Mars in fiction from his home planet, often invading Earth, but sometimes simply a lonely character representing alienness from his surroundings. Martians, other than human beings transplanted to Mars, became rare in fiction after Mariner, except in exercises of deliberate nostalgia – more frequently in some genres, such as comics and animation, than in written literature. Mars in fiction Fictional representations of Mars have been popular for over a century. Interest in Mars has been stimulated by the planet's dramatic red color, by early scientific speculations that its surface conditions might be capable of supporting life, and by the possibility that Mars could
Mach 1: A Story of Planet Ionus Mach 1: A Story of Planet Ionus Mach 1: A Story of Planet Ionus is a 1957 science fiction novel by Allen A. Adler. A paperback version was published in 1966 by Paperback Library with the alternate title Terror on Planet Ionus. While testing an experimental warship, the "Mach 1", a human pilot and his companion are kidnapped into space by aliens from the planet Ionus, which turns out to be a moon of Saturn. There, they confront an oversized monster named Karkong who is menacing the Ionians. Karkong follows them back to Earth. Chaos ensues. Damon Knight wrote of