Podcast of "Martian Chronicles," the new YA Mars story by Cory Doctorow (Part 9 of 9)

Thanks to Canadian blogger, copyright activist and SF author Cory Doctorow, you can listen to Part 9, the conclusion, of his podcast of “Martian Chronicles,” a new Young Adult short story that he is writing for Australian editor Jonathan Strahan's forthcoming YA Mars anthology, Life on Mars (2010). According to Doctorow, “It's a story about the colonization of Mars by free-market absolutists and the video-games they play.” Download Part 9 (MP3, 10 min) from Archive.org, or stream it through this toolbar:



In case you missed them, here are the links to download the MP3 files for Part 1 (7 min.), Part 2 (15 min), Part 3 (14 min), Part 4 (22 min), Part 5 (27 min), Part 6 (13 min), Part 7 (20 min) and Part 8 (15 min).

Review of Jean de La Hire’s 1911 French novel The Nyctalope on Mars

Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #31 (Winter 2009) has a refreshing review of The Nyctalope on Mars (1911), an old French pulp novel written by Jean de La Hire that was translated into English by Brian M. Stableford and published in 2008 by Black Coat Press. The reviewer concludes: “But for me this [novel] wasn’t just of historical interest. It was exciting, amusing, eccentric and quite unique, and I’d recommend it highly to anyone who prizes those qualities.”

Pictured: The Nyctalope on Mars (2008).

Author Michael Chabon interviewed by ERB critic Richard A. Lupoff

There’s an awesome interview between Edgar Rice Burroughs critic Richard A. Lupoff and award-winning science fiction author Michael Chabon posted on ERBzine. Recall that Chabon is in the process of rewriting the script for the long-awaited Disney/Pixar film John Carter of Mars (2012) and Luopff is the fellow who wrote the controversial introduction to the 1964 Ace paperback reprint of Edwin L. Arnold’s novel Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation (1905). Here is a snippet from the interview:

Lupoff: Back to the movie world. Are you aware of the recent movie, Princess of Mars with Traci Lords?

Chabon: I've seen the trailer for it.

Lupoff: What's your comment about it?

Chabon: It's hilarious. It made me laugh. When I watched the trailer I burst out laughing. It was not purely scornful laughter -- there's a certain element of delight in something that goes "over the top." It just looks like a hoot.

No word on whether Lupoff or Chabon have ever seen the infamous film New Wave Hookers (1985).

[via JCOM Reader]

Book, newspaper and magazine stock watch

Here’s an update to the list of book, magazine, newspaper and publishing stocks I’m watching, ranked by performance since January 1, 2009:

1. Books-A-Million (+ 149%)

Born Under Mars, a 1967 novel by John Brunner

Born Under Mars (1967), a novel by John Brunner

Pictured: Paperback (New York: Ace Books, 1977), 157 p., $1.50. Cover art by Michael Herring. Here's the piece from the back cover:

Ray Mallin returned from the stars to find that his home planet Mars had fallen into shocking decay and apathy. Once Mars had been the great hope of the Solar System. Once men came from Earth to test their strength and adaptiveness on a harsh new world - now the progress of mankind had passed Mars by, and she had become a second-class planet, her Mars-born humans only dead-end mutations. But Ray Mallin had little time to worry about the problems of his home planet, for as soon as he landed he was abducted by agents of Earth's newer and more advanced colony planets, agents who would stop at nothing to gain information they thought he had. Though brutally tortured, and surrounded by treachery, intrigue and danger, he managed to escape. How long would it be before he realized that he was the key to a secret that would change the future of the human race!

In reviewing one of Brunner’s works in 2006, John McCarthy of Albedo: Ireland’s Magazine of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror remarked in passing: “Born Under Mars seems like a low-budget rip-off of Dune, until one discovers that it predated Herbert's classic.”

Popeye the Sailor in “Rocket to Mars”

Here’s a hilarious episode of the classic cartoon series starring Popeye the Sailor: “Rocket to Mars” (1946). It starts with Popeye and Olive Oyl visiting a technical museum on Earth and ends with our spinach-eating hero battling hostile natives on Mars.



Love the war plants on Mars: Bayonet Grass and Grape Shot!

