Sunday, August 3, 2008

The Martian Canals


As I end my Mars Week with a set of reviews that includes the story of a possible invasion from Mars I wanted to put out there the original. This is Percival Lowell's own map of the Martian "canal system" that defined how people viewed the red planet for decades. Scientists never gave much serious consideration to Lowell's observations since they contradicted everyone else's but his image of a thriving Martian civilization caught the public's imagination. Perhaps in his own way he contributed to the foundation of science fiction.