“I Like Martian Music”, a short story from the 1950s by Charles E. Fritch

“I Like Martian Music”, a short story written by Charles E. Fritch and published in the September 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe magazine is available for reading or download at ManyBooks.net or Project Gutenberg. Here’s a description of the story, taken directly from ManyBooks.net:

“There have been a number of interesting theories advanced about life on Mars, but few have equalled Charles Fritch's intriguing picture of the world of Longtree and Channeljumper in its infinite variations, tonal and thematic. The Mars of these two is an old culture, old and finite.”

Audio fiction: "With Mars In His Hand", a short story by Bosley Gravel

The Winter Issue 2009 of The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine has an interesting but uneven reading of "With Mars In His Hand" (stream or mp3 file, 1:09 hours, 63 MB), a short story written by Bosley Gravel that was first published in the anthology Forbidden Speculation (2007). Here’s a description of the plot:

"Javi Jelcor has lost his young wife. He can either accept it and move on with his life, or give in to despair. But there’s a third choice: take the body to Mars, and see if the stories of resurrection are true.”

Thanks to Dave Tackett of the blog QuasarDragon for the tip.

A Map of Mars in the year M-100 (2219 AD)

The Red, Green & Blue Mars Site, a website inspired by Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series and maintained by Frans Blok of Rotterdam, has a beautiful map of a future terraformed Mars in the year M-100 (2219 AD). The map is based upon Robinson's novels.

Thanks to Annalee Newitz of the blog io9 for the link.

Author Samuel R. Delany on Red Planet juvies

It’s always a treat when a highly respected author reminisces about an early reading experience. Here, we have an excerpt in which award-winning SF author, professor, and literary critic Samuel R. Delany reflects on two juvenile books about the Red Planet. The excerpt is from Delany's Silent Interviews: On Language, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics: a Collection of Written Interviews (1994).

The first science fiction novel I read all the way through was The Red Planet Mars, by John Kier Cross [sic]. The book I’d wanted to read, however, was Robert Heinlein’s Red Planet, whose plot my elementary school friend Robert had detailed to me in intense and luminous particulars, as, in jackets and jeans, we’d wandered, shoulder to shoulder, down 89th Street half a block beyond Lexington Avenue to spend the afternoon in his penthouse apartment -- watching Berr Tilstrom’s Kukla, Fran, and Ollie on his mother’s new television set ... Robert’s was the first television set I ever saw in anyone’s house.

But it was Cross’s book that, three whole exhausting weeks later, my mother returned with from the library, where she’d recently begun working as a clerk.

I was dubious. But she explained that it was almost the same title, was probably about the same thing -- perhaps it even was the same book, and I was simply mistaken. And even I could see it was the same color (red) as the one Robert had been reading in school.

It didn’t, however, have the same illustrations. But after two or three days, I gave it a try, reading it, even enjoying it -- though I was still certain the other book, Robert’s book, must be, somehow, better.

But by now Robert had been joined by another school friend, Johnny, in thrusting this book and that at me -- more Heinlein and Clarke juveniles -- some of which I read and some of which I balked at -- while my friend and seventh grade confidante, Priscilla (who, a year later, was the first person I knew to have a color television) detailed the plot of Titus Groan to me over a two-and-a-half-hour phone call. ...

Note that I couldn't find a book titled The Red Planet Mars by John Keir Cross. Presumably, Delany is referring to Cross’s The Angry Planet (1945) or its sequel, The Red Journey Back (1954), which was published in the United Kingdom as SOS From Mars (1954).

Pictured above: Copy of jacketless The Angry Planet (1945).

Giveaway: Two copies of Kage Baker’s forthcoming novel The Empress of Mars

Graeme Flory of the blog Graeme's Fantasy Book Review is giving away two copies of The Empress of Mars (May 2009), a forthcoming novel written by Kage Baker and published by Tor Books. One copy is a signed advance reading copy and the other is a regular trade edition copy. The deadline for Graeme's giveaway is March 29, 2009. Meanwhile, you can read a review of The Empress of Mars at the SF Site. (Note that a limited edition of The Empress of Mars was published by Subterranean Press in late 2008.)