New flash fiction: “Red Dunes” by a Welles fan

The Welles fan who maintains the blog Empty Funeral wrote a new piece of flash fiction titled “Red Dunes.” It’s about a man who tries to erase the memories of the first person to be buried on Mars. Here's the first line: "I am not supposed to remember any of this."

Cover art for Ian McDonald’s novel Desolation Road nominated for BSFA award

The exquisite cover art for the recent Pyr reprint of British science fiction author Ian McDonald’s acclaimed debut novel Desolation Road (1988) has been nominated for a British Science Fiction Association award in the category of Best Artwork. Illustrated by Stephan Martinière with jacket design by Jacqueline Nasso Cooke, the artwork for Desolation Road depicts a mammoth train on Mars.

Pictured: Desolation Road (Pyr, 2009 reprint)

Swiss watchmaker’s pricey objet d’art features meteorite from Mars

Swiss luxury watchmaker Louis Moinet unveiled an expensive objet d’art last weekend at the Geneva Time Exhibition. Entitled Meteoris and priced at about 5 million Swiss francs, the elaborate piece of art includes a planetarium and four tourbillon wristwatches. One of the tourbillons contains a meteorite from the planet Mars, “finely inlaid into a hand-engraved dial and adorned with an astrolabe-type appliqué, serving as a reminder of the ties between man and the cosmos.” According to the promotional literature (pdf), the Martian meteorite is Jiddat al Harasis 479, discovered in 2008 by the Sultanate of Oman and authenticated by the Russian Academy of Science.

Pictured: Tourbillon Mars. The case of this unique watch is “crafted from 18-carat white gold set with 56 baguette-cut Top Wesselton VVS diamonds totalling 3.46 carats.”

On the road with author D.B. Grady

D.B. Grady, a self-professed “first-time ‘small’ author,” has been on the road in Louisiana and Texas promoting Red Planet Noir (Brown Street Press, 2009), his new retro Sci-Fi detective novel that reads like a Raymond Chandler mystery set in a Robert Heinlein world. Everything was going according to plan as Grady traveled to the Dallas-Fort Worth area last weekend for a television interview and a book signing at Hastings Books in Waxahachie. But then the Google Maps application on Grady’s iPhone nearly led him to... the Big Sleep!

Read Chapter 1 (PDF) of Red Planet Noir.

Review of 1953 film Invaders From Mars

The Sci-Fi Dude just reviewed the classic 1953 science fiction film Invaders From Mars, starring Jimmy Hunt, Helena Carter and Arthur Franz. Giving the film 2 stars out of 5, the dude concludes: “Overall, Invaders From Mars was decent entertainment but left a lot to be desired. Though there were some saving graces, they’re not enough for me to recommend it... unless you’re a fan of not-so-good Science Fiction movies from the 1950’s.”

Pictured: Promotional poster for Invaders From Mars.

[via the Classic Science Fiction Channel]

Estate of author Richard Wright opposes proposed Google Book Settlement 2.0

In a stinging blow to the Authors Guild’s Steinbeck-Guthrie strategy for convincing thousands of less-prominent writers that the proposed, revised Google Books Search settlement (GBS 2.0) is in their best interest, The New York Times reports that the estate of African-American author Richard Wright strongly opposes the revised settlement. In a two-page statement released earlier today, representatives of Wright's estate called GBS 2.0 “grievously flawed.”

Cities of Martian Rails: Barrakesh

Martian Rails (2009), the recent board game made by Mayfair Games about railroading on the Red Planet in which players build tracks and haul freight, has a long list of interesting cities that players can utilize to generate revenue for their rail companies. For example:

Barrakesh -- A small, low canal-side settlement in the southeast section. All sorts of crime, sins, and evil can be found here. Earthmen aren’t welcome.

Martian Rails is loaded with references to Mars and Martian SF!

“Under the Sand-Seas,” a 1941 novelette by Oliver E. Saari

Over at the Internet Archive, you can read or download the January 1941 issue of Super Science Stories magazine, which contains “Under the Sand-Seas,” a little-known novelette penned by Oliver E. Saari. The plot revolves around a scientific expedition on Mars which is “assaulted by a semi-intelligent form of life resembling prairie tumble-weed.” I haven't had a chance to read the story, but here are the opening lines:

FRED WELLS sighed. A pair of firm hands were passing over his body, swiftly and efficiently. They slid along his limbs, fondled his collar bone, and passed on into the regions of his lower ribs.

