Mars, as I'm sure you've all heard by now, is the closest its been to Earth in 60,000 years. Which would be so much more impressive if we could actually go there. But since we can't, I give you these all-time best Mars stories, be they movie or book. Or at least, a few good stories and some stuff I've never read, as well as various and sundry other miscellany.

1. A Martian Odyssey, by Stanislaw Weinbaum. I blogged about this story once before- it's from the '30's so it has a certain charming old-school naivety. Very entertaining, with a sense of wonderment that characterized the old days of sci-fi.

2.The War of the Worlds by HG Wells. Even older than Martian Odyssey, and much more violent. And don't forget the notoriety of Orson Welles' radio dramataziation which had people fleeing to the streets in panic. Must have been something to see.

3.A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the other Martian Chronicles. My Dad practically forced me to read this when I was younger- it was such a huge part of his youth, but it seemingly paled in comparison to Star Wars and all that I was into, so I wasn't that keen on reading it. But I read it, loved it, and recommend it to you. Pulp fiction at its finest.

4. Time for a Mars movie. Umm, almost all movies made about Mars suck for some reason- Mars Attacks, Mission to Mars, Ghosts of Mars, the list goes on and on. So I guess the least sucky of them (that I can think of, but feel free to correct me) is Total Recall. Blech. Though I have to say I loved that movie when I first saw it back when it came out. Seems so dated now, though.

5. Notice how the first 3 books were all written at least 70 years ago? That's because back then they thought Mars might be full of life, what with all the canals and whatnot they could see through the telescope. So, this entry is much more recent: Red Mars by kim Stanley Robinson. But you know, I haven't actually read it, though my Dad liked it. It's about terraforming, which is about all that can be done with Mars and a fictional setting these days, since no one buys the idea of Martians anymore. Course, there was that whole thing with the monuments, which brings me to . . .

6. Don't know what this is, I just found it while browsing Amazon for Mars books. Sounds interesting in that bizarre way that conspiracy theorists/new age gurus often are. Nothing in This Book Is True, But It's Exactly How Things Are: The Esoteric Meaning of the Monuments on MArs

7. Weirdos from Another Planet!, by Bill Watterson. Technically, this Calvin and Hobbes anthology isn't a book about Mars, but it does have that section (from which the book gets its title) where they run away to Mars. I would write a Homie Bear poem about Mars but this series says it better than I could.

8. Mars bars. Mmmmm. One time Jonny Smelter and I were in an Astronomy class together, and we wrote a sonnet about Mars (so I have written a poem about Mars before), which contained many scientific and somewhat true facts, including "But the best thing about Mars Mars Mars/ Is that is where they make those candy bars!"

9. Woodpeckers from Mars, Faith No More. An otherworldly (especially if that world is an Arab colony) instrumental from The Real Thing, which you discerning readers will recognize from that top ten CD's list I wrote last week.

10. Hmmm- I have to admit i'm running out of ideas. Ooh ooh how about Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus? No. So here is a cool animated image of Mars instead from Space.com. They run a pretty good website, so they deserve to round out this Top Ten list. And in an interesting case of serendipity, I found this website today without even looking for it, so I say it gets an honorable mention.