Halloween photo of Ray Bradbury and Forrest J Ackerman

According to a 1975 interview published in Conversations with Ray Bradbury (2004), Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen “became fast friends. I used to go out to his house. He made a life mask of me and put together a liquid latex horror-mask for me to wear on Halloween back in 1938. And I went to the Paramount Theatre with Ray Harryhausen and Forrest Ackerman, wearing this liquid latex green Martian sort of mask, and had a wonderful time. So you see how crazy we all were.”

"Star Performer" ~ 1960's short story by Robert J. Shea about a dreamcasting Martian who gathers a cult following

Thanks to another generous fan of old magazines at the Internet Archive, you can read or download “Star Performer,” a short story penned by science fiction writer Robert J. Shea, and illustrated by artist Dick Francis, as it was originally published in the September 1960 issue of If: Worlds of Science Fiction magazine.

Set on Earth where senile delinquency is the number one problem, “Star Performer” revolves around a blue-skinned Martian named Gavir of the Desert Men, whose popular dreamcasts about human violence against the indigenous population back on Mars earns the Global Dreamcasting corporation stellar audience ratings.

“Blue Boy’s rating was high and his fans were loyal to the death — anyone's death!”

Listen to original 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds

Tonight, October 30th, is the 73rd Anniversary of the 1938 The Mercury Theatre on the Air radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, the dramatization of H.G. Wells's seminal science fiction novel The War of the Worlds (1898). Narrated by famed Hollywood icon Orson Welles, the broadcast sent thousands of people into a frenzied panic, as they truly believed marauding Martians had landed at Grover's Mill, New Jersey and were advancing on New York City. Below is an MP3 file of the original broadcast!


 

Review of John Varley's 2003 YA SF novel Red Thunder

Hardcover, 2003. Cover art by Bob Warner.

Billie Doux, who reviews SF&F books and cult television shows, recently posted a nice review of Red Thunder (2003), an award-winning YA science fiction novel written by John Varley. As Billie points out, it’s the first book in a Mars series that is reminiscent of a Heinlein juvenile. Check it out!

Preview: Dynamite comic book Warlord of Mars #10

Comic Book Resources has a nice five-page preview of Warlord of Mars #10 (July 2011), a recent chapter in Dynamite Entertainment's new comic book adaptation of beloved pulp author Edgar Rice Burroughs’s fantastical early 20th-century science fiction novel A Princess of Mars.

Variant cover art by Joe Jusko.

John Carter disappeared from Mars as mysteriously as he arrived. Days before he did, an unknown assassin murdered the guardian of the Red Planet's life support system. Carter himself is implicated in the horrific crime, and it's up to his princess, Dejah Thoris, to clear his name. That would be tough enough, but someone is trying to kill Dejah, too! With enemies all around her, both seen and unseen, she'll need all the help she can get. A murder mystery of Barsoomian proportions begins in Warlord of Mars #10: Heretic of Mars, part 1 of 3!

Check you local comic book shop for Warlord of Mars #10, which was written by Arvid Nelson, with interior artwork by Stephen Sadowski, and variant covers by artists Joe Jusko, Lucio Parrillo, and Stephen Sadowski!

 

2012 vintage Sci-Fi calendar features "Black Amazon of Mars"

The new 2012 Vintage Sci-Fi Calendar by Asgard Press features 12 frame-ready 11x14 reproductions of Golden Age pulp science fiction covers, including the beautiful Allen Anderson artwork for the March 1951 issue of Planet Stories, which depicts the title character in Leigh Brackett's novella "Black Amazon of Mars."

If you’re not familiar with this cover, here's how Robin Roberts describes the scene in “The Female Alien: Pulp Science Fiction’s Legacy to Feminists,” Journal of Popular Culture (1987):

“As the cover art for her story Black Amazon of Mars, from Planet Stories, March 1951, demonstrates, woman sf writers endorsed the portrait of the strong female alien. In ... Anderson’s painting, the Amazon dominates the cover, swinging aggressively — at first glance apparently at the reader. In the background, lower left, John Stark ... is engulfed by the predatory fronds. His figure is dwarfed by that of the Amazon, Ciara. ... Brackett’s story differs from those by male sf writers; unlike them, she does not cast her hero and heroine’s relationship in terms of a mother-son bond nor even mention Ciara’s reproductive capacity. Brackett can envision a union of equals. At the end of the story, Ciara will rule the city she has conquered and Stark agrees to remain with her, at least for awhile. At the end, as well as the beginning of the story, Stark is silenced by Ciara’s strength and spendor.”

