More Martians And Invasions

The previous post traced a conceptual thread through Wells, Lewis and Anderson. We can also do this with Lewis, Bradbury and Heinlein. All three show immortal beings on Mars. In Lewis' Out Of The Silent Planet, Earthman travel to Mars with evil intent. In Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and Heinlein's Red Planet, human beings colonize Mars.

In Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land, a man raised by Martians founds a Terrestrial religion whereas Lewis' Elwin Ransom returns from Mars and Venus to become the Pendragon of Logres and the spearhead of extraterrestrial intervention.

In Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, as in Nigel Kneale's Quatermass II, alien invasion involves mental control whereas, in Jack Finney's Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, it involves body duplication and, in Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournelle's Footfall, it involves asteroid stikes.

In Olaf Stapledon's Last And First Men, Martians invade Earth and Terrestrials invade Venus and Neptune. In Sleeping Planet by William Burkett, extrasolars invade Earth but are soon defeated whereas, in the Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher, extrasolar invaders have ruled Earth for generations but are eventually overthrown.

And I think that Clifford Simak has some alien invasions?

Fahrenheit 451

A neat gift pack would be:

the novel, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury;
a DVD of Francois Truffaut's film of the novel;
a video of Bradbury's stage adaptation of the novel;
the comic strip adaptation by Tim Hamilton, introduced by Bradbury.

Truffaut changed the character Clarisse from a sixteen year old high school dropout killed by a hit and run car driver to a twenty year old primary school teacher who survives with the hero Montag at the end of the film.

Apparently, Bradbury preferred Truffaut's ending for Clarisse so he incorporated it into his play. Thus, the story exists in four media and Bradbury incorporates an input from Truffaut.