Dawningsburgh

"Dawningsburgh" by Wallace West is a science fiction story set in the early 1960s, following visitors to a fake Martian city that has been turned into a tourist attraction. Through Betsy O'Reilly, a tourist who is tired of the commercial aspects of Mars, the book looks at the ideas of letdown and trying to find real experiences. Betsy sets off to find the real Mars below the touristy surface and meets Pitaret Mura, a Martian who has lived through a period dominated by robots and copies. Mura wants to punish tourists for getting Mars wrong, but Betsy comes up with a smarter plan: make them relive their ordinary lives forever. This changes the story from one of violence to one about what happens after a meaningless life, and it creates a strange relationship between them, highlighting the conflict between what is real and what is fake.