Want a closer look at the cover? Check out this amazing scan!

 

New hard SF short story: "How We Came Back from Mars (A Story that Cannot Be Told)" by Ian Watson

Full cover artwork for Solaris Rising. Copyright © 2011 Pye Parr

Solaris Books, a UK-based boutique that specializes in science fiction & fantasy, just published Solaris Rising, an anthology of all-new hard SF stories that includes “How We Came Back from Mars (A Story that Cannot Be Told),” by British author Ian Watson.

I haven’t read Watson’s story yet, but critic Lois Tilton of Locus Online calls it “A dizzying bit of craziness. A fun read” and provides the following synopsis:

The narrator and his astronaut companions were stranded on Mars by a malfunctioning ascent engine and had just radioed their final messages to Earth when a flying saucer landed to pick them up. And delivered them to a movie set in Spain where they attracted the attention of the crew, who is reluctant to credit their story. Conspiracy theories proliferate.

Ian Watson is also the author of the novel The Martian Inca (1977), which is now available as an e-book for your Kindle.

Sci Fri: Travis Taylor and Rocket City Rednecks travel to Mars in new National Geographic Channel series

Martian science fiction author Travis Taylor and four other “backwoods” guys from Huntsville, Alabama, home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the birthplace of the U.S. space program, who love to shoot guns and drink beer, apply their humor, ingenuity, and advanced engineering and physics degrees to creatively solve real-world scientific problems in the new National Geographic Channel series Rocket City Rednecks.

Episodes include “Rednecks on the Red Planet,” in which Travis and the boys convert a beat-up old RV into a simulated interplanetary spaceship outfitted with a satellite control station, basic supplies and a “pee reactor” that converts urine into drinking water!

Old map of Barsoom found inside comic book

Check out this beautiful old map of Barsoom, which I found tucked inside the comic book Warlord of Mars #6 (Dynamite, March 2011)!

"Don't Look Now" satirical 1940's short story by Henry Kuttner about invisible Martian paranoia

Thanks to another generous fan of old paperback books at the Internet Archive, you can read or download “Don’t Look Now,” a 1948 short story penned by American science fiction, fantasy and horror author Henry Kuttner about how Earth is deemed to be the property of Martian overlords, as it was reprinted in the fascinating anthology My Best Science Fiction Story (1954).

According to Kuttner, his “Don’t Look Now” has “the technical accuracy of Jules Verne, the realism of H. G .Wells, the social implications of Tolstoi (Leo--the Count, I mean), the freedom of Laurence Sterne, and the terseness of the Bible (the King James translation, of course)." 

Tinko Valia of Variety SF has an excellent discussion of "Don’t Look Now."

And now, a vintage word from our sponsor: Mars candy bars

Click image to enlarge this vintage Mars advertisement, which appeared on the back cover of the October 1, 1954 issue of Woman’s Day Magazine.

Read first two chapters of Guy Haley's forthcoming robust hard SF novel Champion of Mars

Thanks to the generosity of British science fiction author, journalist, and former SFX deputy editor Guy Haley, you can read the first two chapters of his forthcoming robust hard science fiction novel Champion of Mars, which will be published by Solaris Books and released on 10th May 2012. Described by Haley as "a blend of Planetary Romance, post-microchip Hard SF and pure adventure," here’s the official promotional blurb:

In the far future, Mars dies a second time. The Final War between man and the spirits is beginning. In a last bid for peace, disgraced champion Yoechakenon Val Mora and his spirit lover Cybele are set free to find the long-missing Librarian of Mars, the only hope to save the remnants of mankind.

In the near-future Dr Holland, a scientist running from a painful past, joins the Mars colonisation effort, cataloguing the remnants of Mars’ biosphere before it is swept away by the terraformation programme. When an artefact is discovered deep in the caverns of the red planet the actions of Holland and his team lead to tragedy, with profound consequences that ripple throughout time. This tragedy affects not only Holland’s present, but the distant days of Yoechakenon, and all the eras that bridge the aeons between them.

