Outpost Mars is a short science fiction novel by American writers Cyril M. Kornbluth and Judith Merril, published under their pseudonym Cyril Judd. [1] It was originally a three-part serial in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1951 under the title "Mars Child" and was first published under the title Outpost Mars in 1952 by Abelard Press, New York. [2] It was reprinted as Sin in Space in 1961. [3]
The story is based on the growth of a fictional Mars settlement. After 40 years of settlement, Mars has developed into a thriving mining and farming colony, trading four times a year with Earth via rocket. The people of Sun Lake are trying to establish themselves as a self-sufficient community, contrasted with nearby industrial establishments like the Brenner Pharmaceuticals Corporation. Now a legal crisis with Brenner Pharmaceuticals threatens to destroy all the colony's hard work. A small fortune's worth of a drug deadlier than heroin, called Marcaine, has been stolen from a factory near the colony, and Hugo Brenner, the notorious drug dealer and manufacturer, has come to the colony to accuse the council of harboring a drug thief and smuggler. The clock ticks with less than a week until the next rocket shipment goes out; the council goes into a mad search to find a culprit or the missing drugs as they face being shut down and starved out. The book follows the daily routine of the colony's doctor, Tony Hellman: handling several medical problems throughout the colony, delivering a baby, administering checkups, as well as tending to regular patients. By looking into the suspicious murder of a nearby pregnant woman and health complications with the newborn, Sunny, Tony continues to unravel the mystery of the stolen Marcaine. Even after the packing areas and labs are scoured, the drugs are still missing.
Eight new passengers fly over from Marsport to the colony, one of them being a famous writer Douglas Graham. Small child-sized footprints turn up in the desert and the story grabs Graham's interest. Graham, Hellman and his assistant Anna make a series of spectacular discoveries that lead to the unearthing of a secret mutant dwarf species of Mars that has been eating the stolen Marcaine as its natural food source.
Cyril M. Kornbluth was an American science fiction author and a member of the Futurians. He used a variety of pen-names, including Cecil Corwin, S. D. Gottesman, Edward J. Bellin, Kenneth Falconer, Walter C. Davies, Simon Eisner, Jordan Park, Arthur Cooke, Paul Dennis Lavond, and Scott Mariner. The "M" in Kornbluth's name may have been in tribute to his wife, Mary Byers; Kornbluth's colleague and collaborator Frederik Pohl confirmed Kornbluth's lack of any actual middle name in at least one interview.
The Illustrated Man is a 1951 collection of 18 science fiction short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury. A recurring theme throughout the stories is the conflict of the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of people. It was nominated for the International Fantasy Award in 1952.
The Rolling Stones is a 1952 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein.
Lester del Rey was an American science fiction author and editor. He was the author of many books in the juvenile Winston Science Fiction series, and the editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction imprint of Ballantine Books, along with his fourth wife Judy-Lynn del Rey.
Judith Josephine Grossman, who took the pen-name Judith Merril around 1945, was an American and then Canadian science fiction writer, editor and political activist, and one of the first women to be widely influential in those roles.
Rocketship X-M is a 1950 American black-and-white science fiction film from Lippert Pictures, the first outer space adventure of the post-World War II era. The film was produced and directed by Kurt Neumann and stars Lloyd Bridges, Osa Massen, John Emery, Noah Beery Jr., Hugh O'Brian, and Morris Ankrum.
The Martian Way is a science fiction novella by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1952 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction and reprinted in the collections The Martian Way and Other Stories (1955), The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973), and Robot Dreams (1986). It was also included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two (1973) after being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965.
S is for Space (1966) is a collection of science fiction short stories written by Ray Bradbury. It was compiled for the Young Adult sections of libraries.
The Sands of Mars is a science fiction novel by English writer Arthur C. Clarke. While he was already popular as a short story writer and as a magazine contributor, The Sands of Mars was also a prelude to Clarke's becoming one of the world's foremost writers of science fiction novels. The story was published in 1951, before humans had achieved space flight. It is set principally on the planet Mars, which has been settled by humans and is used essentially as a research establishment. The story setting is that Mars has been surveyed but not fully explored on the ground. The Sands of Mars was Clarke's first published novel.
Galaxy novels, sometimes titled Galaxy Science Fiction Novels, were a series of mostly reprint American science fiction novels published between 1950 and 1961.
Cyril Judd was a joint pseudonym used by American writers Cyril M. Kornbluth and Judith Merril for their two novels:
Pantropy is a hypothetical process of space habitation or space colonization in which, rather than terraforming other planets or building space habitats suitable for human habitation, humans are modified to be able to thrive in the existing environment. The term was coined by science fiction author James Blish, who wrote a series of short stories based on the idea.
The Heinlein juveniles are the science fiction novels written by Robert A. Heinlein for Scribner's young-adult line. Each features "a young male protagonist entering the adult world of conflict, decisions, and responsibilities." Together they tell a loosely-connected story of space exploration. Scribner's published the first twelve between 1947 and 1958, but rejected the thirteenth, Starship Troopers. That one was instead published by Putnam. A fourteenth novel, Podkayne of Mars, is sometimes listed as a "Heinlein juvenile", although Heinlein himself did not consider it to be one.
Hugh Walters was a British writer of juvenile science fiction novels from Bradley in the West Midlands region of the United Kingdom.
"Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ray Bradbury. It was originally published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories in August 1949, under the title "The Naming of Names". It was subsequently included in the short-story collections A Medicine for Melancholy and S is for Space.
Marooned on Mars is a juvenile science fiction novel written by American writer Lester del Rey. It was published by John C. Winston Co. in 1952 with illustrations by Alex Schomburg.
Human outposts are artificially-created, controlled human habitats located in environments inhospitable for humans, such as on the ocean floor, in the Antarctic, in space, or on another planet.
The Mars Project is a 1952 non-fiction scientific book by the German rocket physicist, astronautics engineer and space architect, Wernher von Braun. It was translated from the original German by Henry J. White and first published in English by the University of Illinois Press in 1953.
"The Rocket" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ray Bradbury. It is also included in The Illustrated Man, a collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury.
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