“That’s far enough,” he muttered, trying to get up on elbow, opening his eyes.

He saw a face -- a face that was made of furrowed leather and white bristle -- a face that was as dry as the desert itself, and as old. The eyes squinted down at him in quiet approval.

“You’ve got luck, son,” said the face. “You can thank old Mars’ gravity for that. Not a bone broken..."

“Under the Sand-Seas” was reprinted in the anthology Great Science Fiction Stories about Mars (1966), edited by T. E. Dikty.

DC's comical Frankenstein kicks ass on Mars

In Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein #2, written by Grant Morrison, drawn by Doug Mahnke and published by DC Comics in 2005, a heroic Frankenstein somehow makes it to the Red Planet, where he “follows a trail of death and human misery to the demon-haunted Tombs of B'aal B'zaar and the largest seam of gold in the solar system. Carnivorous horses, a new kind of slave trade, the secret origin of Melmoth the Wanderer and the unstoppable menace of Red Zombies await!”

The War of the Worlds trivia contest

To celebrate publishing house Penguin’s 75th anniversary, Waterstone’s, the United Kingdom’s leading bookseller, just launched a Writers' Table in which 50 Penguin authors name and explain their favourite books from the publisher’s classic backlist. The opening chapter, as posted on the website of The Times of London: British author Will Self explains why he has picked H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel The War of the Worlds.

More rewarding is this contest tie-in: The Times has “the full set of 50 books to win, if you can name the home town (in Surrey) of the narrator of The War of the Worlds. E-mail the answer to bookscomp@thetimes.co.uk with your name, address and telephone number. One entry per person. UK and RoI residents only. Entries must be received by noon on Monday, February 1.”

Authors Guild embraces populism, uses John Steinbeck, Woody Guthrie to sell settlement

In a sign of how desperate the Authors Guild is to convince its dwindling base of 8,000 members and tens of thousands of non-member writers that the proposed Google Books Search settlement is in their best interest, the high-brow New York literary organization has embraced two populist American icons. On Thursday, the Guild sent an email to its membership trumpeting the news that the estates of author John Steinbeck and songwriter Woody Guthrie, which vociferously opposed the proposed settlement just months ago, now support the initiative. The email contained a lengthy letter from Gail Steinbeck, daughter-in-law of the author, who, not coincidently, praised the Guild. Given John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie’s political views and the themes portrayed in their major works, one wonders how they would feel about being reduced to commercial fodder by the Authors Guild and their heirs.

Podcast of "Martian Chronicles," the new YA Mars story by Cory Doctorow (Part 8)

Thanks to Canadian blogger, copyright activist and SF author Cory Doctorow, you can listen to Part 8 of his podcast of “Martian Chronicles,” a new Young Adult short story that he is writing for Australian editor Jonathan Strahan's forthcoming YA Mars anthology, Life on Mars (2010). According to Doctorow, “It's a story about the colonization of Mars by free-market absolutists and the video-games they play.” Download Part 8 (MP3, 15 min.) from Archive.org, or stream it through this toolbar:



In case you missed them, here are the links to download the MP3 files for Part 1 (7 min.), Part 2 (15 min.), Part 3 (14 min.), Part 4 (22 min.), Part 5 (27 min.), Part 6 (13 min.) and Part 7 (20 min.).

Forthcoming: A Wizard of Mars, a new YA novel by Diane Duane

A Wizard of Mars, the ninth book in American science fiction and fantasy author Diane Duane’s Young Wizards Series, is scheduled to be published as a hardcover by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in April 2010. A voluminous novel of more than 550 pages, here’s the promotional piece for A Wizard of Mars:

Young wizards Kit Rodriguez and Nita Callahan are part of an elite team investigating the mysterious "message in a bottle" that holds clues to the long-lost inhabitants of Mars. But not even wizardry is enough to cope with the strange events that unfold when the "bottle" is uncorked and life emerges once more to shake the Red Planet with its own perilous and baffling brand of magic.

