“The Martian and the Magician,” a 1952 tender romance by Evelyn E. Smith

Thanks to Doc Mars of the amazing French website Mars & la Science Fiction, you can download and read American science fiction author Evelyn E. Smith’s short story “The Martian and the Magician” (pdf), “a hilarious rib on space travel, old-fashioned magic, BEMS or what-have-you,” as it was originally published in the November 1952 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Here are the opening lines:

       EVER since childhood I had grown accustomed to being followed by Things wherever I went. I was never lonely. There was always a reptilian zok from Mars, who changed progressively into a more and more fearsome variety of monster as I grew familiar with the initial horror. I was never harmed, since the zokk had to throw so much energy into projecting themselves from Mars (or Zokk, as the natives called it) that they had none left with which to execute any malevolent projects...

Merci beaucoup, Doc Mars! What are we going to read next?