What have you been reading?

[Lofgeornost]

Budrys' protagonist are usually assholes, so I think it's an intentional decision.

No doubt. I was thinking more about the book last night and I realized that one thing that makes the initial part somewhat hard slogging is that Budrys is trying to portray the mental effects of living in such a circumscribed environment. Beyond the fact that Jackson is something of a douche, his reactions and ideas in the first part are a little hard to follow because, in a sense, he has so few tools to think with. Later in the book, after he has received an instant education via machine and shares more of our frame of reference, he becomes much more comprehensible.

Another facet of the book I didn't mention is that in some ways it seems a rather eerie presentiment of the effects of the internet. On the post-scarcity Earth, the relatively small remaining human population is constantly plugged into an information network, and one of their main activities is watching what other people are doing ('actualities' as they are called) as mediated by the A.I.. Budrys' model for this is clearly television--at one point Jackson re-enacts an amsir hunt and then sees the 'broadcast' version, noting in surprise the music underneath, the cuts in perspective, etc. But the idea of turning one's life into a spectacle for other people and the focus on the number of people watching reminds me a lot of current 'influencers' and similar things.

 

[Lofgeornost]

Because I saw it mentioned in Martin Caidin & Jay Barbree's Destination Mars, I read Clifford Simak's "Hermit of Mars," from the June 1939 Astounding, courtesy of the Internet Archive. Caidin and Barbree mention it as a story from its era that takes a more realistic view of Mars than, say, Burroughs. In some ways I guess that it is true: Mars in the story has a scanty atmosphere, very low temperatures (highs of -20 C in the daytime) and humans have to wear space-suits and live in pressurized environments. But in other ways this story departs a good deal from Mars as it was known at the time, I think. For instance, Simak posits the Martian atmosphere has lots of ozone, which harms machinery unless it's carefully encased, and of course is harmful to humans. AFAIK this was not the view of the Martian atmosphere at the time.

Simak's picture of Mars is an odd mixture of elements borrowed from Earth with some extrapolations based on Martian conditions. He treats the canals as natural canyons--the description of them somewhat resembles the Grand Canyon--and the abode of most Martian life. Human canal-men, the equivalent of Old West mountain-men, live in them and hunt Martian beaver, prized for its very thick fur. The other significant fauna he mentions are Martian 'hounds,' which will attack people at times, and 'eaters,' large pack-carnivores with a silica plating that seek human prey by choice, relishing the phosphate in human bones. He also mentions a Martian plant that rolls up at night to deal with the low temperatures (shades of Heinlein's Red Planet) and a motile plant that travels from its roots to opposite sides of the canal, depending on the time of day. The only intelligent Martian natives are the 'ghosts,' whom we learn in the course of the story are a race that has 'ascended' (so to speak) into an incorporeal form; they usually do not interact with humans but have been known to drive people insane.

It's not one of Simak's better stories; the plot is pretty rudimentary and the last part of the tale is largely taken up with wrangling between two characters introduced late in the narrative, while the protagonists do little but stand around. It did get a nice cover, though, by Graves Gladney. It shows a scene early in the story when Kent Clark, the hero of the tale, has to intervene to keep Ann Smith (who has just arrived at the pressurized igloo he shares with the old canal-man Charley Wallace) from smoking, on the grounds that they can't afford to waste the air. That in itself is interesting, given how ubiquitous smoking can be in some SF of this era.

 

[T. Foster]

I think Zelazny did a lot of his best work in his early short stories. His style can be a bit purple but that seems like a conscious choice, I think he's working under the influence of CAS and Vance in that regard.

I recently read his early collection Four for Tomorrow which includes “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” alongside “The Door of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth” and two lesser-known novellas - “The Furies” and “The Graveyard Heart.” All four are completely brilliant, making this one of the strongest collections of sf short fiction I’ve ever read.

 

[Lofgeornost]

I recently read his early collection Four for Tomorrow which includes “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” alongside “The Door of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth” and two lesser-known novellas - “The Furies” and “The Graveyard Heart.” All four are completely brilliant, making this one of the strongest collections of sf short fiction I’ve ever read.

I should be on the lookout for that. I’ve been meaning to read “The Doors, etc.” for some time.

