Green Mars (novella)

Green Mars is a novella published for the first time in 1985 in collections. It was published in paperback collected with Arthur C. Clarke's novella "A Meeting With Medusa" in 1988.

It is not to be confounded with the novel of the same name. Despite the title similarity, it does not take place in the same universe as the Mars trilogy novel Green Mars, instead forming a sequence with the short works Exploring Fossil Canyon (1982) and A Martian Romance (1999) which describe a different terraformed Mars. All three works were included in the collection The Martians along with Arthur Sternbach Brings the Curveball to Mars, which shares a character.

It tells of the climbing of the tallest volcano of the Mars (and of the solar system), Olympus Mons.

Interview Comments

From The Mars Man, interview with Mary Branscombe, SFX #14, July 1996:

To avoid confusion, it’s worth remembering that although many of his books are set on Mars, not all of them are on the same Mars. In particular, the original Green Mars - a novella about climbing Olympus Mons that deals with the now-familiar themes of the ethics of terraforming Mars and the memory problems of longevity - seems to be set in a slightly different universe. “Yes, I wrote that mainly to stake a claim - at least a moral claim - on the name. I thought Green Mars was such a good name, such an obvious name. And when I heard about Olympus Mons, this enormous volcano, I just had to write about climbing it.” It turned out to be a sensible precaution; he’s since heard that Arthur C. Clarke considered using it as the title for his collection of articles on terraforming Mars (now called The Snows of Olympus).

Publication History

  • Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, September 1985
  • Bluejay Books, in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Third Annual Collection, April 1986
  • Editrice Scorpio, as Verde Marte in the anthology Galaxis 7 (Italian Translation), September 1986
  • Edizioni New Scorpio, as Verde Marte in the anthology Il Meglio della Fantascienza 7 (Italian Translation), June 1987
  • Tor Doubles, with Arthur C. Clarke's A Meeting with Medusa, October 1988
  • Ace Books, in the anthology Isaac Asimov's Mars, September 1991
  • Galaktika, issue #139 (part 1) and issue #140 (part 2), as A zöld Mars (Hungarian Translation), April & May 1992
  • Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Wydanie Polskie, as Zielony Mars (Polish Translation), November 1992
  • Urania #1228, as Marte Verde (Italian Translation), April 1994
  • Heyne, as Der grüne Mars in the anthology Heyne Science Fiction Jahresband 1998 (German Translation), 1998
  • Voyager, in The Martians, April 1999
  • Bantam Spectra, in The Martians, September 1999
  • Voyager, in The Martians, September 1999
  • Easton Press, in The Martians, 1999
  • Science Fiction Book Club, in The Martians, October 1999
  • Voyager, in The Martians, April 2000
  • Presses de la Cité, as Mars la Verte in Les Martiens (French Translation), September 2000
  • Libre Expression, as Mars la Verte in Les Martiens (French Translation), 2000
  • Bantam Spectra, in The Martians, October 2000
  • France Loisirs, as Mars la Verte in Les Martiens (French Translation), 2001
  • CNIB in The Martians, audio book, 2002
  • Heyne, in Die Marsianer (German Translation), September 2002
  • Bantam Spectra, in The Martians e-Book, May 2003
  • Minotauro, as Marte verde in Los Marcianos (Spanish Translation), October 2003
  • Pocket, as Mars la Verte in Les Martiens (French Translation), May 2007
  • Kabalcı Yayınevi, in Marslılar (Turkish Translation), forthcoming (?)

Reviews

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novella