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"Sands of Mars" is a very early novel, his second I think. And the first of his that I read. It seemed to me grown-up sf than than a bems-and-blasters space opera, about a struggling dome colony on Mars and its attempts to become self-sufficient, specially in atmosphere. It dates from about '53 so the Mars of the book is not quite the real Mars; atmosphere in the book is thin, but no thinner than the top of Everest, so pressure suits are not needed. However, oxygen masks are needed.
The plot involves a middle aged journalist joining a Mars supply mission to report on the colony back to Earth, and personal discoveries and realisations he makes when he gets there.
Not bad, but because the length of sf novels of the time was not great, the publishers preferring about 80,000 words, the details of the Martian ecology are not worked out in enough detail to work out where it's odd animal life came from.
It was good enough, though, to make me a Clarke fan and finish up reading a lot more.
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