National Geographic’s recent Space Issue (“Travel the solar system, follow the development of space exploration, and hear about the photographs…”) that I just now came across has a moving foreword by none other than Martian author Ray Bradbury, entitled “My Mars”.
Along the way to growing up, I read Edgar Rice Burroughs and loved his Martian books, and followed the instructions of his Mars pioneer John Carter, who told me, when I was 12, that it was simple: If I wanted to follow the avenue of Lowell and go to the stars, I needed to go out on the summer night lawn, lift my arms, stare at the planet Mars, and say, “Take me home.”
That was the day that Mars took me home—and I never really came back. I began writing on a toy typewriter. I couldn’t afford to buy all the Martian books I wanted, so I wrote the sequels myself.
Read “My Mars”…