Presumably, the big-breasted woman on the cool cover by award-winning American artist Dominick Saponaro is the “long-missing Librarian of Mars!”

Creepy 1960's Outer Limits trading card: "Martian Torture"

"... the spaceman is subjected to painful jolts of electrical current ..."

First, check out this creepy 1960’s trading card, entitled “Martian Torture,” #39 in the oft-forgotten Outer Limits 50-card SF-Horror set that was issued in 1964 by a company called Bubbles Inc., more commonly known as Topps! Then, read this neat 2011 chat with Len Brown, the Topps writer & editor who penned the little stories on the back of the cards!

Damon Knight in 1956: Asimov's "The Martian Way" is "surely one of the best science fiction novellas ever published"

I recently stumbled across a copy of In Search of Wonder (1956), a neat book of essays on modern Science Fiction in which Damon Knight, who later founded SFWA, “dissected with the sharpest of [literary] scalpels” the giants of the early 1950s: Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein, Kuttner & Moore, Sturgeon, van Vogt, and more! Here's what Knight had to say about Asimov's novella "The Martian Way" (1952):

"The Martian Way" was originally published in the November 1952 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction magazine. It was reprinted in Asimov's 1955 collection The Martian Way and Other Stories (pictured above, with cover art by Richard Shelton).

Preview of new comic book Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris #7

Comic Book Resources has an enticing five-page preview of Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris #7 (September 2011), the seventh issue in the new comic book series published by Dynamite Entertainment that chronicles what the lovely Martian princess Dejah Thoris was doing all those hundreds of years before John Carter arrived on Barsoom!

Pirate Queen of Mars, part 2! Dejah Thoris's kingdom of Helium is in tatters, and, even worse, it's running out of water. Water is worth more than all the gold and jewels on Mars... except for the fabled treasure Phondari, the Pirate Queen of Mars, is hunting for. The treasure is just the thing Dejah needs to kick-start the reconstruction of Helium, But Phondari has attracted the attention of Xen Brega, her old master. Both Xen and Phondari are black pirates from the further moon of Mars. No one on Mars has a worse reputation than the moon pirates, and Dejah's going to find out why first hand in Dejah Thoris #7: The Sunstealer -- don't miss it!

Based on the fantastical science fiction of beloved pulp author Edgar Rice Burroughs, Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris #7 was written by Arvid Nelson, with interior artwork by Carlos Rafael, and variant cover art by Alé Garza, Joe Jusko, and Paul Renaud (pictured above!).

Check your local comic book shop for Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris #7!

1974 interview with Ray Bradbury from The Monster Times

Article “Ray Bradbury: A Man for All Eons” by R. Allen Leider, in which the “sci-fi writer supreme and author of the masterful Martian Chronicles talks of things of a vital & relevant nature in an exclusive TMT interview.” Published in The Monster Times, No. 31 (March 1974).

 

Martian SF&F dollhouse miniature books

A company called Miniature Bookshelf of Springville, Utah offers a neat selection of more than 8,000 replica first edition hardcover titles (600 listed online), including many science fiction and fantasy 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 by Isaac Asimov (1955)

• The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (1950)

• Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1920)

• The Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke (1952)

• The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick (1965)

• Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (1961)

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

Pictured: RAH’s Stranger next to a penny!

1950's Mystery in Space comic: "The Martian Horse"

Thanks to a generous fan of Golden Age comic books at the Internet Archive, you can read or download a humorous comic titled “The Martian Horse,” written by Manny Rubin and published in Mystery in Space #9 (August-September 1952, DC Comics).

Enjoy the comic, and please pay attention to accompanying public service announcement for parents: "What to do if Polio comes your Way." Thank you.

 

Exotic creatures featured in new reprint of William Timlin's 1923 children's fantasy book The Ship That Sailed to Mars

Calla Editions, an imprint of Dover Publications that publishes “books of distinction for the contemporary bibliophile,” has just reprinted The Ship That Sailed to Mars (1923), a nearly-forgotten children’s fantasy book written and illustrated by South African architect William M. Timlin. More familiar to rare book collectors than coddled kids, some have called The Ship That Sailed to Mars a “magical intertwining” of Edgar Rice Burroughs and J.R.R. Tolkien.