New piece of flash fiction: “Martian Standard Time” by Curtis C. Chen

“Martian Standard Time” (2009), a new piece of flash fiction by Curtis C. Chen, was recently published on Chen’s blog, 512 Words or Fewer. Here is the first line: “Sean O'Reilly was the first human on Mars.”

Born in Taiwan, Curtis C. Chen graduated from Stanford University and is a former employee of Google. He has written a number of short stories and novels and recently attended Viable Paradise, a SF&F writers’ workshop.

An Interview with Valentine Michael Manson

A newly released prison photograph of notorious murderer and pop culture icon Charles Manson reminds me that that one of his sons, Valentine Michael Manson (“Pooh Bear”), who was born in April 1968 in Topanga Canyon, California, is named after Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised by Martians and the main character in Robert A. Heinlein’s Hugo Award-winning SF novel Stranger in a Strange Land (1961). Allegedly, Stranger in a Strange Land was one of Charles Manson’s favorite books and some even claim that the novel was in Manson’s backpack when he was arrested in October 1969 for grand theft auto and later charged with the Tate-LaBianca murders.

Valentine Michael Manson’s mother was Mary Brunner, a former library assistant at UC Berkeley who quit her job in 1967 and became one of Charles Manson’s earliest followers. Due to his mother’s entanglement in various Manson Family crimes, Valentine Michael Manson was sent to Wisconsin ca. 1970 to be raised by Mary Brunner’s parents. He grew up under the name Michael Brunner.

Check out a scattered video interview with Michael Brunner from a two-part KCBS-TV special (Part 1, Part 2) on the Manson children that was done by Harvey “TMZ” Levin back in the early 1990s (or read a transcript of the interview). There’s no mention of Heinlein’s novel Stranger in a Strange Land, but it’s a neat interview if you’re a fan of 20th-century pop culture.

Pictured above: Michael Brunner (i.e., Valentine Michael Manson).

Cover art: Leigh Brackett's The Sword of Rhiannon

Here’s some cool cover art that you don’t see too often: the 1955 first hardcover edition and first English edition of The Sword of Rhiannon (1953), a classic Martian SF novel written by Leigh Brackett. According to the October 1997 issue of Firsts: The Books Collector’s Magazine, this edition, published by Boardman in London in 1955, is "the most elusive, expensive and highly prized book in the Brackett cannon." There's a copy selling for more than $800 on the rare and used book site AbeBooks.

Robert J. Sawyer’s collection Identity Theft and Other Stories nominated for 2009 Aurora Award

Congratulations to Canadian SF author Robert J. Sawyer, whose collection Identity Theft and Other Stories (2008) has been nominated for the 2009 Aurora Award –- Canada’s top SF award –- for Best Long-Form Work in English. Three stories in this collection are set on Mars and one is set on Deimos:

• "Identity Theft"(2005), a hard-boiled detective story set on Mars.

• "Come All Ye Faithful" (2003), a story about the only priest on Mars.

• "Mikeys" (2004), a story about astronauts finding the remains of an alien observatory on Deimos.

• "Biding Time" (2006), the companion story to “Identity Theft".

Robert J. Sawyer will be publishing some excerpts from Identity Theft and Other Stories over the next few weeks.

The Aurora Awards will be announced at Anticipation, the 67th World Science Fiction Convention, to be held in Montreal in August 2009.

"Wild Martian Flowers", a new SF poem written by Mary Jo Rabe

“Wild Martian Flowers”, a new poem written by Mary Jo Rabe, appears in the Spring 2009 issue of Space and Time magazine. Comprised of fourteen lines, the poem is about nanomachines on Mars.

Mary Jo Rabe grew up on a farm in Iowa and has been working as a librarian in Freiburg, Germany, for more than 30 years. She is a SF fan and a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association.

Operation Ares, a novel by Gene Wolfe

Operation Ares (1970), a novel by Gene Wolfe

At left: Paperback original (New York: Berkley Publishing, 1970), a Berkley Medallion book, #S1858, 208 p., 75¢. Cover art by Paul Lehr. Here’s the blurb from the back cover:

“The invasion from Mars came in the early years of the 21st century. And all over America people were praying for it to succeed ... For two decades, the United States had been slipping into a primitive past, turning its back on technology -- and abandoning its Martian colony. Its 'emergency' government was kept in power by repression, food was scarce, life grim ... and killer packs of wild animals prowled at night, making curfews a vital need. Then the 'Martians' came back. An obscure teacher, John Castle, was among the first to see the invaders -- and made a desperate try to aid them. He failed then, but there was a strange role waiting for Castle to play ..."

