“The Memory of Mars” by Raymond Jones (1961)

Below is a bookish passage from “The Memory
of Mars,” a piece of short fiction written by Raymond F. Jones and published in Amazing Stories magazine in December 1961.

The story’s plot revolves around a news reporter on Earth named Mel Hastings, his dead wife Alice, a vacation to Mars, and a clandestine Galactic Council that replaces humans with androids. With implanted memories and therapy through psycho-recovery, it reminds us somewhat of Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” (1966).

In the second layer of junk in the drawer he came across the brochure on Martian vacations. It must have been one of the dreams of her life, he thought. She'd wanted it so much that she'd almost come to believe that it was real. He turned the pages of the smooth, glossy brochure. Its cover bore the picture of the great Martian Princess and the blazoned emblem of Connemorra Space Lines. Inside were glistening photos of the plush interior of the great vacation liner, and pictures of the domed cities of Mars where Earthmen played more than they worked. Mars had become the great resort center of Earth.

The full text of "The Memory of Mars" is available free of charge at ManyBooks.net and Project Gutenberg.

Jones also wrote two other pieces of Martian short fiction, “The Martian Circe” (1947) and “The Lights of Mars” (1973), as mentioned in Richard Simms' checklist of Jones' short fiction.

Pictured above: The Vol. 35, No. 12, December 1961 issue of Amazing Stories.