The good news is that the Martians seem friendly. The bad news is that now they’re free to pick up on a long-dormant plan that could change the shape of more than one world -- and they don't mind using their well-intentioned rescuers to achieve their goals. Kit’s fascination with all things Martian unexpectedly enmeshes him in a terrible age-old conflict, turning him into both a potential key to its solution and a tool that in the wrong hands threatens the human race.

Only Kit has a shot at defusing the threat. But when he vanishes from the Mars of here and now, his fellow wizards are uncertain where his true loyalties lie. Nita’s determination to find the truth -- and Kit -- sends her into battle against an implacable enemy who may be conquerable only by violating wizardry’s most basic tenets. As the shadow of interplanetary war stretches ever more darkly over both worlds, Kit and Nita must master the strange and ancient synergy binding them to Mars and its last inhabitants. If they fail, the history that left Mars lifeless will repeat itself on Earth.

Diane Duane is the author of nearly fifty SF&F novels. Four of her Star Trek novels have been The New York Times bestsellers.

Sci-Fri round-up

“NASA Takes Suggestions for Martian Photos” Space.com

“Weird Science: Skiing on Mars” Denver Westword

“Irish Island Twinned with Mars in Climate Change Stunt” BBC

“Tufts Professor Accused of Sexual Harassment” Tufts Daily

“Stereo Speakers Can Levitate Dust for Mars Colonists” Wired

New flash fiction: “Preempting the Martian Attack” by Patricia Stewart

The free SF story site 365 tomorrows has a new piece of flash fiction titled “Preempting the Martian Attack” (2010), by Patricia Stewart. It is about a military man, Lieutenant Thorndike, and his mental meltdown on Mars. Here is the opening line: “After trudging for miles through the soft, shifting red sand, I was nearly exhausted.”

[via Tinkoo Valia of Variety SF]

5 things Paul Aiken of Authors Guild should have disclosed in discussing Google book settlement

Earlier today, I followed SFWA’s online panel discussion regarding the proposed Google Books Search settlement. Moderated by SFWA secretary Mary Robinette Kowal, the panelists included executive director Paul Aiken of the Authors Guild, editor Lou Anders of Pyr books, former SFWA president and author Michael Capobianco, author Charles Stross and librarian Lynne M. Thomas of Northern Illinois University. While the panelists provided a fruitful discussion and took questions from the public, here are five things I believe Paul Aiken should have disclosed:

1) A more illuminating biographical sketch of himself. Due to the fact that the website of the Authors Guild has no biography of Mr. Aiken, I took the time several months ago to compile some biographical notes.

2) A photograph of himself. Mr. Aiken is notoriously camera-shy, but here’s a few photographs of him attending a recent Authors Guild annual gala.

3) Whether, considering his position as a member of the board of directors of the Authors Registry, Mr. Aiken intends to seek a position on the board of directors of the proposed Book Rights Registry.

4) Whether, as a licensed and practicing attorney in the State of New York, Mr. Aiken stands to reap any of the approximately $30 million in legal fees that the plaintiffs' attorneys will receive under the proposed settlement.

5) Whether Google has ever made a financial contribution to either the Authors Guild or its sister organizations, the Authors Guild Foundation and the Authors League Fund.

Dollhouse miniature SFF books

A company called Miniature Bookshelf of Springville, Utah offers a neat selection of more than 8,000 replica first edition hardcover titles (400 listed online), including some science fiction, fantasy and horror works. The miniature books are 1:12 scale with illegible decorative text inside. Check out these titles, each retailing for $5.99:

• The Martian Way and Other Stories (1955), by Isaac Asimov

• The Martian Chronicles (1950), by Ray Bradbury

• A Fighting Man of Mars (1931), by Edgar Rice Burroughs

• The War of the Worlds (1898), by H.G. Wells

Pictured: The War of the Worlds next to a penny!

Costumes in Sci-Fi performance art based on 1924 Russian film Aelita: Queen of Mars

Artist Joanna Malinowska, a Polish-born New Yorker whose work ranges from performance to installation to sculpture, was interviewed recently by critic David Coggins of the website ArtNet.com. In a cerebral discussion, Malinowska touched upon “Mother Earth Sister Moon,” her fall 2009 installation that examined “the fashion and style elements related to a diverse range of Eastern Bloc phenomena, including the Soviet space program, sci-fi film and literature of the era, and the cults surrounding the mysterious 1908 explosion over the Tunguska River Valley in central Siberia.” Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

Down to a Sunless Sea, 1984 novel by Lin Carter

Down to a Sunless Sea (1984), a novel of legendary Mars, by Lin Carter.

