Biggest Mars SF disappointments of 2008

1. Learning that none of Robert A. Heinlein’s works
are housed in the Visions of Mars library, which stands proudly on the surface of the Red Planet thanks to the hard work of The Planetary Society and NASA.

2. Getting snubbed by the San Francisco Public Library when I inquired about obtaining a copy of Forrest J Ackerman's "A Trip to Mars" (1929) from the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper.

3. Not having the good fortune of discovering “Martian Dispatches” (2008), a "story" written by David Moles that was embedded in a Firefox browser extension by the merry pranskters of Tumbarumba.

4. Having to wait until at least 2009 to learn about the panels for Vericon IX, to be held at Harvard University in January 2009 and whose guests include Kim Stanley Robinson, Elizabeth Bear, Paul Di Filippo, Allen Steele, Robert V.S. Redick, Catherynne Valente, and Don D'Ammassa.

5. Not being able to read online or purchase in electronic format scores of short stories about Mars and Martians that were published
in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s in publications such as Astounding/Analog and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Wishing everyone a safe and Happy New Year!

Martian Panic in the works for Nintendo Wii

Empire Interactive announced recently that Martian Panic, a new video game for the Nintendo Wii, is slated for release in the first half of 2009. An interactive adventure in which earthly players fend off a Martian invasion, "Martian Panic is a 1950's comic book come to life in a highly stylized three-dimensional sci-fi game world," said P.J. Snavely, director of product management at Empire Interactive. "Wii fans of all ages will appreciate the amazing visual details and the family-friendly, nonstop action."

AbeBooks’ Most Expensive SF&F Sales in 2008

AbeBooks, a source for used, rare, and out of print books, has posted a list of its "Most Expensive Sales of Science Fiction & Fantasy Books in 2008":

1. Out of the Silent Planet, by C. S. Lewis - $7,950
“First edition of Lewis's earliest and rarest works from 1938.”

2. Edge Chronicles, by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell - $7,000
“A complete set of the children’s fantasy series containing Beyond the Deepwoods, Stormchaser, Midnight Over Sanctaphrax, Cloud Wolf, Curse of the Gloamglozer, Last of the Sky Pirates, Vox, and Freeglader. All titles are first UK editions with signatures of Stewart and Riddell.”

3. Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell - $6,780
“First edition, first printing, of Orwell’s 1949 dystopian classic featuring the red dust jacket.”

Winners of the 2008 Marooned Awards

As the year comes to a close, I have just enough time to announce the winners of the 2008 Marooned Awards. For details about the award and a complete list of nominees, please read my blog post of December 23rd.

Here are the winners of the 2008 Marooned Awards:

Best Novel: Mars Life by Ben Bova

Marsbound, by Joe Haldeman, and Rolling Thunder, by John Varley, are interesting, well-written novels that pay subtle tribute to earlier generations of Martian SF authors, but Ben Bova’s Mars Life, the third book in his trilogy starring geologist Jamie Waterman, is the winner of the 2008 Marooned Award for Best Novel.

Sustained by anthropology and linguistics, Mars Life is an intellectual story whose characters seek to understand an extinct Martian civilization and to resolve its meaning for the human race. If you’re a fan of “Omnilingual” (1957), by H. Beam Piper, and “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” (1963), by Roger Zelazny, you’ll probably enjoy Ben Bova’s Mars Life.

It’s worth noting that there are four additional novels that piqued my interest but, for various reasons, I did not have an opportunity to read: In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, by S.M. Stirling; The Martian General’s Daughter, by Theodore Judson; The Martian Confederacy, a graphic novel by Jason McNamara and Paige Braddock; and Iron Jaw and Hummingbird, a YA novel by Chris Roberson. I hope to read at least one of these books in 2009.


Best Novella or Novelette: “Tenbrook of Mars” by Dean McLaughlin

An odd category for such a small reading niche, there are only two nominees here and one, “The Last Temptation of Katerina Savitskaya,” by H. G. Stratmann, failed to entice me. The other, Dean McLaughlin’s “Tenbrook of Mars,” is an unassuming story of hard science and lost romance that recounts the rescue of a group of stranded Mars Petro employees. I was delighted to see engineer Don Tenbrook portrayed as a roughneck instead of a smug scientist, and the whole who’s-going-to-pay-for-this-mission issue confirms that economics has an important place in science fiction. With spaceships named after Burroughs, Schiaparelli, Lowell, and Bradbury, and Katerina Savitskaya nowhere in sight, “Tenbrook of Mars” is the winner of the 2008 Marooned Award for Best Novella or Novelette.


Best Short Story: “Weird Fruits” by Camille Alexa

I thoroughly enjoyed several of the short stories, including “The Film-makers of Mars,” by Geoff Ryman, and “Willpower,” by Jason Stoddard, both of which have clever storylines and demonstrate that Edgar Rice Burroughs continues to influence Martian SF nearly sixty years after his death.

With flickers of a government conspiracy and an old F-150 pickup truck parked in an unusual spot, “Tricks of Light and Shadow,” by Barry Napier, is worth reading. I’ll let the professional pundits spar over whether this work is science fiction or horror.

Two stories I had to re-read several times and probably still don’t fully understand: “The Full Story of the Firstborn Assault on Mars,” by Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke, and “Catherine Drewe,” by Paul Cornell. Steampunk may be all the rage these days, but “Catherine Drewe" is the most over-hyped Mars story of the year.

Which takes us to one of the least known stories of the year and the winner of the 2008 Marooned Award for Best Short Story: “Weird Fruits,” by Camille Alexa. Better known for Space Westerns set on Mars starring the spunky Matilda Johnson, Alexa shows a more serious side in “Weird Fruits,” a dehumanizing work of dark speculative fiction. More Bradbury than Bova or Burroughs, “Weird Fruits” grows from the ash of a volcanic eruption on Mars into an earthen tale about the rotten fate of humanity.


Best Flash Fiction: "The Elcano Syndrome" by Gustavo Bondoni

A solid collection of flash fiction, the nominees range from the Wellsian “The Button-Pushers of Mars,” by Martin Green, to the humorous “You Might Be A Green-neck If ...,” by Patricia Stewart, to the deadly “Blood and Ozone,” by Steven Rockoff. Interestingly, three of the other nominees are about Olympus Mons. One of them, "The Elcano Syndrome," by Gustavo Bondoni, is the winner of the 2008 Marooned Award for Best Flash Fiction.