Wolfe’s first novel, Operation Ares was written in 1967 and heavily cut by Wolfe and Don Benson, editor of Berkley Books, before it was published in 1970. Unfortunately, many consider the novel an abysmal work. For example, in a scathing review published in the April 1971 issue of The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Joanna Russ concluded “But all in all, the novel is a failure, shadowy and inconclusive. Books like this are generally called 'promising,' but by the time you read this review, Mr. Wolfe will be as far above Operation Ares as Ares is above the worst science fiction hackwork.”

Bruce Gillespie was less critical, writing in his Australian fanzine Scratch Pad 52 (2003): “There was a time in American publishing when promising new authors were allowed their apprenticeship novels. Operation Ares was Gene Wolfe’s. It doesn’t work; the plot, about a future war between humans living on Earth and those in space, is all over the place and quite forgettable; but Wolfe’s initial strength was his creation of interesting characters. Not interesting enough to save the novel, but they did have an independent life that one can’t find in the novel as a whole.”

One of the few positive critiques of Wolfe’s novel I came across was written by Matthew O’Keeffe, who noted in the November 1993 issue of Free Life: A Journal of Classical Liberal and Libertarian Thought that Operation Ares is "something of an undiscovered libertarian gem.”

And how does Gene Wolfe feel about his novel? In a 1997 interview published in the book Shadows of the New Sun: Wolfe on Writing / Writers on Wolfe (2007), Wolfe told Peter Wright: "The publication of my first novel, Operation Ares, was an enormous high point, and I think that it is greatly inferior to most of my work. I try to keep it from being reprinted, actually."

Watchmen tampering with Ray Bradbury’s short story collection The Illustrated Man

As Watchmen imploded at the box office after just its second weekend, the film's director Zack Snyder and
co-screenwriter Alex Tse were busy tampering with parts of The Illustrated Man (1951), a classic collection of eighteen short stories written by Ray Bradbury. Various online sources report that Tse is working on a script for a film adaptation of Bradbury's collection that will focus on six of the stories, including “The Concrete Mixer,” which is set on Earth but features a Martian. Apparently, Tse envisions six segments to the film, one for each story. At least one of the segments will be directed by Zack Snyder, unless Tse abandons the segmented scheme, in which case Snyder will direct the entire film. The film is scheduled to be released in 2010.

Pictured above: Dust jacket from first edition of Ray Bradbury's collection The Illustrated Man.

Bookspot Central Book Tournament tips off, features three Mars novels

The Third Annual Bookspot Central Book Tournament tipped off earlier today. Modeled on the NCAA basketball tournament, this is a contest in which you, the fan, vote for SF&F books, with the winning titles advancing to the next round of competition.

The Martian General’s Daughter (2008), by Theodore Judson, is competing in the 64-title new-release tournament and Out of the Silent Planet (1938), by C. S. Lewis, and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), by Philip K. Dick, are competing in the 32-title classic tournament. Go Maroon!

Pictured above: 1965 hardcover of PKD's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

J. Allen St. John’s illustration of Thuvia, Maid of Mars sold at auction for more than $15,000

An illustration drawn in 1920 by American illustrator James Allen St. John (1872-1957) that served as the frontispiece of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel Thuvia, Maid of Mars (A. C. McClurg and Co., 1920) sold for more than $15,000 at an auction last week conducted by Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas. The illustration, mixed-media on board, 26 x 16.5 inches, and signed, sold for $21,510, a figure which includes a 19.5% buyer’s premium. It was estimated to sell for $8,000 to $12,000.

New piece of flash fiction: “What’s in a Name?” by Stephen L. Thompson

“What’s in a Name?” (2009), a new piece of flash fiction by Stephen L. Thompson, appeared recently in FLASHSHOT, an online publication of daily genre micro-fiction edited and published by G. W. Thomas. Thompson's piece is about the first human born on Mars.

Stephen L. Thompson’s work has appeared in numerous publications. He maintains his own website.