Pictured: Paperback original (New York: DAW Books, 1984), 174 p., $2.50. Logo No. 584. "To my friend Robert M. Price, editor of Crypt of Cthulhu." Cover art by Ken W. Kelly. Here’s the promotional piece from the back cover:

Brant's life had been hard after the courts had sent him to the penal colony at Trivium Charontis on Mars. Since working his way to freedom, he had run guns to the High Clan princes, sold them liquor and forbidden tobacco, and peddled narcotics to the soft, timid Earthsider clerks. He had stolen, he had cheated at cards, he had killed a man more than once...

Now fleeing from justice across the ancient dust-oceans of Mars he had no way of knowing that he was running toward the most fantastic adventure any man had ever lived -- toward refuge more absolute than any man had ever dreamed of -- by the banks of secret rivers, in caverns yet unmeasured by man, on the shore of a sea the sun had never seen!

A fragment from English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's famous poem "Kubla Khan" (1816) is printed opposite the title page:

"... Where Alph the sacred river ran
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea."

Down to a Sunless Sea is the fourth book Lin Carter’s "Mysteries of Mars" series. The other novels are The Man Who Loved Mars (1973), The Valley Where Time Stood Still (1974) and The City Outside the World (1977).

And now, a word from our sponsors...

Just wanted to give a huge shout out to two of our longtime sponsors, British chef Delia Smith and the Mars candy company. Thank you for all the support you have given us over the years. We couldn't have done it without you!



Mmm... That looks like a tasty treat!

Daryl Sabara to play Edgar Rice Burroughs in Hollywood's long-awaited John Carter of Mars

American film and television actor Daryl Sabara has been tapped to play the role of a young Edgar Rice Burroughs in the long-awaited Disney/Pixar film John Carter of Mars (2012). Born in 1992, Sabara had a voice role in the film The Polar Express (2004) and appeared in a 2006 episode of the television series Criminal Minds and Rob Zombie’s remake of the classic film Halloween (2007).

The cast of John Carter of Mars also includes actor Taylor Kitsch as John Carter, actress Lynn Collins as princess Dejah Thoris, actor Willem Dafoe as Tars Tarkas and actor Bryan Cranston as a U.S. Civil War colonel. Shooting for the film began earlier this week in London.

Commodities of Martian Rails: Blue Beer

Martian Rails, the recent board game made by Mayfair Games about railroading on the Red Planet in which players build tracks and haul freight, has a long list of cool commodities that players can transport to generate revenue for their rail companies. For example:

Blue Beer -- Made from native Martian Blue Grain and stomach juices. This Russian/Martian hybrid beer is indistinguishable from the finest Pilsner.

Martian Rails is loaded with references to Mars and Martian SF!

Kim Stanley Robinson joins “Ursula’s List” in opposition to Google Books Search settlement

Science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson has joined “Ursula’s List” in opposition to the proposed Google Books Search settlement. Robinson is the author of the monumental, award-winning series Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993), Blue Mars (1996), as well as The Martians (1999), a collection of short fiction.

After the Vikings, a 2001 e-collection of stories by G. David Nordley

After the Vikings: Stories of a Future Mars (2001) is a self-published e-collection of five slightly-revised science fiction short stories written by G. David Nordley that originally appeared in Analog and Asimov’s magazines in the early 1990s. All of the stories revolve around the Red Planet and are tied together with a framing narrative in which a pair of alien archaeologists discuss the extinct race which once lived on the planet, peeling back the stories like layers of sediment. Here’s the stratigraphy:

• “Morning on Mars” Analog (June 1992)

• “The Day of Their Coming” Asimov’s (March 1994)

• “Comet Gypsies” Asimov’s (March 1995)

• “A Mars” Analog (July/August 1998)

• “Martian Valkyrie” Analog (January 1996)

According to SF mega-fan Blue Tyson, these stories "take place over millions of years of future history and do not involve a common character." He gives the collection 3.5 stars out of 5.

