tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222296802338385267.post4642174032613138293..comments2024-03-21T11:30:25.618-07:00Comments on Ontos: "They Have More on Their Minds Than Mere Looting"Mike Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17182471386130948540noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222296802338385267.post-76569452623056351862021-01-04T07:51:12.187-08:002021-01-04T07:51:12.187-08:00"The Mars haunted by the ghosts of dead civil..."The Mars haunted by the ghosts of dead civilisations." Under Leigh Brackett's influence, Ray Bradbury gave it a go, but his elegiac chronicles of Mars were a little TOO somber for my tastes, which is not saying they weren't great SFF. The fact that mainstream critics tended to favor Bradbury's Mars over Brackett's should tell you something about the pervasive Cold War zeitgeist of the '40s, '50s, and '60s.Mike Grayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17182471386130948540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222296802338385267.post-63382273136874906972021-01-04T00:00:49.796-08:002021-01-04T00:00:49.796-08:00In our story the colonization of Venus is well und...<em>In our story the colonization of Venus is well underway, but that's the Venus of 1949</em><br /><br />The Venus and Mars imagined by science fiction writers in the 40s was so much more interesting than the reality we know today. It's very depressing. I want the Mars of Leigh Brackett to be real. The Mars haunted by the ghosts of dead civilisations.<br /><br /><em>"Space Pirates," writes Winchell Chung, "is a science fiction trope that just won't go away. The image of pirate freebooters on the high seas is just too romantic for words, science fiction writers can't resist. Alas, in a scientifically accurate world, they are more or less impossible, much like space fighters and for similar reasons..."</em><br /><br />Advances in scientific knowledge have taken so much of the fun out of speculating about the future. What use is a future without space pirates?<br /><br />A colony in the Venerian atmosphere would be a great setting for a science fiction story though.dfordoomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.com