The novel begins with a prologue set at the 20th World Science Fiction Convention ( Chicon III ) in 1962 where a large group of famous science fiction authors in attendance are watching a television broadcast of an American space probe as it lands on an inhabited Mars . Those present include Frederik and Carol Pohl , Poul Anderson , H. Beam Piper , Guest of Honor Theodore Sturgeon , Jack Williamson , Robert and Virginia Heinlein , Arthur C. Clarke , Larry Niven , Isaac Asimov , L. Sprague and Catherine Crook de Camp , John W. Campbell , Frank Herbert , and Leigh Brackett . Heinlein mentions an idea for a novel about Mars he had had but set aside when " the preliminary orbital telescope reports " had come in . ( In actual history the completed book , '' Stranger in a Strange Land '' , won the Hugo Award for Best Novel at this convention . ) The authors watch and comment as the broadcast from the probe reveals a Martian canal and wildlife and then , startlingly , the arrival of human-like Martians in a " land ship " who haul the probe off
20th World Science Fiction Convention
20th World Science Fiction Convention
In the Courts of the Crimson Kings