Date set for Issue #3 of comic adaptation of William Shatner's 1996 novel Man O'War

Comic book company Bluewater Productions recently announced that the third issue of Man O’War, its adaptation of the eponymous 1996 science fiction novel by Star Trek actor and bestselling author William Shatner, will be released in April 2010. Written by CJ Henderson and illustrated by Pat Broderick in consultation with Shatner, the storyline for the comic series is a continuation of the novel’s plot, as opposed to a direct adaptation. Here’s a synopsis of Issue #3:

Benton Hawkes finally makes it to Mars, but the mystery that dragged him there only deepens. While trying to hammer out an agreement between the workers there and the Earth government, he barely escapes two more attempts on his life, only to discover that one of few people he has come to trust since leaving Earth is the main assassin assigned to kill him!

Issue #1 of Man O'War is scheduled to be released in Feb 2010 and Issue #2 is scheduled to be released in March 2010.

Pictured: Cover of Man O'War, Issue #3.

A review of Sheri S. Tepper’s 2007 SF/F novel The Margarets

Kerry Glover of the Australian website The Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation wrote an interesting review of Sheri S. Tepper’s 2007 novel The Margarets, a science fiction/ fantasy hybrid in which the only child of a human colony on Phobos working on a doomed project to transform Mars into a garden planet invents her own imaginary companions. Glover concludes, in part, “It is a highly readable book, yet it often felt unsatisfactory. It is difficult to place The Margarets; its balance of SF and fantasy is pleasing and rarely jars and the story is involving, but often drags and seems to lack direction.”

“It Happened on Mars ...,” a 1951 vignette written by Salem Lane

Thanks to the awesome French website Mars et la SF, I just finished reading “It Happened on Mars ...,” a 1951 vignette written by Salem Lane that was originally published in the July 1951 issue of Amazing Stories magazine. Here are the opening lines:

THE Martian night comes down fast. There isn’t enough air to give a nice long diffused dusk and the result is you’re in blackness before you know it. It’s an eerie feeling, too.

I picked out a suitable rocky hummock and prepared to bed down for the night. It’s always wise to get off flat desert ground if you can--the Silicoids don’t like to move vertically...

Thanks, Doc Mars!

Allen Steele joins “Ursula’s List” in opposition to Google Books Search settlement

Science fiction author Allen Steele has joined “Ursula’s List” in opposition to the proposed Google Books Search settlement. Steele has written several pieces of Martian SF, including “Live from the Mars Hotel” (1988), “Red Planet Blues” (1989), Labyrinth of Night: a Novel of Mars (1992), “A Letter from St. Louis” (1996), “Zwarte Piet's Tale” (1998), and “A Walk Across Mars” (2002).

For Sale: Bally Attack from Mars pinball machine

Got the post-holiday credit card blues? Concerned about your financial future? Interested in a great investment opportunity? Then consider Bally’s classic Attack from Mars pinball machine! Released in 1995 and one of only an estimated 3,500 produced, this fully restored, pristine piece of machinery will provide your neighbors, friends and family with thrills, shocks and terrors, while offering you an unstoppable earnings invasion! Attack from Mars is fun and entertaining to play, with easy to understand rules. It’s a straight forward game that’s fun for players of all skill levels. Mayhem, madness and destruction were never so much fun! Watch this three-minute promotional video and then consider Attack from Mars. Priced at around $7,000, this machine won’t last!

Podcast of "Martian Chronicles," the new YA Mars story by Cory Doctorow (Part 7)

Thanks to Canadian blogger, copyright activist and SF author Cory Doctorow, you can listen to Part 7 of his podcast of “Martian Chronicles,” a new Young Adult short story that he is writing for Australian editor Jonathan Strahan's forthcoming YA Mars anthology, Life on Mars (2010). According to Doctorow, “It's a story about the colonization of Mars by free-market absolutists and the video-games they play.” Download Part 7 (MP3, 20 min.) from Archive.org, or stream it through this toolbar:


In case you missed them, here are the links to download the MP3 files for Part 1 (7 min.), Part 2 (15 min.), Part 3 (14 min.), Part 4 (22 min.), Part 5 (27 min.) and Part 6 (13 min.)

