A Reading of Rebels of the Red Planet, a novel by Charles L. Fontenay

Thanks to a recent post by the blog QuasarDragon, I’ll be spending some time this weekend listening to voice actor Mark Nelson read Rebels of the Red Planet (1961), a classic SF novel written by Charles L. Fontenay and one that is in the public domain. The audio files of Nelson’s reading, which is about 5 hours, can be downloaded for free from LibriVox.

Here’s a description of Rebels of the Red Planet:

Dark Kensington had been dead for twenty-five years. It was a fact; everyone knew it. Then suddenly he reappeared, youthful, brilliant, ready to take over the Phoenix, the rebel group that worked to overthrow the tyranny that gripped the settlers on Mars.

The Phoenix had been destroyed not once, not twice, but three times! But this time the resurrected Dark had new plans, plans which involved dangerous experiments in mutation and psionics.

And now the rebels realized they were in double jeopardy. Not only from the government’s desperate hatred of their movement, but also from the growing possibility that the new breed of mutated monsters would get out of hand and bring terrors never before known to man.

Note the cool cover art by Ed Valigursky!