Influences
The background of Mars presented in the novel, as a desert planet crisscrossed by giant canals built by an ancient civilization to bring water from the polar ice caps, is a common scenario in science fiction novels of the early 20th century, and was actually put forward as a plausible theory by some astronomers around the turn of the century, notably Percival Lowell mentioned in the novel. It stems from early telescope observations of Mars by 19th century astronomers who, beginning with Italian Giovanni Schiaparelli in 1877, believed they saw straight lines on the planet. Schiaparelli called them canali (grooves), which was popularly mistranslated into English as "canals".
Read more about this topic: Red Planet (novel)
Famous quotes containing the word influences:
“However diligent she may be, however dedicated, no mother can escape the larger influences of culture, biology, fate . . . until we can actually live in a society where mothers and children genuinely matter, ours is an essentially powerless responsibility. Mothers carry out most of the work orders, but most of the rules governing our lives are shaped by outside influences.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Professors of literature, who for the most part are genteel but mediocre men, can make but a poor defense of their profession, and the professors of science, who are frequently men of great intelligence but of limited interests and education, feel a politely disguised contempt for it; and thus the study of one of the most pervasive and powerful influences on human life is traduced and neglected.”
—Yvor Winters (1900–1968)
“Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise. Once and again one of those great influences which we call a Cause arises in the midst of a nation. Men of strenuous minds and high ideals come forward.... The attacks they sustain are more cruel than the collision of arms.... Friends desert and despise them.... They stand alone and oftentimes are made bitter by their isolation.... They are doing nothing less than defy public opinion, and shall they convert it by blows. Yes.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)