Queen of the Iron Sands, I'll meet you at the cemetery gates

Queen of the Iron Sands, the “free serial adventure in weekly web installments” written by American fantasy author Scott Lynch and inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic 1917 novel A Princess of Mars, appears to have died after just four chapters. While we wait and hope that Lynch survived the H1N1 virus and that his serial adventure is alive and well, it might be fun to sing a song together.

Do you know “Cemetery Gates,” the 1980s tune by The Smiths? It starts out like this:

A dreaded sunny day
So I meet you at the cemetery gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side

A dreaded sunny day
So I meet you at the cemetery gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side
While Wilde is on mine

Sci-Fri: Author David Levine member of Crew 88 at Mars Desert Research Station

The fanzine File 770 has a humorous update on the status of Hugo Award-winning science fiction author David D. Levine, who is participating in a simulated Mars mission as a member of Crew 88 at the Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. The two-week mission started on January 9th and runs through January 23rd. Levine is chronicling his Martian adventures in his LiveJournal.

Review of The Asylum’s film Princess of Mars, starring Traci Lords

While I’ve read quite a few negative comments about The Asylum’s low-budget, direct-to-DVD SF film Princess of Mars (Dec. 2009), starring actress and former porn star Traci Lords, as Martian princess Dejah Thoris, and Antonio Sabàto Jr., as Confederate Civil War veteran John Carter, the blog JCOM Reader has posted a balanced review. Giving the film 2.5 out of 4 stars (on a B movie scale), JCOM Reader concludes, “In the end Princess of Mars is what it is -- a low budget film made quickly. It might not be the John Carter film many wanted (and for those people my advice is skip it and just wait and pray Andrew Stanton's version actually delivers). But for those with an open mind and a fondness for B films it isn't too bad.”

Bud Sparhawk joins “Ursula’s List” in opposition to Google Books Search settlement

Science fiction writer Bud Sparhawk has joined “Ursula’s List” in opposition to the proposed Google Books Search settlement. Sparhawk is the author of “Olympus Mons!”, a novelette published in the January 1998 issue of Analog magazine, and “Winds of Mars,” a novella about a sailing race on the Red Planet that was published online in 2009 by Baen Books.

“Empty Nest,” a new piece of flash fiction by Richard Zagorski

The free SF story site 365 tomorrows has a new piece of flash fiction titled “Empty Nest” (2010), by Richard “Zig” Zagorski. It’s about a space satellite and her daughters, nine Martian rovers, each named for one of the Muses of Greek mythology. Here's the opening line: “Harmonia, in low orbit, drifted over the red planet just as she had done for over a year now.”

[via Tinkoo Valia of Variety SF]

“The Wheel of Samsara,” a new short story by Han Song

Thanks to the generosity of Israeli editor and science fiction optimist Lavie Tidhar, you can read “The Wheel of Samsara” (PDF) a new short story by award-winning Chinese science fiction author Han Song that was recently published in the anthology The Apex Book of World SF (Apex, Nov. 2009). A tale about a Martian woman who discovers scientific anomalies in a Tibetan lamasery, here are the opening lines of “The Wheel of Samsara”:

SHE traveled in Tibet and one day arrived at Doji lamasery. It was a small temple of Tibetan Buddhism now in a bleak, half-ruined state. What caught her eye was a string of bronze wheels hung around the wall of the temple. They were called the Wheels of Samsara...

Check out this beautiful diagram explaining some of the points of a Wheel of Samsara.

Preview review: Reprint of Dell's John Carter of Mars comics from 1950s

Jim and Lee of the blog Comics And...Other Imaginary Tales have each written a brief preview review of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars: The Jesse Marsh Years (May 2010), Dark Horse Comics’ forthcoming reprint of all three issues of Dell Publishing’s Four Color Comics: John Carter of Mars series.

Jim: “I love Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Mars series is my favorite, but this is an easy pass. Jesse Marsh’s work is not that inspiring to me […]”

Lee: “I have to agree that I won’t be getting this but it’s mainly because of the price point. 120 pages for $30 is not cheap. […]”

Nancy Kress contemplates Theodore Sturgeon's 1959 short story “The Man Who Lost the Sea”

Award-winning science fiction and fantasy author Nancy Kress contemplates “The Man Who Lost the Sea,” a classic short story written by Theodore Sturgeon that was originally published in the October 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. A tale about the final moments of a dying astronaut on Mars, here are the opening lines of “The Man Who Lost the Sea”:

SAY you're a kid, and one dark night you're running along the cold sand with this helicopter in your hand, saying very fast witchy-witchy-witchy. You pass the sick man and he wants you to shove off with that thing. Maybe he thinks you're too old to play with toys. So you squat next to him in the sand and tell him it isn't a toy, it's a model...

