Old Mars

Allen Steele made his first sale to Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine in 1988, soon following it up with a long string of other sales to Asimov’s, as well as to markets such as Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Age. In 1990, he published his critically acclaimed first novel, Orbital Decay, which subsequently won the Locus Poll as Best First Novel of the year, and soon Steele was being compared to Golden Age Heinlein by no less an authority than Gregory Benford. His other books include the novels Clarke County, Space; Lunar Descent; Labyrinth of Night; The Weight; The Tranquility Alternative; A King of Infinite Space; OceanSpace; ChronoSpace; Coyote; Coyote Rising; Coyote Frontier; Spindrift; Galaxy Blues; Coyote Horizon; and Coyote Destiny. His short work has been gathered in five collections, Rude Astronauts, All-American Alien Boy, Sex and Violence in Zero-G, American Beauty, and The Last Science Fiction Writer. His most recent books are a new novel in the Coyote sequence, Hex, and a YA novel, Apollo’s Outcasts. He won the Robert A. Heinlein Award in 2013, as well as three Hugo Awards, in 1996 for his novella “The Death of Captain Future,” in 1998 for his novella “Where Angels Fear to Tread,” and, most recently, in 2011 for his novelette “The Emperor of Mars.” Born in Nashville, Tennessee, he has worked for a variety of newspapers and magazines, covering science and business assignments, and is now a full-time writer living in Whately, Massachusetts, with his wife, Linda.

Here he takes us to a Mars very different from the Mars of his Hugo-winning novelette, the Old Mars of ancient dreams, and deep into the Martian Badlands, on a mission that could plunge two races, and two worlds, into all-out war.