The new Calla hardcover reprint reproduces the craftsmanship of the original 48-page book, including the flowing calligraphic text and stunning color plates featuring exotic creatures. In addition, it contains an introduction by Canadian book illustrator John Howe, a conceptual designer for Hollywood's recent The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

1930's fantasy story: "The Slugly Beast" by Lord Dunsany

Thanks to another generous fan of old magazine at the Internet Archive, you can read or download “The Slugly Beast” (1934), a fantasy short story penned by Anglo-Irish writer Lord Dunsany (Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany), as it was reprinted in Avon Fantasy Reader #7 (1948).

“The Slugly Beast” is a Joseph Jorkens tale in which a man goes back to Mars, never to return. It’s the sequel to "Our Distant Cousins" (1929).

Stage combat class reenacts fight scenes from Total Recall

Students in the Theatre Arts Program at George Brown College, Ontario receive “vigorously concentrated, career-oriented training in the fundamental skills, practicalities, traditions and professionalism needed to work as a professional actor in theatre, television and film,” including Stage Combat I and Stage Combat II, which allows them to understand and reenact fights scenes from various films and television programs!

Consider the following video, in which two students reenact various fight scenes from the classic SF action film Total Recall (1990), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone and Rachel Ticotin.

 

How well did the students perform? Watch these two clips from Total Recall posted on YouTube (Clip 1 and Clip 2) and grade them for yourself!

 

Just bought Kevin J. Anderson's 1994 novel Climbing Olympus for my Kindle ebook reader

Shhh! Don’t tell the anti-Amazon crowd, but I just purchased the novel Climbing Olympus (1994, 2010), written by bestselling science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson, for my Kindle e-book reader. Here’s the promotional blurb posted on Amazon:

They were prisoners, exiles, pawns of a corrupt government. Now they are Dr. Rachel Dycek’s adin, surgically transformed beings who can survive new lives on the surface of Mars. But they are still exiles, unable ever again to breathe Earth’s air. And they are still pawns.

For the adin exist to terraform Mars for human colonists, not for themselves. Creating a new Earth, they will destroy their world, killed by their own success. Desperate, adin leader Boris Tiban launches a suicide campaign to sabotage the Mars Project, knowing his people will perish in a glorious, doomed campaign of mayhem—unless embattled, bitter Rachel Dycek can find a miracle to save both the Mars Project and the race she created.

If you sign up now for Anderson’s mailing list, you get a free download of his original novelette Human, Martian—One, Two, Three (1993)!

Review of John Carter: World of Mars #1, Marvel's new offensive in Barsoomian comic book war

JCOM Reader, a blog devoted to news and reviews from Barsoom, Mongo & other planets, has an excellent review of John Carter: World of Mars #1, the premiere issue in Marvel’s new 4-issue comic book series that is a prequel, not to the original John Carter of Mars novels penned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, but to the long-awaited Hollywood film John Carter (2012). Here’s a snippet:

I have to admit I was weary when this series was first announced. Maybe it was the fact that it seemed like another cash-in by Marvel and Disney to tie-in to the upcoming John Carter movie. Or maybe it was the fact that I was growing cynical after hearing so much about the movie that wasn't encouraging. And following the lackluster first issue of John Carter: A Princess of Mars I figured this one would be another tossed off comic. Well surprise: This one actually rocks!

Set on Barsoom in the centuries before the arrival of John Carter, the John Carter: World of Mars series is being scripted by writer Peter David, a huge fan of ERB, with interior artwork by Luke Ross and cover art by Esad Ribic. The project has the full support and cooperation of Disney and film director Andrew Stanton, and is a response to the new Warlord of Mars: Fall of Barsoom comic book prequel series being published by competitor Dynamite Comics.

