David Baron’s “The Martians” reconstructs a bizarre tale told through newly discovered clippings that began in the 1890s when Percival Lowell, a wealthy Harvard scion declared “there can be no doubt that living beings inhabit our neighboring world.”
So frenzied was the reaction that international controversies arose and a new genre called science fiction arose.
While Lowell’s claims were savagely debunked, his influence sparked a compulsive interest in Mars that continues to this day.
