than tomorrow's headlines in science fiction", citing Nevil Shute's On the Beach as example.

It is harder to specify the end of the Golden Age of Science Fiction than its beginning, but several factors changed the market for magazine science fiction in the mid- and late 1950s. Most important was the rapid contraction of the pulp market: Fantastic Adventures and Famous Fantastic Mysteries folded in 1953, Planet Stories, Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories and Beyond in 1955, Other Worlds and Science Fiction Quarterly in 1957, Imagination, Imaginative Tales, and Infinity in 1958. In October 1957, the successful launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 narrowed the gap between the real world and the world of science fiction, sending the West into a space race with the East. Asimov shifted to writing nonfiction he hoped would attract young minds to science, while Robert A. Heinlein became more dogmatic in expressing political and social views in his fiction. Emerging British writers, such as Brian W. Aldiss and J. G. Ballard, cultivated a more literary style, indicating the direction other writers would soon pursue. Women writers, such as Joanna Russ and Judith Merril, emerged. When the leading Golden Age magazine, Astounding Stories of Super-Science, changed its title to Analog Science Fiction and Fact in 1960, it was clear the Golden Age of Science Fiction was over.

Martian

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian 

An artist's conception of the hypothetical human colonization of Mars and its new human inhabitants

 

Sculpture of a Wellsian Martian Tripod in the town of Woking, England

 

A Martian is an inhabitant of the planet Mars or a human colonist on Mars. Although the search for evidence of life on Mars continues, many science fiction writers have imagined what extraterrestrial life on Mars might be like.

Martians in fiction

The earliest known instances of the word "Martian", used as a noun instead of an adjective, were printed in late 1877. They appeared nearly simultaneously in England and the United States, in magazine articles detailing Asaph Hall's discovery of the moons of Mars in August of that year.

The next event to inspire the use of the noun Martian in print was the International Exposition of Electricity, which was hosted in Paris in the year 1881. During the four months of the exhibition, many people visited to witness such technological marvels as the incandescent light bulb and the telephone. One visitor came away wondering what kind of world such innovations might engender in the next 200 years. Writing anonymously, s/he assembled some speculations in an essay titled "The Year of Grace 2081", which enjoyed wide circulation. The Martians enter the story late in the narrative. During a rest from international conflict on Earth, humans begin telecommunicating with Martians. "After a brief period passed in the exchange of polite messages", says the essayist, humans will decide to war with the Martians on some pretence of honor. The war that results is cataclysmic:

[Humans] will unite all their energies for the fabrication of mammoth engines which will discharge oceans of water, metal and fire right into the face of Mars. In return, the Martians will pelt them with aeroliths weighing three thousand tons, which will chip whole mountains off the Himalayas and make a big hole where Mont Blanc now exists.

W. S. Lach-Szyrma's novel Aleriel, or A Voyage to Other Worlds (1883) was previously reputed to be the first published work to apply the word Martian as a noun. The usage is incidental; it occurs when Aleriel, the novel's protagonist, lands on Mars in a spacecraft called an "ether-car" (an allusion to aether, which was once postulated as a gaseous medium in outer space). Aleriel buries the car in snow "so that it might not be disturbed by any Martian who might come across it."

War of the Worlds reprinted in the August 1927 issue of Amazing Stories

Fifteen years after Aleriel, H. G. Wells' landmark novel The War of the Worlds (1898) was published by William Heinemann, Ltd., then a relatively new publishing house. The novel was revised numerous times, and has since been translated into many languages. In the story, the Martians are a technologically advanced race of octopus-like extraterrestrials who invade Earth because Mars is becoming too cold to sustain them. The Martians' undoing is a fatal vulnerability to Earth bacteria.