Best Poem: “The Last Man on Mars” by John Nichols

Unfortunately, I haven’t read much poetry since the Six Hundred rode into the Valley of Death, but “The Last Man on Mars,” by John Nichols, is my favorite of the nominees, so I’m awarding it the 2008 Marooned Award for Best Poem.

Reviews of How to Live on Mars, a new guidebook by Robert Zubrin

Three recent reviews of How to Live on Mars: a Trusty Guidebook to Surviving and Thriving on the Red Planet (December 2008), the new science/science fiction guidebook by aerospace engineer and author Robert Zubrin, are worth reading:

• “Robert Zubrin loves NASA,” by Taylor Dinerman, posted on the website of The Space Review.

• “A New land of opportunity: One way to recapture the frontier spirit and relearn the value of hard work, self-reliance and risk-taking,” by Glenn Harlan Reynolds, posted on the website of The Wall Street Journal. Reynolds is a law professor at the University of Tennessee and serves on the Board of Advisors of the National Space Society.

• “Review of Robert Zubrin's How to Live On Mars,” by Brian Enke, posted on the website of The Mars Society. Enke is a founding member of The Mars Society and works as a space science researcher for the Southwest Research Institute. He is also the author of the science fiction novel Shadows of Medusa (2004).

"A book! A book!": Edison's Conquest of Mars by Garrett P. Serviss

Written just weeks after British author H. G. Wells’s seminal work The War of the Worlds first appeared, Edison’s Conquest of Mars (1898), an “unauthorized sequel” by American astronomer and writer Garrett P. Serviss, stars famed inventor Thomas Edison, who invades Mars in a belligerent plot filled with destructive weaponry and epic battles. One passage in Edison's Conquest of Mars, however, involves something more mundane than interplanetary warfare:

Finally, one day the prisoner, who seemed to be in an unusually cheerful frame of mind, indicated that he carried in his breast some object which he wished us to see.

With our assistance he pulled out a book!

Actually, it was a book, not very unlike the books which we have upon the earth, but printed, of course, in characters that were entirely strange and unknown to us. Yet these characters evidently gave expression to a highly intellectual language. All those who were standing by at the moment uttered a shout of wonder and of delight, and the cry of "A book! A book!" ran around the circle, and the good news was even promptly communicated to some of the neighboring electric ships of the squadron. Several other learned men were summoned in haste from them to examine our new treasure.

The Martian, whose good nature had manifestly been growing day after day, watched our inspection of his book with evidences of great interest, not unmingled with amusement. Finally he beckoned the holder of the book to his side, and placing his broad finger upon one of the huge letters -- if letters they were, for they more nearly resembled the characters employed by the Chinese printer -- he uttered a sound which we, of course, took to be a word, but which was different from any we had yet heard. ...

Interestingly, Edison’s Conquest of Mars was not published as a novel until 1947, nearly fifty years after it first appeared as a serial in the New York Evening Journal. Today, the work is in the public domain and you can download it as an eBook through Project Gutenberg or ManyBooks.net, or as an audiobook through Librivox.

NOVA television special: "Is There Life on Mars?"

“Is There Life on Mars?”, a special PBS NOVA television science program, airs on Tuesday night, December 30, 2008, at 8 p.m. EST. The program examines the history of Martian exploration, with a focus on NASA’s Phoenix mission, whose famed lander recently froze to death on the surface of Mars. For more information, read the TV program description.

The PBS website has a nice collection of Mars resources, photos, and interactive features, including:

• Ask the Expert
• Twitter: “Live” from Mars
• Man on a Mission: Steve Squyres
• Mars Up Close
• Anatomy of a Rover
• From Launch to Landing
• Links and Books
• Teacher's Guide

Ace Double Novel: The Dark Intruder & Other Stories by Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Dark Intruder & Other Stories (1964), a collection by Marion Zimmer Bradley

At left: Paperback (New York: Ace Books, 1964), 124 p., #F-273, 40¢. Cover art and illustrations by Jack Gaughan. An Ace double novel, bound with Bradley’s Falcons of Narabedla.

Here’s the blurb from inside the front cover:

"Xanadu was a name to chill men's blood -- that is, all but Andrew Slayton's. For him discovering the lost city of Xanadu on the planet Mars was an exciting challenge. His ardor to find this solitary remnant of a Martian civilization long vanished was only the more increased by the knowledge that all those before him in the search had returned insane. But even his indomitable courage faltered when, one day while out searching alone, a disembodied voice suddenly announced quite clearly, “I am Kamellin.” The Dark Intruder, the unforgettable story of Slayton’s quest, is but one of
the seven exciting science-fiction adventures included in this new collection.”

The short story “The Dark Intruder” was originally published under the title “Measureless to Man” in the December 1962 issue of Amazing Stories magazine. An excerpt from the story is available
at Fictionwise. The collection The Dark Intruder & Other Stories was reviewed by SFF critic Rich Horton.

Also of interest: the website of the Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust.

Turning page, E-Books start to take hold

Turning Page, E-Books Start to Take Hold
The New York Times
December 23, 2008
By Brad Stone and Motoko Rich

Could book lovers finally be willing to switch from paper to pixels?

For a decade, consumers mostly ignored electronic book devices, which were often hard to use and offered few popular items to read. But this year, in part because of the popularity of Amazon.com’s wireless Kindle device, the e-book has started to take hold. ...

Read the entire article in The New York Times.

Leonard Nimoy reads from The Martian Chronicles

Thanks to a recent post in the online journal of z0mbieastronaut, I was able to download and listen to a 1975 recording of Leonard Nimoy read abridged versions of two classic short stories by Ray Bradbury:
“There Will Come Soft Rains” (mp3, 14:41 mins) and “Usher II” (mp3, 34:44 mins). Both stories have a literary theme and are part of Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. Thankfully, Nimoy is no emotionless Mr. Spock here. Rather, his readings are full of life and passion.

Pictured above: Cover of 1975 Caedmon Records 33rpm recording.

Cheers to Dave Tackett of the blog QuasarDragon for the tip!

Monstrous reading: the theme of Anti-Sacrifice in the Sci-Fi pulps

SF readers who aren’t easily spooked by polysyllabic words will enjoy “Monstrous Theologies: The Theme of Anti-Sacrifice in the Sci-Fi Pulps,” an online scholarly article by Thomas F. Bertonneau that was first published in Anthropoetics - The Journal of Generative Anthropology (Spring/Summer 2000).

