In the Courts of the Crimson Kings In the Courts of the Crimson Kings In the Courts of the Crimson Kings is a 2008 alternate history science fiction novel by American writer S. M. Stirling. The story takes place on the planet Mars in an alternate solar system where probes from the United States of America and the Soviet Union find intelligent life and civilizations on both Venus and Mars. The book is heavily influenced by the works of writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, and Leigh Brackett, among others. It is a sequel to "The Sky People", which is set on Venus. Stirling later
A Deepness in the Sky A Deepness in the Sky A Deepness in the Sky is a science fiction novel by American writer Vernor Vinge. Published in 1999, the novel is a loose prequel (set twenty thousand years earlier) to his earlier novel "A Fire Upon the Deep" (1992). The title is coined by one of the story's main characters in a debate, in a reference to the hibernating habits of his species and to the vastness of space. The plot begins with the discovery of an intelligent alien species on a planet orbiting an anomalous star, dubbed OnOff because for 215 of every 250