In his book Mars and Its Canals (1906), astronomer and businessman Percival Lowell conjectured that an extinct Martian race had once constructed a vast network of aqueducts to channel water to their settlements from Mars' polar ice caps, Planum Australe and Planum Boreum. Lowell did not invent this Martian canal hypothesis, but he supported it. The belief that Mars had canals was based on observations Giovanni Schiaparelli made through his reflecting telescope. Although the telescope's image was fuzzy, Schiaparelli thought he saw long, straight lines on the Martian surface; some astronomers came to believe that these lines were structures built by Martians. This idea inspired Lowell, who returned to the subject in Mars As the Abode of Life (1910), in which he wrote a fanciful description of what this Martian society may have been like. Although his description was based on almost no evidence, Lowell's words evoked vivid pictures in his readers' imaginations.

One of the people Lowell inspired was Edgar Rice Burroughs, who began writing his own story about Mars in the summer of 1911. The story is a planetary romance in which an American Civil War veteran named John Carter is transported to Mars when he walks inside a cave on Earth. He finds that Mars is populated by two species of warring humanoids, and he becomes embroiled in their conflict. In February 1912, an American pulp magazine called The All-Story published Burroughs' story as the first installment of a serial novel, which the editor titled Under the Moons of Mars (retitled A Princess of Mars in subsequent editions). The book was the first in Burroughs' Barsoom series.

Although the noun Martian can describe any organism from Mars, these and later works typically imagine Martians as a humanoid monoculture. Martian, in this sense, is more like the word human than the word Earthling. (Few writers describe a biodiverse Mars.) In science fiction, Martians are stereotypically imagined in one or more of the following ways: as alien invaders; as humanoids with a civilization that resembles one on Earth; as anthropomorphic animals; as beings with superhuman abilities; as humanoids with a lower intelligence than humans; as human colonists who adopt a Martian identity; and/or as an extinct race who possessed high intelligence.

Human colonists as Martians

Many of Robert A. Heinlein's Martian characters are humans born and raised on Mars. In Red Planet (1949), boys attend a boarding school in a human colony on Mars. A population of native Martians tolerates them until the colony administrator threatens a Martian child. The Martians demand that the humans leave Mars, but a human doctor convinces them to reconsider.

In Heinlein's 1956 novel Double Star, humans have colonized the solar system, and a politician on Mars faces the civil rights issue of granting a native Martian species (who are second-class citizens) the right to vote.

In Philip K. Dick's novel Martian Time-Slip (1964), a human colony on Mars is trying to cope with arduous environmental conditions. They treat an aboriginal race, whom they call "Bleekmen", with casual racism. In The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), Mars has no indigenous life. To cope with the sterile habitat, the human colonists abuse drugs such as "Can-D" and "Chew-Z".

Dick previously published a shorter version of the story in 1963, called All We Marsmen. Like Heinlein's Double Star, All We Marsmen was conceived at a time in US history when many marginalized people were fighting especially vehemently for more civil rights. US President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law on 2 July 1964.

Total Recall (1990) is a science fiction action film about an apparently unsophisticated construction worker who turns out to be a freedom fighter from Mars who has been relocated to Earth. He later learns of an alien artifact that proves Mars harbored life before the human colonization. The film, directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is based on the short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick. 

The character designers for Futurama, a comical American animated series, imagine Mars after human colonization as being like the American frontier; native Martians inhabit zones analogous to Indian reservations. One of the series principal characters, Amy Wong, is a scientist of Chinese descent who was born on Mars. Her parents have amassed an enormous fortune and enterprise there.

Rebecca Bloomer's novel Unearthed (2011), the first in a series, describes a futuristic human colony on Mars amidst the populations of native Martians.

The Martian (2015) is a science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon. The film, based on The Martian, a novel by Andy Weir, depicts an American astronaut stranded alone on Mars in the year 2035. He improvises a farm in order to survive and later quotes an email he receives from his alma mater, "They say once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially 'colonized' it."

Martians as invaders of Earth

The Martian Landing Site monument in West Windsor, New Jersey commemorates the 1938 broadcast of the radio drama The War of the Worlds, in which West Windsor is the first landing site of the Martian invasion. Many listeners believed the broadcast to be a news report.