Pyramids of Mars, a digital graphic novel by Richard Douglas and Geoffrey Holmes

Pyramids of Mars (1997), a digital graphic novel by Richard Douglas and Geoffrey Holmes, is available online for all to read. The plot involves astro-archaeologist Dr. Annie Tyler and a team from the Paradise Base mission who are sent to explore the Cydonia Mensae region of Mars following the discovery of alien intelligence. The whole thing is a bit cheesy, but worth checking out.

Thanks to the blog Big Dumb Object for the link.

SF: Diagram of Martian canal system

Thanks to a tip from independent filmmaker Steve Weintz, here’s a neat diagram by engineer Charles E. Housden of a Martian canal system that one would have found on the Mars of astronomer Percival Lowell.

Trailer for forthcoming film The Lost Hieroglyph to debut at Comic-Con 2009

Now that Watchmen is old news, it’s time to focus on a much more interesting film that’s coming down the canal: The Lost Hieroglyph: a Brackett & Burroughs Adventure. A project of independent filmmaker Steve Weintz of Big Sur, California, the film (stop-motion animated miniseries) is a retro sci-fi adventure in which a writer couple travel to Mars to hunt for a missing relative and a lost book. Steve was gracious enough to provide me with a production update:

“We're shooting Episode 1, Act Two for the trailer to demo at San Diego ComicCon. The Telegraph Hill apartment set is coming together, along with the animation stage (an uber-workbench). Episode 1, Act Two takes place mostly in the living room [...] two other sets being built for the trailer are, first, a bit of Old Mars for the opening teaser, and second, a big HO-scale miniature set of Clipper Cove in San Francisco Bay. I plan to have photography wrapped up by the end of May, in time for post production before
the July 23-26 convention.”

Meantime, check out a promotional poster for The Lost Hieroglyph.

Thanks Steve!

Travis Taylor’s novel One Day on Mars published in paperback

A paperback edition of Travis Taylor’s novel One Day on Mars (2007) was published recently by Baen Books and is now available for purchase through various retailers. Here’s a description of the novel, taken directly from the website of Baen:

“A nonstop futuristic thrill-ride, through the critical events which were the breaking point for the underclass of Martian citizens and precipitated a revolution to break the Martian colonists free from the formidable Sol System government. The formerly red planet -- now in danger of again becoming red, blood red -- would never be the same, nor would the human race. It was one day that changed the course of history for the Solar System, raging from hand-to-hand combat to piloted armored mecha suits clashing to an enormous space battle, with dedicated heroes on both sides of the conflict wondering if they were doing the right thing -- and if they would live to see another day. And wondering, as well, if the spark of this new war, that would eventually reach across whole star systems, would bring them peace.”

The first seven chapters of One Day on Mars are posted on Baen’s website.

Author, reviewer, and longtime science fiction fan Don D’Ammassa reviewed the novel in 2007, concluding that “There were times when I thought the action was too compressed -- it felt more like a comic book than a novel during some of the battle sequences -- but for the most part, this is well above average military SF.” Other reader reviews are posted on Amazon.

Travis S. "Doc" Taylor is a physicist and aerospace engineer who has worked on various programs for the Department of Defense and NASA. He maintains his own website.

Marvel Comics: Frederik Pohl's The Day After the Day the Martians Came

The Bronze Age of Blogs has beautiful, readable jpegs of the six-page comic The Day After the Day the Martians Came, published in the Vol. 1, No. 1, May 1973 issue of Marvel Comics' World’s Unknown. Scripted by Gerry Conway and drawn by Ralph Reese, The Day After the Day the Martians Came was adapted from a 1967 short story of the same title by SF author Frederik Pohl.

Archaeology and identity theft on Mars

“Identity-Theft Arrest in Dispute Over Dead Sea Scrolls,” an article in yesterday’s The New York Times, reminds me of two Martian SF developments:

• Paizo Publishing’s reprint of The Sword of Rhiannon (1953), a novel by Leigh Brackett, is scheduled to be released this month. The main character is Matthew Carse, a Martian archaeologist.

• Robert J. Sawyer’s “Identity Theft” (2005), an award-winning, hard-boiled detective novella set on Mars, is under option to be adapted into a live-action, full-length Hollywood film.

