Robert Moss Markley

Interleaving chapters about the scientific study of Mars and its portrayal in science fiction, Markley seeks to show that the two have dialectically influenced one another. That fictional portrayals have more-or-less faithfully incorporated new scientific findings is fairly obvious; that science fiction has influenced science, beyond the fact that many astronomers have credited it as what inspired them to get into astronomy in the first place, is more debatable and I don’t think Markley makes a particularly strong case it has. Things that receive particular focus include Lowell and the canal controversy, the search for life by the Viking landers and the supposed microfossils found in the ALH84001 Martian meteorite, and Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy.

In both the Viking and ALH84001 cases, Markley makes the arguments for a biotic interpretation sound stronger than those against, yet acknowledges that most scientists remain unconvinced. It’s not clear to me whether he means to imply that skeptics are in thrall to preconceived notions - it’s certainly easy to read him that way. FWIW, the consensus against the ALH84001 structures being biological in origin seems to have hardened since the book was written 13 years ago.

Markley makes no attempt to hide his leftist politics, which can be annoying if one does not share them, but on the plus side there should be no question of hidden bias. Relatedly, he had a bit of an obsession with “ecology” - which he is eager to project onto the writers he covers - but what he understands by that term only sometimes seems to be what I’d normally take it to mean: sometimes he seems to use it as a mere synonym for life, and sometimes with reference to planetary budgets of water, energy, etc.

The parts of the book I enjoyed the best are those analyzing various sf novels in some depth, with a focus on how they incorporate (or not) then-current planetary science. Apart from Kim Stanley Robinson, who rates a whole chapter for himself, writers treated at greater length include Wells, Lasswitz, Bogdanov (who was unfamiliar to me and whom I should perhaps read), Burroughs, Bradbury, and Dick. One writer I’d liked him to treat less cursorily is Brackett. It’s tangentially noteworthy that Markley, an academic leftist who uses words like “masculinist” in all seriousness, evidently had no qualms about there being only men on the list of authors treated in depth - one might have thought he’d jump at someone like Brackett if only provide a bit of gender balance. Should I wish he’d felt more constrained by political correctness merely so that he might have spent more words on one of my favourite authors?… (mere)

An extended examination of how our evolving knowledge of the planet Mars has had an impact on literature and social commentary, Markley does a fine job of showing how authors have used the fourth planet as an arena for social speculation and commentary. While most of the literary choices are of no great surprise, Markley spends an extended amount of time on the “Barsoom” stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs and the “Mars” trilogy of Kim Stanley Robinson.

What is most striking is that Markley writes well about the cut and thrust of scientific debate, which is not something you'd necessarily expect in an academic literary profressor, and he displays an accute ear for the nuances in the arguments between Percival Lowell, who did as much as anyone to popularize the concept of a dying Martian civilization, and those in the astronomical profession who just couldn’t buy the theory.

While I have no particular criticisms about the work, if your politics are at all right-of-center you might find Markley's analysis a bit politically correct for your sensibilities. This is also a book largely written for other academics, and there is very little catering to popular taste in terms of either scientific or critical terminology.… (mere)