Two Planets

Two Planets

dust cover of the first English edition
Author	Kurd Lasswitz
Original title	Auf zwei Planeten
Translator	Hans H. Rudnick
Country	Germany
Language	German
Genre	Science fiction
Publisher	Felber
Publication date	1897
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	iv, 421 pp

Two Planets (German: Auf zwei Planeten, lit. On Two Planets, 1897) is an influential science fiction novel postulating intelligent life on Mars by Kurd Lasswitz. It was first published in hardcover by Felber in two volumes in 1897; there have been many editions since, including abridgements by the author's son Erich Lasswitz (Cassianeum, 1948) and Burckhardt Kiegeland and Martin Molitor (Verlag Heinrich Scheffler, 1969). The 1948 abridgement, with "incidental parts" of the text taken from the 1969 version, was the basis of the first translation into English by Hans H. Rudnick, published in hardcover by Southern Illinois University Press in 1971. A paperback edition followed from Popular Library in 1976.^[1] The story covers topics like colonization, mutually assured destruction and clash of civilizations many generations before these topics came into politics.