Gulliver of Mars and the ruins of the ancient, ghost-haunted city of Queen Yang

One of my favorite aspects of Martian science fiction, fantasy & horror (besides beautiful princesses, creepy creatures, and deadly weapons) is the ruins of abandoned, long-lost, dead cities. Check out this excerpt, from British author Edwin Lester Arnold’s influential novel Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation (1905), later republished in paperback as Gulliver of Mars:

Without stopping to think what that might mean I hurried on, the wailing now right ahead, a tremulous tumult of gentle grief rising and falling on the night air like the sound of a sea after a storm; and so, presently, in a minute or two, came upon a ruined archway spanning the lonely road, held together by great masses of black-fingered creepers, gaunt and ghostly in the shadows, an extraordinary and unexpected vision; and as I stopped with a jerk under that forbidding gateway and glared at its tumbled masonry and great portals hanging rotten at their hinges, suddenly the truth flashed upon me. I had taken the forbidden road after all. I was in the ancient, ghost-haunted city of Queen Yang!

CHAPTER XV

The dark forest seemed to shut behind as I entered the gateway of the deserted Hither town, against which my wood-cutter friend had warned me, while inside the soft mist hung in the starlight like grey drapery over endless vistas of ruins. What was I to do? Without all was black and cheerless, inside there was at least shelter. Wet and cold, my courage was not to be put down by the stories of a silly savage; I would go on whatever happened. Besides, the soft sound of crying, now apparently all about, seemed companionable, and I had heard so much of ghosts of late, the sharp edge of fear at their presence was wearing off.

So in I went: up a broad, decayed street, its flagstones heaved everywhere by the roots of gnarled trees, and finding nothing save ruin, tried to rest under a wall. But the night air was chilly and the shelter poor, so out I came again, with the wailing in the shadows so close about now that I stopped, and mustering up courage called aloud...

You can read Gulliver of Mars at Project Gutenberg or listen to someone else read it to you at LibriVox!

Retro review: 1956 collection Men, Martians and Machines by Eric Frank Russell

Review of Men, Martians and Machines (New York: Roy Publishers, 1956), a collection of stories written by British science fiction author Eric Frank Russell, as published in the February 1957 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine.

Margaret Atwood on SF, HG Wells, and Martians

I finally read “The Road to Ustopia,” a piece written by award-winning Canadian speculative fiction author Margaret Atwood that was published last Friday on the website of UK-based newspaper Guardian and which generated quite a bit of discussion within the SF community. As you are probably aware, Atwood, who wrote the classic dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985), is notorious for refusing to label her books science fiction. Here is a snippet:

What I mean by "science fiction" is those books that descend from HG Wells's The War of the Worlds, which treats of an invasion by tentacled Martians shot to Earth in metal canisters – things that could not possibly happen – whereas, for me, "speculative fiction" means plots that descend from Jules Verne's books about submarines and balloon travel and such – things that really could happen but just hadn't completely happened when the authors wrote the books. I would place my own books in this second category: no Martians. Not because I don't like Martians, I hasten to add; they just don't fall within my skill set. Any seriously intended Martian by me would be a very clumsy Martian indeed.

Image: Margaret Atwood, by Daniel Hertzberg for The Wall Street Journal.

"The Martian" ~ Sad 1930's story by Hilliard & Glasser about desiccation of red planet

Thanks to another generous fan of old magazines at the Internet Archive, you can read or download “The Martian,” a science fiction novelette penned by A. Rowley Hilliard and Allen Glasser, with beautiful interior artwork by pioneering pulp artist Frank R. Paul, as it was originally published in the Winter 1932 issue of Wonder Stories Quarterly magazine.

"The water was evaporated by the ever-shining sun until there was none left for the thirsty plants. Every year more workers died in misery."

The Outer Limits: "The Sandkings" starring three generations of the Bridges family

Unfortunately, YouTube won't allow me to embed this sweet piece of science fiction television history: “The Sandkings” (1995), the first episode of the revived classic 1960’s SF TV series The Outer Limits, about a rogue government researcher studying a sample of soil brought back from a mission to Mars.

Starring Beau Bridges as the megalomaniacal Dr. Simon Kress; the lovely Helen Shaver as his wife, Cathy; Dylan Bridges as their young son, Josh; and veteran Hollywood actor Lloyd Bridges as the family patriarch, Colonel Kress. Loosely based on the novelette “Sandkings” by George R. R. Martin, which as first published in the August 1979 issue of Omni magazine and won both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award!