Kress recently submitted a new short story to Australian editor Jonathan Strahan for his Life on Mars: Tales from the New Frontier, a YA near-future anthology scheduled to be published in 2010.

[via Charles Tan of Bibliophile Stalker]

Frederik Pohl should be a Man Plus, resign from disgraced Authors Guild

“Take a man. Make him more than a man. To save the world… or risk destroying it.”

After a holiday lull, the legal battle over the proposed Google Books Search settlement (GBS) has resumed, as an important February 18th federal court hearing approaches. Although I’m just a casual science fiction fan and have no stake in the settlement, I respectfully call upon author and SFWA Grand Master Frederik Pohl to transform himself into a Man Plus by resigning as Midwest Area Representative to the disgraced Authors Guild and adding his name to fellow author and Grand Master Ursula K. Le Guin’s growing list of genre writers opposed to the proposed settlement.

Pictured: Pohl's Man Plus, well-equipped to help Le Guin fight her GBS devil.

“Death-Wish,” a 1950 short story written by Ray Bradbury

Over at the Internet Archive, you can read or download “Death-Wish,” an enigmatic short fantasy story penned by Ray Bradbury. Originally published in the Fall 1950 issue of Planet Stories magazine, the plot revolves around an Earthman who wanders the ruins of dead Martian cities, searching for a legendary blue bottle. Here are the opening lines of the story:

THE sundials were tumbled into white pebbles. The birds of the air now flew in ancient skies of rock and sand, buried, their songs stopped. The rivers were currented with dust which flooded across the land when the wind bade it reenact an old tale of engulfment. The cities were deep laid with granaries of silence, time stored and kept, golden kernels of forgetfulness, pools and fountains of quietude and memory...

“Death-Wish” was later reprinted several times under the title “The Blue Bottle.”

[via Tinkoo Valia of Variety SF]

Cities of Martian Rails: Atmosphere Plant

Martian Rails (2009), the recent board game made by Mayfair Games about railroading on the Red Planet in which players build tracks and haul freight, has a long list of interesting cities that players can utilize to generate revenue for their rail companies. For example:

Atmosphere Plant -- A small settlement near the South Pole in the south central section. The facility dissociates water ice and frozen carbon dioxide to maintain the breathable air.

Martian Rails is loaded with references to Mars and Martian SF!

Review of Red Planet Noir, the new retro Sci-Fi detective novel by D.B. Grady

The book section of Baton Rouge’s Advocate newspaper has a largely positive review of Red Planet Noir (Brown Street Press, 2009), the new retro science fiction novel written by D.B. Grady. A hard-boiled detective tale penned in the pulp tradition of the 1930s, Red Planet Noir is “a Raymond Chandler mystery in a Robert Heinlein world.” The Advocate's review concludes, in part, “Grady could use a better editor, but his writing is mostly sound and the plot of Red Planet Noir is engrossing. His characters are colorful and outrageous but believable."

Read Chapter 1 (PDF) of Red Planet Noir.

Test your cover art knowledge, guess the novel !

“Queen of the Martian Catacombs,” a 1949 novella by Leigh Brackett

Thanks to the continued efforts of the Internet Archive, you can read or download “Queen of the Martian Catacombs,” a wonderful novella written by perhaps my favorite science fiction author, Leigh Brackett. Originally published in the Summer 1949 issue of Planet Stories magazine, the story features the exotic Martian adventures of Brackett’s interplanetary character, Eric John Stark. Here are the opening lines:

FOR hours the hard-pressed beast had fled across the Martian desert with its dark rider. Now it was spent. It faltered and broke stride, and when the rider cursed and dug his heels into the scaly sides, the brute only turned its head and hissed at him. It stumbled on a few more paces into the lee of a sandhill, and there it stopped, crouching down in the dust...

“Queen of the Martian Catacombs” was later expanded into a novel, The Secret of Sinharat (1964).

[via Blue Tyson of Free SF Reader]