H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds (1898) and its various adaptations have been an extraordinary influence on science fiction writers for more than 100 years. Wells' Martians are a technologically advanced species with an ancient civilization. They somewhat resemble cephalopods, with large, bulky brown bodies and sixteen snake-like tentacles, in two groups of eight, around a quivering V-shaped mouth; they move around in 100 feet tall tripod fighting-machines they assemble upon landing, killing everything in their path. They invade Earth because Mars is dying, and they need a warmer planet to live. They attack cities in southern England, including London, with a deadly heat-ray they fire from a camera-like device on an articulated arm attached to their tripods; they also employ chemical warfare, using a poisonous "black smoke" launched from gun-like tubes. Mankind is saved by Earth bacteria, which kill the Martians within three weeks of their landing on Earth.

In Last and First Men (1930) Olaf Stapledon revisited Wells' theme of Martian invasion. Last and First Men summarizes tens of thousands of years of invasions and war between Martians and humans. Eventually, humans destroy the Martians' empire.

William Cameron Menzies' film Invaders from Mars (1953) fuses the tentacles of Wells' Martians with the idea of little green men to conceive a Martian Mastermind who enslaves tall, green, humanoid mutants. Tobe Hooper's remake of the film was released in 1986.

In his 1955 comic novel Martians, Go Home, Fredric Brown spoofs the Wellsian invasion, and reinterprets the Martian invader as a rude house guest with ulterior motives. Brown, too, employs the "little green men" trope to describe his annoying Martians.

Little green men recur in the 2009 video game Stalin vs. Martians, a spoof of earlier strategy video games. As the president of the Soviet Union, the player defends Earth from Martian invasion. This time the caricature of the Martians appears to be influenced by H. R. Giger.

In Spaced Invaders (1990), a group of Martians invade a town in the Midwestern United States during a re-broadcast of the Orson Welles' 1938 radio dramatization of The War of the Worlds.

In 1948, Warner Bros. introduced a new villain to their animated films: Marvin the Martian, a short, slender figure with comically oversized eyes, hands, and feet, but with no visible mouth. His big, spherical head is either completely black or overshadowed by his crested helmet. His clothing is patterned on that of Mars, the god of war in Roman mythology. In Marvin's film debut, Haredevil Hare (1948), he attempts to blow up Earth because it "obscures [his] view of Venus", but is thwarted by Bugs Bunny.

Another film that imagines Martians as ineffectual invaders is Mars Attacks! (1996), a black comedy based on a Topps trading card series. Here, the Martian invaders are loud, irritating, and dim-witted, despite having oversized heads with extremely large, protruding brains. The film was written by Jonathan Gems, and directed by Tim Burton.

In the Superman story "Black Magic on Mars" (1950),^[7] the conception of Martians is more grave: The Martian invaders Superman faces are led by a dictator called Martler, who is an admirer of Adolf Hitler.

In "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?", a 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone, Martians attempt to colonize Earth, but are thwarted by Venusians. Here, the Martians are disguised as humans, but towards the end of the episode we see that they have three arms.

In Mars Needs Moms (2007), a picture book by Berkeley Breathed, Martians are squat, humanoid beings with antennae and skin color that varies by individual. When they travel to Earth, they wear transparent helmets and a bulbous, ribbed outer garment. In the story, a five-year-old boy learns to appreciate his mother after three Martians kidnap her while he sleeps. Writer-director Simon Wells and his wife Wendy adapted the picture book into the film Mars Needs Moms (2011).

Martians as civilized humanoids

In April 1911, about a year before The All-Story published the first installment of Burroughs' Under the Moons of Mars, Modern Electrics began publishing Hugo Gernsback's own romance, Ralph 124C 41+, which takes place on Earth. Gernsback's Martians live among the humans on Earth; they are taller and physically stronger than humans, with green skin and large eyes. The serial wasn't republished as a book until 1925. 

