May 30, 2004
Mars: Fascination Present, Anxieties Past
NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers continue to be our avatars on Mars.
WNYC's Radio Lab delves into fantasias of anxiety focused on the Red Planet. Listen to the original 1938 broadcast of the radio drama "The War of the Worlds" by Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, which caused panics when listeners thought they were listening to news of a real invasion, re-enactments of listener reactions from the 1938 and subsequent scares, and even parts of Jeff Wayne's groovy 1978 WotW rock opera!
The poster illustration above is from the classic 1958 film version of War of the Worlds, produced by science fiction disaster master George Pal in glorious Technicolor.
Science fiction author, digital rights activist and boingboing.net contributor Cory Doctorow just read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy.
Here's an ultimate WotW fan site.
Of course, there's always the 1898 novel that started it all: The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.
Posted by Emily at May 30, 2004 12:28 AM