Several stories revisit classical science fictional versions of Mars. Among the comic stories, Di Filippo's revisionist take on Weinbaum's seminal story of the friendship between an American explorer and the birdlike Martian Tweel stands out. (Let's just say that, in "A Martian Theodicy", Tweel and Dick Jarvis are a LOT more friendly!) I also liked James Morrow's "The War of the Worldviews", in which beings from the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos invade New York City to stage a battle between their opposing philosophies. Mike Resnick and M. Shayne Bell take on Edgar Rice Burroughs by having a version of John Carter confront a different Mars in which the ideals of Haight-Ashbury seem to have overtaken the various Martian races. And Michael Moorcock's "Lost Sorceress of the Silent Citadel" is at once a loving homage to Leigh Brackett's Mars, and a smart and funny satire on the overcooked space operas of the early 50s. Moorcock walks a fine line between displaying affection and exposing the silliness of the genre he's spoofing -- perhaps most of all he emphasizes how Brackett could get away with material that in lesser hands was just inane.

Perhaps the best story in the book is Alastair Reynolds' "The Real Story", in which a journalist receives a mysterious invitation from the captain of the first Martian expedition to hear the real story of his strange mission -- we get a moving account of the conflicting impulses of the explorer, the colonizer, and those who regret the taming of a wild place. Oddly similar in frame, but less effective, is Allen Steele's "A Walk Across Mars", in which again a journalist is invited to hear the real story of the first Martian expedition. In this case, the expedition was a combined Russian/American one, in an alternate history, but the central historical image was created by two of the Americans walking to safety after their rover crashed. Naturally the story the journalist hears is a bit different, but the secret was simply too trite for my taste. Another fine "serious" story is McDonald's, about a cosmonaut denied his chance at Mars by the collapse of the Soviet space program, and an Indian remote operator of the construction equipment terraforming (or "manforming") Mars. Still, it seemed diminished in effect to me, perhaps simply by comparison with the author's Ares Express, which I read recently.

Add fine stories by the likes of Paul McAuley, Eric Brown, Gene Wolfe and others and you have a very worthwhile anthology.