 

Marvel's John Carter: A Princess of Mars #1 was bestselling Barsoomian comic book for September 2011

According to a neat monthly report of sales estimates for comics and trade paperbacks compiled by John Mayo of Comic Book Resources, John Carter: A Princess of Mars #1, published by Marvel, was the bestselling Barsoomian comic book for September 2011:

#114 – John Carter: A Princess of Mars #1 (Marvel) – 19,173 copies

#153 – Warlord of Mars #9 (Dynamite) – 13,565 copies

#159 – Warlord of Mars #10 (Dynamite) – 13,003 copies

#160 – Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris #6 (Dynamite) – 12,903 copies

Check Comic Book Resources for data on scores of other non-Barsoomian comic books and details about how the sales estimates were compiled!

Review of and software code for Atari red planet game Cliffhanger from old issue of Antic magazine

Review of and software code for Cliffhanger, an open-pit mining game set on Mars, published in the November 1986 issue of Antic magazine.

New near-future SF techno thriller novel: Mars Armor Forged by Ben Parris

If you’re not opposed to a bit of terrorism with your science fiction, consider Mars Armor Forged, a new novel written by Ben Parris that was published in August 2011 by Blueberry Lane Books. According to the promotional piece posted on Amazon, it’s “a near-future techno thriller for those who love a hard SF showcase and the rich Mars subgenre.” Here’s the complete description:

The tiny colony at Mars launched during an Earth emergency sits uneasy, starved and hopeless until the astonishing news that a new wave of political intrigue has landed it the Twenty Eighth Winter Olympics in 2038. The risky venture nearly works until terrorists gain a formula to reignite the dormant volcano. Olympian skier Yves Loitte and skater Terri Finney find themselves in the middle of a power struggle that may end in the destruction of all they hold dear.

Ben Parris is a science popularizer and SF&F writer who has been influenced by the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur C. Clarke, Orson Scott Card, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Nancy Kress. As a NASA/JPL educator who lectures extensively on the unique qualities of planet Mars, he also contributed to a NASA media initiative that has reached tens of millions of viewers. A long-time executive director of a science center, Mr. Parris helped his organization win the Unisys Prize for Online Science Education and two Sky & Telescope Awards.

Auction records: Allen Anderson original 1950's pulp magazine cover painting "War-Maid of Mars"

Allen Anderson

(American pulp artist, 1908-1995)

“War-Maid of Mars”

Oil on board, 20 x 14 in. Signed lower right.

Formerly of the collection of artist Frank Kelly Freas.

From the Jane and Howard Frank Collection.

This painting, illustrating a scene from the science fiction novella “War-Maid of Mars” by Poul Anderson and used as the cover piece for the May 1952 issue of Planet Stories magazine, is thought to be one of only three surviving science fiction covers by Allen Anderson. According to Robert Weinberg's A Biographical Dictionary of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists (1988, p. 310), “’an unusual twist of fate’ was reported as the reason behind the survival of this painting. When Fiction House, publishers of the magazine, went out of business in the sixties, all of the original art stored in its warehouse was burned by workers who saw no reason to keep the art. Fortunately, Frank Kelly Freas had rescued several of his own paintings years before.” Later, as Freas told it, he took the Anderson painting, one of two, in trade for monies owed him when he was visiting the publisher to discuss his own artwork, shortly before the fire.

Lot includes a copy of the magazine.

Sold for: $38,837.50 (includes Buyer’s Premium)

Date sold: October 15, 2008

Auction house: Heritage Auctions

 

Late 1970's ad for now-defunct Science Fantasy Bookstore in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Mass.

Click image to enlarge!

Advertisement for the now-defunct Science Fantasy Bookstore, 18 Eliot St., Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, as published in Galileo #4 (July 1977).

1930's Mars story for lads: "Cataclysm" by W. P. Cockroft

Thanks to another generous fan of old pulp magazines at the Internet Archive, you can read or download “Cataclysm,” a science fiction story of amazing inter-planetary adventure penned by British writer W. P. Cockroft, as it was originally published in the April 28, 1934 issue of Scoops, “Britain's only science story weekly.”