Nominated for Nebula Award, Ruth Nestvold’s short story “Mars: A Traveler’s Guide” online

Thanks to the generosity of Gordon Van Gelder, editor and publisher of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, “Mars: A Traveler’s Guide,” a short story by Ruth Nestvold which was published in the January 2008 issue of the magazine and is in the running for a Nebula Award, has been posted online for all to read.

Cheers to Tinkoo of the blog Variety SF for the tip!

Author Caitlín R. Kiernan on “Bradbury Weather”

Award-winning SF&F author Caitlín R. Kiernan provided some profound insight into her novella “Bradbury Weather” (2005) in a recent entry in her LiveJournal. The novella, which Kiernan considers to be “my best sf story thus far,” is set on Mars and is included in her new collection A is for Alien (Feb 2009).

In a recent review of A is for Alien by John Joseph Adams for the SF site Tor.com, Kiernan noted that although "Bradbury Weather" is a Martian odyssey "which begins at the base of Tharsis Tholus and ends up at Lowell Crater, far to the south [...] it’s the psychological distances that the characters travel that is most important here.”

New piece of flash fiction: “Gustav’s Mars” by Emily Leverett

The March 2009 issue of Flash Fiction Online has been posted and it includes a piece titled “Gustav’s Mars,” by Emily Leverett. The story is about a performance of “Mars, the Bringer of War” (the first movement in British composer Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite The Planets), a Martian invasion, and an iPhone.

Emily Lavin Leverett is a professor of English at a small college in North Carolina. She maintains a LiveJournal.

Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel Red Mars part of new Random House free digital library

Publishing giant Random House announced that Kim Stanley Robinson’s award-winning novel Red Mars (1992) is one of the first five titles in its brand new Suvudu Free First Book Library. The library, designed to introduce new readers to acclaimed and popular science fiction and fantasy series, allows readers to access free digital copies of books.

Red Mars and the four other books are available through Random House’s SF/F portal, Suvudu, as well as on other content services, including Scribd.com and the Stanza e-book reader application for the iPhone. New titles will be added to the Suvudu Free First Book Library on a regular basis.

Download Red Mars (pdf).

Thanks to John Ottinger III of Grasping for the Wind for the tip!

Burroughs Thuvia, Maid of Mars illustration by James Allen St. John coming up for auction

An illustration drawn in 1920 by American illustrator James Allen St. John (1872-1957) that served as the frontispiece of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel Thuvia, Maid of Mars (A. C. McClurg and Co., 1920) will be auctioned off next week by Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas. The illustration, mixed-media on board, 26 x 16.5 inches, and signed, is estimated to sell for $8,000 to $12,000.

Interview with Tom Glynn, the voice of Kindle 2

The news site Engadget.com has a neat interview with Tom Glynn, the voice of the text-to-speech feature in Amazon’s new Kindle 2 e-reader. Here’s an excerpt:

"The Kindle gig is an off-shoot of my work for the speech recognition company Nuance, who developed text-to-speech, or TTS. I record a massive amount of fragments and random sentences, and they're able to chop them up in a way that allows my voice to speak whatever is written down -- that's an over-simplification, since I don't understand all the intricacies of how it works. Through TTS,
I'm also the voice of the National Weather Service and the Phoenix Airport, to name a couple. I love technology, so I think it's pretty cool."

Audio review of Robert A. Heinlein’s Red Planet

Publishers Weekly has a short but positive review of an unabridged audiobook of Robert A. Heinlein’s classic juvenile novel Red Planet (1949). Produced by Full Cast Audio, the book is read by William Dufris and includes a full cast with musical score. Six CDs, 7 hrs. Here’s a description, taken directly from the website of Full Cast Audio:

“Jim Marlowe’s Martian pet, Willis, seems like nothing more than an adorable ball of fur with an astonishing ability to mimic the human voice. But when Jim takes the creature to academy and runs afoul of a militantly rigid headmaster, his devotion to his pet launches the young man on a death-defying trek across Mars.

Accompanied by his buddy, Frank, Jim must battle the dangers of a hostile planet. But it is not only the boys’ lives that are at stake: They have discovered explosive information about a threat to the survival of the entire colony -- information that may mean life or death for their families.

An irresistible mix of thrilling adventure, crackling dialogue, and brilliant speculation, deftly seasoned with politics, philosophy, and
a touch of the mystic, Red Planet is classic Heinlein.”