If you survive the first sentence (“Science fiction is by widespread consensus the prose genre devoted to representing the precepts of the physical sciences -- the precepts of materialism -- diegetically: standard definitions of science fiction typically explicate the genre under the related rubrics of extrapolation and plausibility.”) you’ll find references to or insightful analysis of Martian SF works by H. G. Wells, Kim Stanley Robinson, C. L. Moore, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Leigh Brackett, Olaf Stapledon, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Good luck!

1930s Sci-tri: “Martian Martyrs” by Earl Binder and Otto Binder

Originally published in the March 1939 issue of Science Fiction magazine under the pseudonym John Coleridge, “Martian Martyrs,” a short story by brothers Earl and Otto Binder, was reprinted in the early 1940s by Columbia Publications as a 23-page pamphlet.

“Martian Martyrs” is set in the year 3004 A.D., when Earth is ruled by the benevolent Tribunal of Science, or “Sci-tri,” a group of intellectually superior scientists. Concerned about the depletion of Earth’s ozone layer, the Sci-tri sends a group of space cadets, including Dik 4M-277 and Tom 3M-189, on a mission to Mars, the latest in a series tasked with discovering a habitable planet. After crash landing on the Red Planet, Dik 4M-277 and Tom 3M-189 find the wreckage of an earlier mission and learn the real agenda of the not-so-benevolent Sci-tri.

Considering this story was written in 1939 and that the Binder family was originally from Austria, it’s possible that the writing of “Martian Martyrs” was influenced by the rise of Nazi Germany. Quite a few aspects of the story are reminiscent of the brutal Nazi regime, including “scrutiny of the papers,” the use of science to build
“supermen,” and a “diabolical and heinous” plan for a “scientific
‘Utopia,’ in which the masses of humanity would have no part.”

Merry Christmas from Mars

"Merry Christmas from Mars," a family story by Stuart Atkinson.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

Leigh Brackett, V. E. Thiessen and the Beast-Jewel of Mars

The story: In mid-November, G. W. Thomas of the blog Dark Worlds raised an intriguing Pulp SF question: “Is Leigh Brackett V. E. Thiessen?” You see, Thomas found a website that states V. E. Thiessen, who wrote a short story titled “The Beast-Jewel of Mars” (Planet Stories, Spring 1955), is a pseudonym of author Leigh Brackett, who also wrote a short story titled “The Beast-Jewel of Mars” (Planet Stories, Winter 1948).

The sequel: In mid-December, Stephen Haffner of Haffner Press assured G. W. Thomas that V. E. Thiessen is not Leigh Brackett:
“I've been researching Leigh Brackett's papers, manuscripts, tearsheets, letters, and contracts for nearly 10 years. There is no evidence of her use of a pseudonym except as George Sanders in 1947 (or as Edmond Hamilton on occasion -- but more on that at another time) at any point in her career.”

The next chapter: Who is V. E. Thiessen?

Great comic book battles: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vs. the Martians

Brian Cronin of the website Comic Book Resources is counting down the Top 100 Comic Book Battles, as voted upon by readers. Cronin already announced the Top 25 and is now detailing battles #26 through #100.

At #72 is the deadly battle between The League of Extraordinary Gentleman and the Martians, featured in Volume II of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2002-2003), in which creators Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill retell the classic Wellsian epic about the Martian invasion of Earth. To make a long story short, members of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen defeat the invading tripods from Mars with a mutated virus, but concoct a cover story that the Martians were wiped out by the human common cold.

Nominees for the 2008 Marooned Awards

After reading some impressive lists compiled by fans, critics, authors, editors, and publishers about this year's best Science Fiction works, I have decided to honor the best of my niche readings by presenting the newly-created Marooned Awards.

Here's how it works: If I were unfortunate enough to be marooned on the planet Mars for the next year, what works of Martian Science Fiction or Speculative Fiction published this year and which I read would I want marooned with me?

The Marooned Award is given to the best Science Fiction or Speculative Fiction work that is predominately about Mars or Martians in the each of the following categories: novel, novella or novelette, short story, flash fiction, and poem.

Without further ado, here are the nominees for the 2008 Marooned Awards:

Best Novel

• Mars Life by Ben Bova

• Marsbound by Joe Haldeman

• Rolling Thunder by John Varley


Best Novella or Novelette

• “Tenbrook of Mars” by Dean McLaughlin

• “The Last Temptation of Katerina Savitskaya” by H. G. Stratmann


Best Short Story

• “Weird Fruits” by Camille Alexa

• “The Full Story of the Firstborn Assault on Mars” by Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke

• “Catherine Drewe” by Paul Cornell

• "Noah's Ark" by Narendra Desirazu

• “The Eventful Career of Dr. Kevin Pearson, Astronomer” by Edward Laag

• "The Ambassador" by Mark Lawrence

• “The Wolves that Haunt the Rock” by Patrick Lynch

• “Tricks of Light and Shadow” by Barry Napier

• “The Film-makers of Mars” by Geoff Ryman

• "Mars's Gift" by Jonathan Schlosser

• “Willpower” by Jason Stoddard


Best Flash Fiction

• "The Elcano Syndrome" by Gustavo Bondoni

• "Life from Mars" by Penelope Friday

• “Live from Times Square” by Jeff Garrity

• “The Button-Pushers of Mars” by Martin Green

• “Survivor of Olympus Mons” by Neil Griffith

• "Mars Ascent" by Andrew Males

• "Fast Living" by Hank Quense

• “Blood and Ozone” by Steven Rockoff

• “The Manumitters” by Phred Serenissima

• “You Might Be A Green-neck If ...” by Patricia Stewart


Best Poem

• “Preparing to Sleep ...” by Stuart Atkinson

• “The Last Man on Mars” by John Nichols

• “Why She Canceled Her Online Dating Membership: A Martian Female Responds (a triolet)” by Terrie Leigh Relf


The winners of the 2008 Marooned Awards will be announced on December 30, 2008.

Flash Fiction: “Blood and Ozone”

365 Tomorrows has an excellent piece of flash fiction titled “Blood and Ozone” by Steven C. Rockoff (2008). It’s about a hardboiled detective on Mars.

