And who do I blame?

H.G. Wells

And as for why, I’m not sure.  I wonder if it has something to do with the name and how it flows when its applied as and adjective.  MARTIAN.  Its just a word that fits so well and comes off just alien enough.  I don’t really see any of the other planets having that fit.  Mercurians?  Venutian? Neptunians?  It just doesn’t have the same flow as Martian invaders, or Martian colonies.  And its the Red Planet.  As compared to our blue and green planet.  It comes off as a great contrast.

Then there is the fact that we are able to see its surface with relative ease, and Venus is a thick atmosphere the doesn’t offer the same view.

I’m guessing because it’s relatively close to us, and that it and Venus were always the two planets most consistently thought to likely support alien life. A bit later, as science progressed enough for people to understand that it wasn’t really possible for life as we know it to exist on Venus, you kind of hit the sweet spot for imagining life on Mars.

See, at that point we’re not quite advanced enough to understand just how fucking hostile Mars is to life, I mean, it’s just a desert, right? People live in deserts here, so why not. We’re also not quite advanced enough to picture them coming from another galaxy or something like that, or to come up with way-far-removed-from-human creatures that could survive on another planet from our system. So, Mars, big desert planet, easy to write stuff with and for. Even once we start to understand the hostilities, it’s keeping rough pace with our imaginations getting better to explain how we, or something else, could live there.

Basically, Mars just had long enough in the sweet spot of humanity’s imagination that we just naturally came to accept that it’s the perfect place to “realistically” accept alien life on.

GO look in the mirror and say “Hello, my name is Jim and I am a geektardnerd!” My sciency geek response is it is visible, like Venus, has a cool greek name and has been studied before telescopes, so humans have been aware of it for a long time. Since it is barren and named after a dude with wings obviously trying to get the fuck off of it, it has more intrigue than the goddess of love.

What Rann said, although it is a bit more hostile than deserts on Earth (like massive hemorrhaging may make you feel a bit lightheaded). Unless, of course, we can just get Quaid to start the reactor.

although it is a bit more hostile than deserts on Earth

Well, yeah, s’what I’m getting at. But back in the day, they saw it, went “Hunh! Desert! Seems reasonable to me.” It took a little bit longer for us to realize “Hunh! Desert that will kill you pretty quickly! Little more difficult.”

Buzzion is right, it started with Wells, but what got him excited was the writings of Giovanni Schiaparelli.  He’s the first to write about the “Canals of Mars” and the whole idea of their being another civilization in the Solar System because to him these “Canals” were obviously artificial in nature, and would change with the seasons.  This whole notion of that we are not alone was astounding to a new era of thinking brought about by Darwin.
My only problem is that now every time someone goes to Mars they get focked over. Every modern story set on Mars in the past 20 years either has an Evil Corporate master or Demons or Psychotic Robots or all of the above.

Every modern story set on Mars in the past 20 years either has an Evil Corporate master or Demons or Psychotic Robots or all of the above.

So your problem is that fiction set on mars has antagonists that are also on mars? Isn’t that kind of the point?

I kind of like the fact that real science killed the notion of a Ray Bradbury-type Mars. At least we know we can have it all to ourselves one we do get there (as far as we know, at least…)

BTW check this out-YouTube has The Martian Chronicles miniseries available in several parts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcXcoFAp6i0

I haven’t seen this since I was a kid.

So your problem is that fiction set on mars has antagonists that are also on mars? Isn’t that kind of the point?

Its just that if any story is set on Mars, it is a story of doom (pardon the pun), and gloom. Its never a happy one. Its as if Mars is cursed, and nothing good can come from it. This is pretty much the opposite of the last 50 years of sci fi, where Mars was seen as the New Frontier, not the place you go to be eaten by a Demon.