The astronomer Percival Lowell envisioned a world threaded by canals and peopled by ancient, intelligent beings. The Viking spacecraft showed us a seemingly sterile planet with a salmon-pink sky and sub-Antarctic temperatures. In this swiftly paced and authoritative book, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer traverses the vast physical and cognitive distances between Earth and Mars and between Lowell s Mars and Viking s while offering an informed vision of the future of Martian exploration. Mars Beckons is a fascinating synthesis of myth, history, politics, and high technology,...