You Never Know What You’ll Find in a Book

You Never Know What You’ll Find in a Book
The New York Times, December 21, 2008
By Henry Alford

We may never fully understand what prompts people to leave unusual objects inside books. I speak of the slice of fried bacon that the novelist Reynolds Price once found nestled within the pages of a volume in the Duke University library. I speak of the letter that ran: “Do not write to me as Gail Edwards. They know me as Andrea Smith here,” which the playwright Mark O’Donnell found some years ago in a used paperback. I speak of any of those bizarre objects -- scissors, a used Q-tip, a bullet, a baby’s tooth, drugs, pornography and 40 $1,000 bills -- that have been discovered by the employees of secondhand bookstores, according to The Wall Street Journal and AbeBooks.com. Mystery surrounds these deposits like darkness. ...

Read the entire essay in The New York Times.

High-altitude holiday gift: Mariner 9 Mars Globe

A few days ago the blog SF Signal had a wonderful suggestion for a holiday gift: a Celestial Globe of the Earth that, when the lights go down, displays the 88 constellations of the night sky in a cool blue hue. Now, the used and rare book site AbeBooks has a listing for another, slightly more expensive, globe that the space entrepreneur, NASA administrator, or planetary adventurer in your family might enjoy as a holiday gift: the Mariner 9 Mars Globe.

Mariner 9 Mars Globe

Description: (MARS - MARINER 9) NASA. The Many Faces of Mars: 16" Visual-Relief Mariner 9 Mars Globe. Chicago, IL (globe); Pasadena, CA (booklet): National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1973. Original globe, measures 16 inches in diameter, resting on original wooden stand; accompanying quarto booklet, pp. [13], original wrappers. $7500. First edition of the globe produced by NASA incorporating the results of the photography and data collected by the Mariner 9 spacecraft. NASA launched Mariner 9 toward Mars on May 30, 1971. The unmanned spacecraft reached the red planet on November 13 of the same year ... "Mariner 9 exceeded all primary photographic requirements by photo-mapping 100 percent of the planet's surface" (NASA). The crucial findings underpinned the later Viking program. Mariner 9 completed its final transmission on October 27, 1972; this globe and supplement were published in December, 1973. The probe remains in stable orbit around Mars until at least 2022. After analysis of the results of Mariner 9, NASA tentatively selected potential landing sites for the Viking probes which were intended to soft-land instrument packages onto Mars in 1976. NASA selected four potential landing sites for the two Viking probes ... These four sites are indicated on the globe with adhesive decals, as issued (NASA had selected the sites by July, 1973). Small typed label indicating where Viking Lander 1 touched down (most likely affixed by a previous owner). Fine condition.

Price: $7,500

Interestingly, NASA's website appears to have a picture of the same globe, displayed above, which, apparently, the space agency uses
for exhibition purposes. According to NASA, its globe is valued for insurance purposes at $165.

Art illustrates the Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs

The blog Golden Age Comic Book Stories has a cool gallery of artwork depicting book covers and scenes from the various Mars novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The artists represented are Frank E. Schoonover, J. Allen St. John, P. J. Monahan, Hugh Hutton, and John Coleman Burroughs, the son of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
I especially like the weathered jackets, as they are a testimony of the interaction between artist, writer, and reader.

Pictured above: Cover of Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1920)

“Mars’s Gift,” a new story by Jonathan Schlosser

Thanks to a recent post at the blog QuasarDragon, I had an opportunity to read “Mars’s Gift,” an interesting short story by Jonathan Schlosser that is wrapped inside the December 2008 issue of Aphelion: the Webzine of Science Fiction and Fantasy. A sad tale about Marines returning from Mars with a plague, it’s a nice blend of biology and romance. There’s even a prop that could be a classic, and appropriately titled, Stephen King book:

“The apartment was about twice the size of Adam's, but with half the furnishings. The dim lighting came from the fact that Ferrier only owned two lamps, one of which was lit. A large, cushioned chair sat against the wall, with a book face-down and open next
to it. An old book, still in paper bindings; the cover read The Stand.
A bottle of liquor sat next to the book, opened.”

Mars! A reading list of 22 books compiled by the Yahoo Science Fiction Books Group

Last December The Yahoo Science Fiction Books Group posted “Mars! A Reading List” of twenty-two books and one film on Amazon's Listmania! Here is the introductory piece to the list:

"Exploring new worlds is one of the central themes of science fiction, and no world has sparked the imagination more than the Red Planet, our neighbor Mars. From fanciful early tales of Martian civilizations to more modern stories of exploration and colonization, Mars has been fertile ground for science fiction writers. We asked the members of the Yahoo Science Fiction Books group to share their favorite books about Mars. Most are set on Mars, while some are about expeditions trying to reach Mars, and a few are about Martians coming to visit Earth. Here are 23 of our favorites.”

1. Voyage (1996), by Stephen Baxter
“This is the first novel in the NASA Trilogy, an alternative history in which Kennedy survives his assassination attempt and commits the nation to a manned expedition to Mars and beyond. A realistic story of what could have been.”

2. Moving Mars: a Novel (1993), by Greg Bear
“Casseia Majumdar is a native of Mars, a student leader turned politician working to prevent a conflict with Earth. Her former boyfriend, Charles Franklin, leads a team that discovers how to
‘tweak’ the fundamental constants of physics, which gives them great power and makes them a threat to Earth.”

3. The Martian Race (1999), by Gregory Benford
“With NASA languishing, a $30 billion prize is offered to the first private organization to visit Mars and return. An eccentric billionaire puts together a team, which must beat the Chinese-European entry, do some real science, survive, and return intact. The science is spot on, but the story-telling is engaging as well.”

4. Mars (1992), by Ben Bova
“An excellent, hard sci fi story of the first exploratory mission to Mars. Bova’s attention to detail makes the story realistic and believable. Part of his Grand Tour series of novels.”

5. Return to Mars (1999), by Ben Bova
“The main character in Mars, geologist Jamie Waterman, returns with a second crew with an itch to explore what he thinks might be ruins in Valles Marineris.”

Read the entire list of 23 items.

The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas: “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?"

Last evening I listened to “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" (35 min.), an episode from The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas that aired in the mid-2000s and is archived on TalkZone.

Based on the 1961 television episode of The Twilight Zone and starring actor Richard Kind with narration by Stacy Keach, "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" is about two state troopers who investigate a rural UFO sighting. The troopers question seven people at a roadside diner who all claim to be from Earth, even though one of them is not.

