Comments on: The Poets of Mars

By: georgelondon

georgelondon — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:27:39 +0000

Listening now! (And loving Spotify more day-by-day.)

Captain Carter’s Fathoms: http://open.spotify.com/track/0gz6V4vWfUSLDMWIDUCd5v

By: Simon

Simon — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:22:41 +0000

There’s a track by a group called Pepe Deluxe called ‘Captain Carter’s Fathomas’ about an almost Western-sounding narrator who dwells on Mars. It would make a perfect soundtrack to this.

By: Rivka Jacobs

Rivka Jacobs — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:20:13 +0000

An excellent, wonderful science-fiction short.

Evocative and moving, and realistic. As Nick says, extremely readable.

I especially like how you tell the story without a lot of real-science details, which are there and have to be observed by the writer, but not on display. You are concentrating on the human factor. Nick calls them the “world building” details, which are de-rigueur for most hard science fiction these days, mostly because with computer world-building software, they are so easy to produce. But like STAR WARS and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and other great scifi dramas, all that is pushed to the background so as to focus on exploring how people deal with this new frontier.

I love the idea itself: that even in the future people will dream and yearn and aspire but life will hit them hard, and dreams will be battered, but not shattered or destroyed.

On the psychological level, there is a sense of melancholy that pervades the story, and the reader is left to ask, are these dreamers stuck in the Mission Bar in denial, or heroes who never give up their dreams?

Maybe your best story ever on Elephant Words.

And as George said, the characters are immediately likable. I do hope you will revisit Sam and the Mission Bar on Mars in another story.

By: Nicolas Papaconstantinou

Nicolas Papaconstantinou — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:13:02 +0000

Great sense of place to this, Ian… the history you give it is quite an effortless read, too – the main reason I don’t read an awful lot of science-fiction is that I don’t have a high tolerance for the really literal school of world-building, and you manage to work up a solid history without going into too much detail, which is great!

That final line is a kick in the gut, too.

By: georgelondon

georgelondon — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:13:17 +0000

Yup! File it under [revisit].

By: iansharman

iansharman — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 01:59:06 +0000

Thanks, George! I have to agree that I think there is a bigger story here. I’ve been thinking about that since I wrote it; I definitely think I’ll be returning to Sam and the Mission Bar.

By: georgelondon

georgelondon — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 01:51:09 +0000

Love it! I saw a space-station bar in that image too – and a deadbeat, back-alley kind of place at that. I still don’t understand exactly why but it’s weird and reassuring that somebody else did! Also means I can drop that idea as you’ve done a much better job than I would. I love the idea of a whole world that sprung up around it, like towns built up around a highway inn – the kind of place that’s an invisible part of a million stories but never has its own story told.

I think there are bigger stories to be told around these characters and this place, and possibly a more tightly-toned version of this one, but even as it stands right now I loved the way you ran with it. Great to have you here for another six-er.