A Princess of Mars art: Etchings by Joel Rothberg

Will Schofield of the book blog A Journey Round My Skull has posted some cool, dark relief etchings by artist Joel Rothberg that are featured in a 1965 limited edition of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic Sci-Fi novel A Princess of Mars (1912/1917). According to Schofield, the images are "Printed from hand-etched zinc plates in an edition of 500 numbered and signed copies as one of the publications of the Pratt Adlib Press [New York] under the direction of Fritz Eichenberg." A cataloging record on Worldcat indicates that this edition is only 16 pages and is comprised of the etchings plus “excerpts” from A Princess of Mars.

Thanks to Annalee Newitz of io9 for the link. If you have time, check out her post on the Rothberg artwork, which puts Burroughs’ novel into an imperialistic framework.

All very cool, as I've never heard of Joel Rothberg or this limited edition of A Princess of Mars!

“Moment of Truth,” a short story by Basil Wells

Thanks to an awesome snowstorm earlier today and a recent post by Dave Tackett of the blog QuasarDragon, I was able to read “Moment of Truth” (1957), a short story by Basil Wells that is freely available at the site ManyBooks.net. Originally published in the December 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe magazine, “Moment of Truth” is about a woman named Ruth Halsey and the hardship she faces on Mars. Here’s an excerpt:

“She loved that old tree. She had played among its long horizontal branches from childhood. Her brother, Alex, who had been killed in the Normandy Landing during World War Three, had loved the tree too. He had built the railed, shingled-roofed little nest high up in the tree's crotched heart where Ruth kept some of her extra-special notes and jewelry and a book of poems.”

Pictured above: The cover of the December 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe.

Nebula Awards ballot error almost discards Ruth Nestvold’s short story “Mars: A Traveler’s Guide”

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have announced a correction to the Final Ballot of
the 2008 Nebula Awards:

“Upon a procedural review, we discovered an error in the final Nebula tally. Two works that should be on the final ballot were not listed: the novelette “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” - James Alan Gardner (Asimov’s, Feb08) and “Mars: A Traveler’s Guide” - Ruth Nestvold (F&SF, Jan08) in short stories. No other changes have been made to the final ballot. We apologize for the error and have made changes to the procedures to keep this sort of mistake from happening again.”

Thanks to the blog Science Fiction Awards Watch for the tip.

Watching a shelf full of Watchmen

As the March 6th opening of the superhero film Watchmen approaches, I’m watching the listings on AbeBooks and eBay for various publications related the Hugo Award-winning graphic novel upon which the film is based: Watchmen (1987), written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Here are just a few of the items you might consider for the "alternative investments" portion of your retirement portfolio:

• Watchmen (1986-1987), DC Comics, issues #1 to #12 of the comic book. "Might be the greatest modern age investment." -- $4,500

• Watchmen: Deluxe Portfolio (1987), a limited edition elephant portfolio of 13 prints, signed by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons -- $1,200

• Watchmen (1987), DC comics, first printing of soft cover edition of the graphic novel, signed by Dave Gibbons -- $500

• Watchmen (1986), DC Comics, issue #1 of the comic book -- $389

• Absolute Watchmen (1987), DC Comics, first edition of hardcover edition of the graphic novel, 464 pages, in slipcase, includes supplemental material -- $250

• Watchmen (1986-1987), DC Comics, first printings of the complete twelve-issue run of the comic book -- $175

• Watchmen (2005), DC Comics, hardcover edition of the graphic novel, in slipcase - $150

• Watchmen movie script, 128 pages -- $150

• Watchmen promotional poster, featuring Rorschach -- $125

• Watching the Watchmen: Diamond Exclusive Edition (2008), Titan Books, comes with a set of 8 prints, signed by Dave Gibbons -- $124

• Watchmen (1986), DC Comics, issue #4 of the comic book -- $29

The tattered photo on the cover of issue #4, pictured above, reminds me of my retirement portfolio!

Joe Haldeman’s novel Marsbound gets honorable mention in 2008 Readers’ Choice poll

Marsbound (Ace Books, 2008), a novel by award-winning author Joe Haldeman, received honorable mention in the SF Site’s Best SF&F Books of 2008: Readers' Choice poll. Here’s a detailed review of Marsbound written by Michael M. Jones of the SF Site.

I read Marsbound late last year. Highly recommended!