Sadly, this radio adaptation is not very good. Kind’s performance is solid but several of the other participants don’t portray their characters in a convincing manner and Keach’s narration sounds winded.

Interestingly, one of the characters in "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" utters these lines: "Just like a real science fiction story, that's what she is, like a regular Ray Bradbury. Six humans and one monster, all the way from outer space. Wonder if it came from Mars or from Venus."

Mars poetry by Stuart Atkinson

This afternoon I stumbled across four pieces of Mars poetry by Stuart Atkinson, a writer and astronomy outreach educator. The poems are posted on the website of 4Frontiers Corporation:

• "Onwards, Spirit" (2006)

• "Conjunction's Dream" (2006)

• "One Thousand Sunsets" (2006)

• "Sleeping" (2006)

Founded in 2005, 4Frontiers Corporation is an emerging space commerce company focused on the settlement of Mars.

Visions of Mars: a conversation with Carl Sagan

Several blogs note that literary giant John Updike
has written an essay titled “Visions of Mars” for
the December 2008 issue of National Geographic magazine. A short but interesting tour of the human imagination, Updike’s essay visits the Mars of Giovanni Schiaparelli, Percival Lowell, H. G. Wells, C. S. Lewis, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, Garrett P. Serviss, and Carl Sagan, who, apparently, imagined the possibility that "polar bear-sized creatures" roamed
the surface of the Red Planet.

Since I’m a big fan of Carl Sagan and still watch his award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos from time to time, I dug up this neat passage from the book Conversations with Carl Sagan (2006):

“Then, when I was ten -- I was at P.S. 101 in Brooklyn at the time -- I came upon the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels about John Carter and his travels on Lowell’s Mars. It was a world of ruined cities, planet-girdling canals, immense pumping stations -- a feudal technological society. The people there were red, green, black, yellow, or white and some of them had removable heads, but basically there were human. I didn’t realize then the chauvinism of making people on another planet like us; I simply devoured what seemed to me the riches of another planet’s biology. Carter fell in love with a princess of the Kingdom of Helium, Dejah Thoris. It was very exciting, and I loved those books. They were full of new ideas. On Burroughs’s Mars, there were two primary colors more than on Earth, and I would close my eyes and try to imagine them. I tried to imagine my way to Mars, the way Carter did: I would go into a vacant lot, spread my arms, and wish to be on Mars.”

Thirty-one years later, Sagan has taped up on the wall outside his Cornell office a map of Mars as Burroughs portrayed it, with Xs marking the spots where Carter landed. Recently, in his office, he showed a visitor, on a globe of Mars made from Mariner 9 photographs, exactly where Carter would have come down.

“Many an evening I spent in vacant lots, arms outstretched, thinking myself to that twinkling red place, but nothing happened. I tried all different kinds of wishing. Suddenly, it dawned on me that this was fiction; maybe there was some better way to get to Mars.“

Thanks to the blog Variety SF for steering me to science fiction author Paul McAuley’s comments about Updike's essay. Respectfully,
I was happy to see that the piece in National Geographic was not written by Kim Stanley Robinson, or, for that matter, Ray Bradbury, Ben Bova, Robert Zubrin, Donna Shirley, or Steve Squyres. An outsider like John Updike probably has a greater chance of encouraging non-genre readers and those who are not members of the scientific community to develop a vision of Mars. After all, if we are to send a human to the Red Planet, we'll need the support of the Harry Angstrom's of the world.

Forgotten books: The Secret of the Martian Moons by Donald A. Wollheim

Writer Charles Gramlich of the blog Razored Zen
and Randy Johnson of the blog Not the Baseball Pitcher have fond memories of the old Donald A. Wollheim juvenile novel The Secret of the Martian Moons (1955). Both blog posts are worth reading.

Here’s the last paragraph of Gramlich's post: “The Secret of the Martian Moons was a book that I remembered for years and years until, in my forties, I sought it out and bought my own copy. I remember the smile on my face when the package arrived
and I took the book out and ran my fingers over the cover. And sitting here now writing this, I’m still smiling.”

Robert Zubrin discusses his new book, How to Live on Mars, with Public Radio

New Hampshire Public Radio recently interviewed scientist and author Robert Zubrin about his new book How to Live on Mars: a Trusty Guidebook to Surviving and Thriving on the Red Planet (December 2008). A blend of science, science fiction, and humor, Zubrin's guide seeks to address many of the important challenges humans will face when they relocate to Mars.

Dr. Robert Zubrin is an aerospace engineer, president of The Mars Society, and of one of the most vocal proponents for the human colonization of Mars. Two recent reports that echo his call to arms:

• Beyond the Moon: a New Roadmap for Human Space Exploration in the 21st Century, by The Planetary Society (November 2008)

• The Future of Human Spaceflight, a white paper by the Space, Policy, and Society Research Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (December 2008)

New e-Novel: Ancient Whispers from Tomorrow by J. Richard Jacobs

I just learned about Ancient Whispers from Tomorrow (October 2008), a new science fiction e-novel about Mars by J. Richard Jacobs. Here’s a lengthy and detailed description, taken from the website of Double Dragon Publishing:

“First alien contact. We've dreamed of what that may be like over a long time and several answers have been proffered. None of them have been as bizarre as this. None of them taxed the imagination as much as Ancient Whispers from Tomorrow does. It is difficult enough to take in the idea of coming face to face with something truly alien, but this book gives us a ringside seat to just such an event. Walk the regolith of Mars and see the ‘thing at North Head City.’ If you dare.

Tina Tamran, Chief Areologist for the Martian Colonial Council at Ascreus Station, is heading up a group of scientists who have been sent out to a small crater north and west of North Head City. They are charged with investigating the sudden presence of an alien structure that sprang up there almost overnight. Where it came from and what its purpose is remains unanswered. It is known simply as ‘the thing at North Head City.’

Unwillingly tossed into the mix is Dr. Michael Baird of the Earth Allied Council's Central Command and World Astronomical League. He is known as Earth's foremost authority on Alien Contact Protocol and is largely responsible for writing the book on the protocols and providing the foundation for the WAL Accord on Alien Contact. He does not want to be on Mars ... but he was given no choice. That the Martians do not want him there, either, is made abundantly clear from his arrival at Ascreus Station and onward. It does not take long for him to realize that the less he tells his colleagues and enemies alike on Earth about the thing at North Head City, the better.