1923 saw the publication of Aelita, or The Decline of Mars, a novel that is equally science fiction and political fiction. Its author, Soviet Russian writer Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy, tells a story of a Soviet engineer who builds a rocket and invites an acquaintance to accompany him in it to Mars. There they find a humanoid race of Martians who are the offspring of both an elder Martian species and of humans from Atlantis. The Martians live in a class society; the workers rise up against the ruling class, but the revolution fails. All the while, Mars is entering a phase of climate change that threatens disaster for the population.

Red Planet (1932), a play cowritten by John L. Balderston and John Hoare, also deals with radical environmental change on Mars, except in this case it occurs through terraforming. Balderston was one of the few playwrights of the 20th century to adopt Mars or Martians as a subject for the stage. He was, however, also a screenwriter who specialized in fantasy film and horror film. Many years later, United Artists bought a screen adaptation that Balderston and fellow screenwriter Anthony Veiller wrote. Harry Horner directed the film, called Red Planet Mars, and it was released to cinemas in 1952. In the film, a scientist communicates with Martians by radio, and they tell him that Mars is a utopia. When the news circulates, it causes widespread unrest among the people of Western nations. The US government tries to silence further messages, then later announces that the Martians have informed them that they must all worship God in order to save themselves. After millions of people revolt against their governments, it seems the Martian communiques may have been a hoax.

Ray Bradbury's novel The Martian Chronicles (1950) depicts Martians as a refined and artistic race of golden-skinned beings who closely resemble humans. The Martians are almost completely wiped out by the diseases brought to Mars by human invaders. At the end of the book, the human inhabitants of Mars realize that they are the new Martians. The novel's themes and its portrayal of Martians resemble Bradbury's 1949 short story "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed".

Brothers Jim Thomas and John Thomas teamed with Graham Yost to write Mission to Mars (2000), a film that depicts Martians as tall, feminine, peaceful humanoids who left Mars to escape the havoc caused by a massive meteorite impact.

Edmond Hamilton's "A Conquest of Two Worlds" describes Martians as humanoid creatures with stilt-like limbs and large, bulging chests and heads. They live in tribal groups centered on oases and occasionally fight among themselves. After an accidental confrontation sparks war, they are all killed or enslaved by the invading human population.

Martians as anthropomorphic animals

C. S. Lewis wrote, in Out of the Silent Planet (1938), about three humans who visit Mars and meet three different kinds of intelligent native creatures: The hrossa (bipedal "otter" men), the sorns/séroni (lean white giants), and the pfifltriggi (dwarves). They are dying out, but are resigned to their fate. The books also describe a prey animal called hnakra, which is hunted. The planet is ruled by the Oyarsa, an "eldil" (supernatural beings/spirits) whose job is to be the guardian of the planet and ruler of its peoples.

In four stories by Eric Frank Russell published between the early 1940s and mid-1950s—and collected in Men, Martians and Machines (1955)—a crew of humans and octopoid Martians are shipmates and compatriots on an interstellar voyage. During their travels, they encounter hostile aliens. Russell's Martians can survive in Earth-normal air pressures, but are more comfortable wearing low-pressure helmets and tease their shipmates about the soupy conditions on board.

As a writer for Doctor Who, Brian Hayles created a Martian species of reptilian humanoids called the Ice Warriors, who move stiffly and speak in a husky whisper. Most of the Ice Warriors that the Doctor encounters are brutish and belligerent. As Mars' climate becomes less favorable to sustaining them, the Ice Warriors seek a new planet. These reptilians debuted in The Ice Warriors (1967), a Doctor Who television serial about an impending ice age in Earth's future. As British scientists try to slow or avert a glacier encroaching on Great Britain, they find an Ice Warrior near their base, frozen in the glacier, and apparently in suspended animation. No one knows the being's identity, but they understand that it is probably from another planet. When the Ice Warrior revives, he attacks Jamie McCrimmon and kidnaps Victoria Waterfield. Other stories set in the future show the Martians eventually become more peaceful and are members of the Galactic Federation, though some want to return to their warlike ways.

