The Solar System as It Used to Be

Martian Canal,
by C Bonestell

One of my favorite subgenres in science fiction is old-school interplanetary adventures, in which Mars has canals, Venus jungles, and Mercury two faces (hot and cold). Lo! and behold, yesterday I discovered a blog devoted to that subject: The Old Solar System. Its creator is the British pseudonym Zendexor, who introduces himself as an SF critic. Well, he certainly masters the subject, discussing the oldschool settings created by veterans writers like Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Brackett, SM Stirling, and Edmond Hamilton.

If Zendexor knew Swedish, he would probably have written a lengthy post about Sture Lönnerstrand’s solar-system odyssey Rymdhunden (“Space Dog”) from 1954.

Check the Old Solar System blog here — link >>>

Sun’s strange seventh child

Uranus is an odd planet in many ways — colder than it ought to be, with an extreme axial tilt and possessing dark rings than behave in unusual manners. Here is an interesting introduction to Uranus’s peculiarities — link >>>

Uranus and its rings. Photo by the Hubble Space Telescope.