The alien structure remains curiously silent and inactive, raising suspicions that its purpose for being there may not be so friendly. When it begins making noises and producing vibrations, fears and concerns mount. It fires a small sphere at Earth, then goes dormant again.

A week later, another structure similar to the thing at North Head City goes up in a small crater named Bruce on Earth’s moon. Tensions grow on Earth and the government controlling the Western Bloc of Earth decides, unilaterally, to do something about it. That proves to be a disastrous mistake.”

I have not had an opportunity to read Jacobs's Ancient Whispers
from Tomorrow, but the introduction is available at Double Dragon Publishing and Fictionwise. Unfortunately, I could not find a review. Also, both Double Dragon Publishing and Amazon mention a 150-page paperback, but it is unclear to me whether this is a print-on-demand product. In any case, check out the website of author J. Richard Jacobs. Very interesting.

Forthcoming: “Droidtown Blues,” a Space Western by Camille Alexa

Author and poet Camille Alexa announced recently in a LiveJournal entry that “Droidtown Blues,” a Space Western and the sequel to her “The Clone-Wrangler’s Bride” (2007), will be published (any day now) on the website SpaceWesterns.com. According to Alexa,
“You've read Matty's story, now it's time for Echo's. This mightn't be the last you hear of this pair -- there are twelve domed cities of Mars, after all, and they've hit only two.” Alexa also notes that “The Clone-Wrangler’s Bride” is the most read story of all time on SpaceWesterns.com. Congratulations, Camille!

Bring back the cast of SF characters

When the books about the Ponzi scheme perpetrated by financier Bernard Madoff are written, one of them
will probably have a “Cast of Characters” printed somewhere between the front cover and the first chapter. Essentially, a cast of characters is a handy
“cheat sheet” that helps the reader keep the characters straight. This feature appears in quite a few books about business history, including Den of Thieves (1991), by financial journalist James B. Stewart, and, more recently, King of the Club: Richard Grasso and the Survival of the New York Stock Exchange (2007), by Charlie Gasparino of CNBC.

There was a time when science fiction books included a cast of characters, although here it seems to have been primarily for marketing purposes. For example, of the more than 100 Martian science fiction paperback books in my collection, a few have a cast of characters. Interestingly, all of them were published by Ace Books from the mid 1950s to the mid 1960s:

• First on Mars (1956), by Rex Gordon

• The Mars Monopoly (1956, double novel), by Jerry Sohl

• The Martian Missile (1959, double novel), by David Grinnell

• The Secret of Sinharat (1964, double novel), by Leigh Brackett

• The Martian Sphinx (1965), by Keith Woodcott

I don’t know if the practice of including a cast of characters in SF books has ended up on the dust heap of history, as I read only an armful of science fiction novels each year. If so, perhaps Ace Books, or another publishing company, could bring back the cast of SF characters.

Flash Fiction: “The Elcano Syndrome"

Every Day Fiction has an excellent piece of flash fiction titled “The Elcano Syndrome" by Gustavo Bondoni (2008). It’s about a 21st-century gentleman explorer and his desire to scale the tallest mountain in the solar system.

Amazing book covers from pre-Golden Age SF

Joshua Glenn of the blog io9 has put together an awesome list of “The Most Amazing Book Covers from Pre-Golden Age SF,” complete with beautiful images and insightful commentary. Two of the books on Glenn’s list: A Princess of Mars (1917), by Edgar Rice Burroughs; and Yezad: a Romance of the Unknown (1922), by George Babcock.

Pictured above: Cover of Yezad (Bridgeport, Conn. & New York: Co-Operative Publishing Co., Inc., 1922). Glenn's commentary: "As for the devil on the dustjacket, the occult point of Babcock's novel is to inform us that we are divided creatures, within whom Bonality and Malality (good and bad aspects) struggle. Moral: Don't let Malality triumph, or it might break Martian-filled eggs with its pitchfork."

Review of Winterstrike, a novel by Liz Williams

David McWilliam of the website Strange Horizons has a detailed review of Winterstrike (September 2008), a new novel by British author Liz Williams and the first in a planned Gothic SF trilogy. Featuring the city of Winterstrike on a colonized Mars, the novel made Amazon UK’s list of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2008.

McWilliam pulls no punches in his analysis, concluding “Williams clearly has the imagination and skill to engage the reader and draw them into her fictional worlds; it's keeping them interested where she falls down.” An interesting review if you’re not afraid to read a spoiler or two.

Winterstrike was also reviewed by the blogs Fantasy Book Critic, Walker of Worlds, TheBookbag.co.uk, Cheryl’s Mewsings, and the newspaper The Guardian.

The fact that so many critics and fans are taking the time to review Williams’ new novel is encouraging. I’ll be scrounging up the money to buy this book when it is released in the United States. But, I already know how that story will end: “No, thank you, please don’t trouble yourself by ordering a copy of Winterstrike for me, I’ll just buy it off Amazon. Thanks.”

Radio hoax scares Croatia’s capital with reports about aliens, Orson Welles-style

Radio Hoax Scares Croatia’s Capital with Reports about Aliens, Orson Welles-Style

12 December 2008 | Radio reports about an unidentified flying object about to land in Zagreb on Wednesday gave the Croatian capital’s residents a scare and angered authorities.

The Croatian radio station Antenna caused chaos in Zagreb on the morning of December 9 with a report about a bright spot of light moving in the sky over the capital and fake testimonies of witnesses observing the phenomenon.

Zagreb’s residents - worried and scared, immediately started to call relatives, the municipality, the police and the fire department, the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency and the Russian ITAR-TASS news agency reported recently.

The hoax was a kind of a repeat of the radio play The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells, adapted by Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre group and narrated by Welles himself. Written and performed to sound like a real news broadcast about an invasion from Mars, when it aired in the US in 1938, thousands of people panicked and flooded newspapers, radio and police stations with calls and inquiries on how to protect themselves. In retrospect, the hoax is seen as having tested successfully and authentically how radio worked in an emergency.

The Croatian radio journalists admitted only around noon that their report was a joke, aimed at ridiculing Mayor Milan Bandić’s plans to turn Zagreb into a police stronghold. Bandić intended to supply the police with a helicopter, an unmanned flying device, an armoured car and other special instruments, as well as to build a fortified command centre. The journalists behind the joke had decided to test the authorities by faking a Martian attack on the air.

