S.M. Stirling’s In the Court of the Crimson Kings just came out – scientifically sophisticated (plus some heavy and shameless blackboxing), yet still your classic planetary Space Opera!
Agreed. Greg Bear’s Moving Mars is also pretty good, vaguely reminiscent of Heinlein’s Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Any time I think about what life on Mars would be like, this comes pretty readily to mind.
I wouldn’t suggest Robinson’s <Colored> Mars trilogy for a list of “best” Mars works. They have some things to recommend them, and they definitely have their defenders, but they’re also seriously flawed.
For completeness, I’m about halfway through Pohl’s Man Plus right now. They haven’t gotten to Mars yet. So far, pretty decent read, if a bit dated (and not just in the technology).
No. It’s only a little over 100 pages, and here’s pretty much what happens: Little green man from Mars (well, actually, they look just like us) crash lands his flying carpet. Jones hops on the flying carpet which whisks him away to Mars. Meets a few people, travels down the River of Death, does some more traveling, then the magic carpet whisks him back to Earth.
Marvel Comics did a treatment of this story back in the early 1970s. IMO, their version was much better than the book, fleshing out more of a story from an original in which very little actually happens–and a subtle acknowledgement to the man who rediscovered the book after half a century out of print: Richard Lupov.
“The Holes Around Mars” by Jerome Bixby. It concerns a crew of astronauts who are a little too fond of puns, and their exploration of an astronomical oddity about Mars, and its third moon.
I was pleasantly surprised by that book. The preview I read online made it sound way too dry and esoteric, but it turned out to be a rip-roaring adventure in the ERB tradition.