The Martian Way and Other Stories

The title story, The Martian Way, was Asimov's response to the McCarthy Era. It describes a scenario in which pioneer human settlers on the planet Mars are faced with the denial of water supplies when a demagogic Earth politician conducts a campaign against wastage of water as a spaceship propellant. Asimov was particularly proud of the story's prediction of the euphoria to be experienced by astronauts on spacewalks which were then still thirteen years in the future.

Of the remaining stories in the collection, the first two (Youth and The Deep) are appeals against, respectively, human physical and psychological anthropocentrism. The final story (Sucker Bait) is an assertion of the unity of knowledge.