It seems that the joke angered police authorities, who said today that they will file a complaint against the responsible journalists for disturbing public order and spreading false information.

From BalkanTravellers.com

Law books in Lester del Rey’s Badge of Infamy

The legal predicaments of attorney Marc Dreier, Governor Rod Blagojevich, and financier Bernard Madoff remind me of the case against Dr. Daniel Feldman, the main character in Lester del Rey’s
novel Badge of Infamy (1957). Here’s a lengthy passage from the novel that details a courtroom discussion about the odd conduct of Dr. Feldman,
medical regulations, and the existence of law books on Mars:

Jake picked up two ragged and dog-eared volumes from his table. "Case of Harding vs. Southport, 2043, establishes that
a Lobby is responsible for any member on Mars. It is also responsible for informing the authorities of any criminal conduct on the part of its members or any former member known to it. Failure to report shall be considered an admission that the Lobby recognizes the member as one in good standing and accepts responsibility for that member's conduct.

"At the time Daniel Feldman arrived, Dr. Christina Ryan was
the highest appointed representative of Medical Lobby in Southport, with full authority. She identified Feldman as having been a doctor, without stipulating any change in status. She made no further report to any authority concerning Daniel Feldman's presence here. It seems obvious that Medical Lobby at Southport thereby accepted Daniel Feldman as a doctor in good standing for whose conduct the Lobby accepted full responsibility."

Wilson studied the book Jake held out, and nodded. "Seems pretty clear-cut to me," he agreed, passing the book on to Matthews. "There's still the charge that Dr. Feldman operated outside a hospital."

"No reason he shouldn't," Jake said. He handed over the other volume. "This is the charter for Medical Lobby on Mars. Medical Lobby agrees to perform all necessary surgical and medical services for the planet, though at the signing of this charter there was no hospital on Mars. Necessarily, Medical Lobby agreed to perform surgery outside of any hospital, then. But
to make it plainer, there's a later paragraph -- page 181 -- that defines each hospital zone as extending not less than three nor more than one hundred miles. Einstein is about one hundred and ten miles from the nearest hospital at Southport, so Einstein comes under the original charter provisions. Dr. Feldman was forced by charter provisions to protect the good name of his Lobby by undertaking any necessary surgery in Einstein."

He waited until Matthews had scanned that book, then took it back and began packing a big bag. Doc saw that his possessions and the microscope were already in the bag. The old man paid no attention to the arguments of Matthews before the bench.

Abruptly Wilson pounded his gavel. "This court finds that Dr. Daniel Feldman is qualified to practice all the arts and skills
of the medical profession on Mars and that he acted ethically
in the performance of his duties in the case of the deceased Harriet Lynn," he ruled. "The costs of the case shall be billed
to Medical Lobby of Southport."

You can download Badge of Infamy as an eBook from ManyBooks.net or as an audiobook from Librivox. Looking forward to reading the rest of story about Mssrs. Dreier, Blagojevich, and Madoff!

Jim Henson Foundation funded puppets for a production of The Martian Chronicles

Last summer Fordham University Theatre Professor Elizabeth Margid incorporated puppetry into a stage production of The Martian Chronicles (1950), Ray Bradbury's literary masterpiece. Margid's musical adaptation featured various puppets ranging from a twelve-footer on rods to hand puppets, miniature marionettes, and shadow puppets. The materials used to make the puppets were funded by a grant from The Jim Henson Foundation.

“The Martian Chronicles is a project that I’ve had in mind for a while and decided to try my hand at actually adapting myself,” Margid said. “It was also a piece, I thought, that really lent itself to puppetry because it’s about the clash of two different civilizations -- Martian and Earthling.” In Margid’s adaptation, puppets portrayed the Martians in certain scenes and Earthlings in other scenes, depending on the point of view from which the story was being told. “Puppets are like us, but they’re more than us because they have liberation of movement and are free from gravity,” Margid said.

Puppeteer Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets, died in 1990.

“Noah’s Ark,” a new story by Narendra Desirazu

Thanks to the blog Biology in Science Fiction, I
just finished reading "Noah's Ark" (2008), a new short story by aspiring author Narendra Desirazu. The story recently won a prize in TheScian Science Fiction Short Story Contest 2008.

Biology in Science Fiction notes that “Noah’s Ark,” set in the 2060s and featuring NASA’s fourth Mars Lander, is a “tale of global warming and microbes from Mars with unusual properties. It's heavy on telling rather than showing, and doesn't have much action, but it centers on an interesting idea.”

Yet, "Noah's Ark" is more than a cautionary tale about global warming and a salute to scientists. It drills down to the core of mankind itself, concluding that "There was still no peace on Earth since humanity and peaceful existence were mutually incompatible." Perhaps this is the real meaning of the title of the story.

Web novel: The Mars Run by Chris Gerrib

Originally written in 2001 and inspired in part by childhood memories of reading books about rockets
at his local library in small-town Illinois, The Mars Run (2006) is a self-published novel by Chris Gerrib. You can read the entire novel online at Gerrib’s website, or purchase it through Amazon or Lulu.com.

Here’s a description of The Mars Run. Please note the story contains strong language and sexual content.

“In 2071, Janet Pilgrim, a recent high school graduate, suddenly finds herself unable to afford college, thanks to her father's financial mismanagement. Faced with the fear of dying of embarrassment if she goes to a junior college, she looks for a way out. After considering joining the Army, she stumbles on the solution to her problems -- becoming an astronaut on a commercial space ship.

But by 2071, “astronaut” is only slightly more glamorous then “truck driver” is today. But the money is good, and one run to Mars -- the
"armpit of the Solar System" will fund several years of college. Even better, she won’t have to face her friends. Unfortunately, being an astronaut can be dangerous, as she discovers when a friend dies in a training accident, the first of many dangers.”

Quite a few readers and critics have voiced their opinions about The Mars Run, as Gerrib details on his website. According to artist and writer Ron Miller, The Mars Run “reads very much like a three-way cross between early Heinlein, Joe Haldeman and Allen Steele. ... What the book really is represents the very best of what science fiction is really all about: human beings. And that's where its great strength lay: in the vivid, realistic depiction of its characters, in particular Gerrib's heroine, Janet Pilgrim.”