Martians as an extinct race

A photograph of Mars captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on 26 June 2001

For his Known Space series of novels, Larry Niven conceived humanoid Martians with a primitive material culture who inhabit an environment of red dust and nitric acid, and for whom water is lethal. In the 1973 novel Protector, a man named Jack Brennan allies himself with a ruthless, xenophobic humanoid species called the Pak. To preclude the possibility future competition for Pak offspring, Brennan engineers a Martian genocide by sending an ice-covered asteroid to collide with Mars.

In Dennis Feltham Jones' 1977 novel Colossus and the Crab, Martian life predated life on Earth, but faced a process of devolution as conditions on the planet worsened.

Ghosts of Mars (2001) human invaders war with Martians in an attempt to conquer Mars. 

In the Invader Zim episode "Battle of the Planets" (2001), Zim discovers that a Martian race died off after converting Mars into a giant spacecraft. 

In Doom 3 (2004), the entire Martian race sacrificed itself many millennia ago in order to prevent a demonic invasion of our universe. By the year 2145, humanity has colonized Mars and begun excavating the ruins of their civilization, recovering several important artifacts. One of these artifacts—known as the Soul Cube—is the player's most valuable tool in combating a second demonic invasion, as it is the only weapon capable of killing the Cyberdemon.

Martians as superbeings

Isaac Asimov's David Starr, Space Ranger, the first novel in the Lucky Starr series, features a race of Martians who have retreated into vast artificial caverns half a million years ago. These Martians are incorporeal, telepathic beings, peaceful yet curious about humanity. They have access to advanced technologies completely incomprehensible to human beings, like personal energy shield generators the size of a fabric mask.

In Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), a man raised by native Martians emigrates to Earth, where he must reacclimate. In the novel he functions as a Christ figure. Soon he demonstrates psychic powers, superhuman intelligence, and an ability to manipulate higher dimensions. He founds a church on Earth based on Martian philosophy, and starts a cultural shift. At the novel's climax, he is murdered by a mob from a rival religious group.

In 1963, American television network CBS premiered a sitcom called My Favorite Martian. The series proved popular in the US, especially during the first season, and CBS broadcast more than one hundred episodes before canceling it when the third season ended in 1966. In this comedy, a Martian anthropologist (who passes for human in most respects) crashes on Earth, where he is harbored by an American man who keeps the Martian's identity secret. Also secret are the Martian's extraordinary abilities, not the least of which are invisibility and telepathy. CBS's rival networks, NBC and ABC, did not fail to notice the success of My Favorite Martian, or the comic potential of a character with secret powers. In 1964, ABC introduced Bewitched (a sitcom about a married, suburban witch), and NBC countered the following year with I Dream of Jeannie, a sitcom about an astronaut who discovers and marries a genie.

In Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967–68), the Mysterons are a race of invisible superbeings from Mars who are at war with humans from Earth. The conflict begins when Captain Black, a human officer investigating radio signals from Mars, mistakes a surveillance camera for a weapon. In violation of his orders, he attacks, but the Mysterons immediately repair the damage he caused. The conflict escalates, and the Mysterons attempt to assassinate the president of Earth.

DC Comics introduced the first Martian superhero to the DC Universe in 1955. Martian Manhunter (J'onn J'onzz), a green humanoid who is believed to be the last of the peaceful Green Martians, joins the Justice League. Meanwhile, the warlike, shapeshifting White Martians regard the Green Martians as enemies. The White Martians adopt a humanoid form which, they say, expresses their distinctive philosophy. DC introduced a White Martian superhero, Miss Martian, in 2006. A third race, the Yellow Martians, may or may not have survived as long as the Green and White Martians.