Terry,

No, they aren't out-of-date tomes. The Red, Green, Blue series is extremely realistic and a great read about terraforming Mars. And besides he makes the points to the extreme almost about the Martian day and year lengths. "Moving" is a little more out there scientifically but still very good, it deals with the independence of Mars from mother Earth.

I've spent about 10% of my reading time reading (or rereading) "older masters" sci-fi books the last few years. Some of them are quite a chuckle relative to the way things have really turned out. I try to keep in mind though the context of the time when they were written

>Are you saying I should read then cos they're a load of out-of-date speculation,like Clarkes', with life on Mars, or cos they're fine modern SF that stand up to modern scrutiny.
>
>If the former then I'm not too interested (it's too painful reading of dark-green plants that heliotrope - and I'm sure the Martian "day" isn't euiv. to Earth's as Clarke has it - shame on him, and women there merely to be secretaries, and using type-writers, and "spools", and all that old pony).
>
>If the latter then, I'm interested but what is the recommendation?