Chris Gerrib recently attended WindyCon 35 in Illinois. Read all about it in his LiveJournal.

Fans of Burroughs, Brackett and Bradbury await The Lost Hieroglyph, a film by Steve Weintz

Fans of the Disney/Pixar film John Carter of Mars, scheduled to hit theaters in 2012, have another interesting film to look forward to: The Lost Hieroglyph, a retro sci-fi adventure by independent filmmaker Steve Weintz of Big Sur, California.

Weintz may not be as well-known as Pixar's Andrew Stanton, but he's a genuine fan of the “Shared Mars” of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leigh Brackett, and Ray Bradbury and has a passion for the Red Planet that Stanton probably lacks. Beyond Mars, Weintz's interests include pulp fiction, classic Hollywood, history, and anthropology.

The Lost Hieroglyph is still in the early stages of pre-production, but the pilot script is complete and a five-minute trailer is being prepared. Here's the pitch, which Weintz was gracious enough to share with me:

Working Title: The Lost Hieroglyph

Genre: Retro sci-fi adventure

Format: Stop-motion animated miniseries

Premise: An adventurer-writer couple goes to Mars to find a missing brother and a lost book; they foil a plot to destroy the Martians and enslave Earth.

Special: Style is period sci-fi/noir: "2001 as imagined in 1949"; characters are modeled after 1940s-1950s actors; puppets played by contemporary actors are modeled on their likenesses.

Here’s a snippet from the script, Act Two, Scene 5:

Fritz: All right, then, a planet’s a big place, you two! Where do you start?

Ray walks over to a big telescreen hung on the wall. He picks up a remote and the image of a globe in space appears. It is the early-20th-Century version of the planet Mars, colored salmon and dark green and webbed with the famous canals. Using arrows, lines and dots, Ray points out features of their expedition as he talks.

Ray: We’ll land at Port Lowell, on the Equator. It’s the main Earth colony, with all the amenities; we’ll get a hotel room and act like tourists for a couple of days while we get our bearings. Then we head north up the canals to the edge of the dead sea-bottom, to one of these oasis states. From there our guide will lead us by caravan out into the desert, following Mike’s trail.

Fritz: To where?

Ray: The Lost Library of Taqueyar.

Fritz: (flabbergasted) What?! No! Really! I ... I’m surprised, very surprised that Dr. Michael Brackett would give any credence to such a myth!

Awesome! Thank you, Steve Weintz. Please keep us informed!

An Interview with Martian matriarch Kelly Ravell

Scifialiens’s Weblog has an interview with Martian matriarch Kelly Ravell. It’s part of the clever online supplemental material Canadian author Phyllis Twombly has created to accompany her Martian Symbiont series of science fiction novels. The series consists of two books to date: Been Blued (2007) and Martian Blues (January 2008). A third novel is in the works.

10 Stories you wouldn’t know are Martian Science Fiction, Volume 1

This is Volume 1 of a project whose goal is to compile a long list of stories you wouldn’t know are about Mars or Martians by simply reading the titles.

For example, stories such as “The Enchanted Village” (1950), by A. E. van Vogt, and “Hellas is Florida” (1977), by Gordon Eklund and Gregory Benford, will be included on the list, while stories such as “Martian Quest” (1940), by Leigh Brackett, and “Falling Onto Mars” (2002), by Geoffrey Landis, will not.

Some of the stories you can read online or purchase through sites such as Fictionwise, but most you cannot. The Locus Index to Science Fiction and the Internet Speculative Fiction Database are good tools for obtaining citations that you can take to your local library. If your library does not have the anthology or magazine mentioned in the citation, ask your librarian about an “Interlibrary Loan Request.” I’ve been able to borrow old anthologies and get photocopies of stories from old pulp magazines with few problems.

Here are the first ten stories:

1. “The Voice in the Void” (1932), by Clifford D. Simak
“Considers the discovery of a sacred tomb on Mars believed to contain the relics of the Messiah.”

2. “The Treasure of Ptakuth” (1940), by Leigh Brackett
“Two men vie for The Treasure of Ptakuth.”

3. “The Embassy” (1942), by Donald A. Wollheim
A private investigator confronts Martians in 1940s New York City.

4. “The Wilderness” (1952), by Ray Bradbury
“This tale focuses on Janice Smith and Leonora Holmes on their last night on Earth as they finish their preparations to leave for Mars.”

5. “Tin Lizzie” (1964), by Randall Garrett
Two aged spaceboats manufactured by the Ford Motor Company and anchored on Phobos are pressed back into service.

6. “Exploration” (1971), by Barry N. Malzberg
“Resolutely sensible technician, passionate poetess, alarmed colonizer, each presents his very different sense of their common destination, the Mars they are separately to explore.”

7. “From the Labyrinth of Night” (1984), by Lillian Stewart Carl
“A scientist searching for life on Mars finds it in a most unexpected place, leading him to re-evaluate not only his own life but what it means to be human.”

8. “Of Flame and Air” (1998), by Mike Resnick and Josepha Sherman
“An adolescent dreamer escapes his family problems in the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs -- and falls in love with Dejah Thoris.”

9. “The Me After the Rock” (2002), by Patrick O’Leary
“A dialogue-only story ... two astronauts are speaking, one who has had a mystical encounter of some kind with Mars itself, and the other who is dubious.”

10. “Where the Golden Apples Grow” (2006), by Kage Baker
“The stark, inhospitable terrain of Mars almost comes alive as two stranded young colonists struggle to get home.”

Enjoy!

Pictured above: Artwork by Bob Eggleton

John Carter of Mars action figures due in 2009

The website Action Figure Insider reports that Triad Toys, Inc. of San Jose, California, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. of Tarzana, California, have joined forces to bring the John Carter of Mars saga to yet another generation of fans. Here’s a piece of the press release from Triad Toys:

“Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars Saga is hailed as one of the most influential works to define modern sci-fi and fantasy literature. Written almost a century ago, the epic 11 volume series chronicling John Carter’s adventures have thrilled many, many generations of readers. Triad Toys is proud to announce that it has entered into a two-year licensing agreement with Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. to produce a range of collectibles, including 12-inch action figures and statues of all the central characters from the beloved novels. The collectibles will consist of both modernized concepts developed by Triad Toys as well as the classic Burroughs vision of the Mars saga with the first series of figures releasing early 2009.”