“Armageddon! The world goes mad, wars, revolts, lawlessness bring the Earth to the brink of destruction. Finally, the sinister spectre of the plague walks abroad and the end is nigh. A gallant band sets out to colonise the Red Planet.”

 

Sci Fri: Praying to Mecca while on the way to Mars

How would a pious Muslim pray to Mecca while on the way to Mars? Popular science writer Mary Roach explored the sensitive subject in her bestselling nonfiction book Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (Norton 2010), which cracked the top ten on The New York Times hardcover nonfiction bestsellers list in the summer of 2010.

And, here’s a couple of NYT reviews of Packing for Mars: “Astral Bodies” and “All the Right Stuff and the Gross Stuff.”

Sword-in-the-gut review of Marvel's new ERB comic book adaptation John Carter: A Princess of Mars #1

I’m having a difficult time keeping up with the deluge of Barsoomian comic books, so I’m just getting around to reading JCOM Reader's scathing review of the premiere issue of industry titan Marvel's new five-issue comic book adaptation series John Carter: A Princess of Mars. The interesting thing about the guy who runs JCOM Reader, a blog devoted to news and reviews from Barsoom, Mongo & other planets, is that he is not only a comic book fan, but he has actually read ERB's classic novel A Princess of Mars (1917)! Some of the more memorable points in this excellent review:

• “Let me preface this with two warnings: first the standard spoiler warning and second this isn't going to be pleasant.”

•  “The most groan worthy line: ‘Get your filthy paws off me you damn dirty lizards!’”

•  “But the writing isn't the major problem. Nope it's the art.”

•  “I was willing to give this a shot and sadly it failed to impress.”

•  “If anything it comes across more as something that was tossed off with little care for the final product, just to make a buck.”

Marvel’s new comic book John Carter: A Princess of Mars #1 (September 2011) was written by Roger Langridge with interior artwork by Filipe Andrade and variant covers by Skottie Young and Andrade.

Larry Niven talks about his vision of Mars at 2008 conference

I’m still reading bits and pieces of Visions of Mars: Essays on the Red Planet in Fiction and Science (McFarland 2011), a heavy academic volume examining the way Mars has been depicted in literature, film and popular culture that I purchased earlier this year for my Kindle e-reader.

As I mentioned in a recent post (Transsexuals and Frederik Pohl's 1976 novel Man Plus), one of the more interesting sections is Appendix 2, “The Extreme Edge of Mars Today,” which is a transcript of a panel discussion with editor David G. Hartwell and authors Geoffrey A. Landis, Larry Niven, and Mary A. Turzillo that was conducted at the 2008 J. Lloyd Eaton Science Fiction Conference, held in Riverside, California.

In this excerpt, award-winning and bestselling author Larry Niven discusses his vision of Mars and a few of his Martian SF&F works:

I started early. I started writing Mars stories in the '60s, when the results were just coming in from probes. Somebody was talking about sand dunes on Mars, so I wrote a short story involving that. And then pictures came back and the planet was covered with craters, just like the Moon. That was startling, and I joked to be the first to write a story called Mars with craters. More data kept flowing in and at that time the computers hadn't spread like a great plague or a great symbiot, for that matter. The computers hadn't spread, the Internet wasn't there, you had to fight to get information. I could be the first with every new discovery about Mars, for about six years. And then it kind of ran out and I started looking elsewhere.

That was then. The most recent thing I've done about Mars was Rainbow Mars, and you have to get this in perspective. Hanville Svetz is a time traveler, and time travel is fantasy and he doesn't know it. So the Mars he's finding contains everybody's Martians -- everybody's except Heinlein's, who were too powerful; I couldn't handle those. Why did I do fantasy? Because the real Mars is available to everybody; I can't be the first at anything. I've tried it with other things such as the frozen Earth and found I got beat into print. That is how Mars has affected me, accepting the fact that I can keep updating it as information flows in, and it's still part of known space, part of the solar system I've been writing about for forty years.

Presumably, the "stories in the '60s" that Niven refers to include “Eye of an Octopus” (1966), “How the Heroes Die” (1966), and “At the Bottom of a Hole” (1966).