 

[T. Foster]

You can find larger collections that include all four of these stories plus many others, but there’s something about a short (216 pp) collection that only includes 4 stories (novellas) but all four of them are tour de force masterpieces (and quite different from each other totally and thematically, while still having the same distinctive authorial voice) that makes it stand out even more (at least to me) than the usual collection of a dozen+ stories where there might well be 4 (or more) great ones but they’re surrounded by a lot of lesser-quality forgettable filler-stuff that makes the whole thing feel more “B+” than “A.”

 

[Voros]

I recently read his early collection Four for Tomorrow which includes “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” alongside “The Door of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth” and two lesser-known novellas - “The Furies” and “The Graveyard Heart.” All four are completely brilliant, making this one of the strongest collections of sf short fiction I’ve ever read.

Yeah that's the first thing I ever read by Zelazny and it blew my mind.



There was a great used sf bookstore in my town when I started to get into sf in my early 20s and the owner would direct me to the sweetest 60s and 70s New Wave sf.

I'd rate the novella 'For a Breath I Tarry' by Zelazny as my overall favourite of his.

 

[bleys21]

Home is the Hangman has always been one of my favorite Zelazny short stories. Also won both the Hugo and Nebula awards.

For novels, while there are some fantastic choices, like Lord of Light et.al , I kinda agree with Roger...my favorite is still A Night in the Lonesome October.

 

[Rated Aargh]

I've been on something of a WWII kick of late, so I dug out my battered copy of Foxes of the Desert: The Story of the Afrika Korps, by Paul Carell. It's not a recent book, first published in 1958 though my copy is from 1972. I think you'll agree the '72 cover is evocative.

It's dense reading, as is most of that sort of thing from the time, but you won't find anything more meticulous in its details.

 

[Lofgeornost]

Last night I finished Brackett's "Shadow over Mars," one of her earlier Martian tales. It first appeared in Startling Stories in 1944, but the version I read (thanks, Internet Archive) was a 1953 reprint in Fantastic Stories. Like "Beast-Jewel of Mars," it's a more action-adventure tale--really a short novel. Its hero is a spacer named Rick Urquhart who, fleeing from the press-gangs of the Terran Exploitation Company, ends up killing a Martian seer who prophesies that 'his shadow will cover Mars.' This leads to a break-neck series of adventures. Along with Rick's own attempts to gain his freedom from the Company (his escape is particularly over-the-top) and get vengeance on Jaffa Storm, its chief enforcer, who would not be out of place in the 1940s gangster film, other plot lines collide and intertwine--an attempted rising by the Martians, who hate Rick because of the prophecy, and the efforts of a coalition of well-meaning Earth and Martian interests to break the Company's stranglehold on Mars. There are also two different love-interests for Rick, the idealistic Mayo McCall who is secretly working against the Company from within, and Kyra, a young girl from the nearly-extinct race of winged Martians. There are more hair-breadth escapes, double-crosses, and plot twists than you can shake a stick at before Rick's final showdown with Storm at the forbidden polar cities of the Thinkers, a reclusive race of Martian sages. It's great fun, though not as well-written or evocative as some of Brackett's other Martian tales.

I'm going to post some covers for it in the appropriate thread, but this is some interior art from the 1953 reissue, by Virgil Finlay:

 

[Voros]

Last night I finished Brackett's "Shadow over Mars," one of her earlier Martian tales. It first appeared in Startling Stories in 1944, but the version I read (thanks, Internet Archive) was a 1953 reprint in Fantastic Stories. Like "Beast-Jewel of Mars," it's a more action-adventure tale--really a short novel. Its hero is a spacer named Rick Urquhart who, fleeing from the press-gangs of the Terran Exploitation Company, ends up killing a Martian seer who prophesies that 'his shadow will cover Mars.' This leads to a break-neck series of adventures. Along with Rick's own attempts to gain his freedom from the Company (his escape is particularly over-the-top) and get vengeance on Jaffa Storm, its chief enforcer, who would not be out of place in the 1940s gangster film, other plot lines collide and intertwine--an attempted rising by the Martians, who hate Rick because of the prophecy, and the efforts of a coalition of well-meaning Earth and Martian interests to break the Company's stranglehold on Mars. There are also two different love-interests for Rick, the idealistic Mayo McCall who is secretly working against the Company from within, and Kyra, a young girl from the nearly-extinct race of winged Martians. There are more hair-breadth escapes, double-crosses, and plot twists than you can shake a stick at before Rick's final showdown with Storm at the forbidden polar cities of the Thinkers, a reclusive race of Martian sages. It's great fun, though not as well-written or evocative as some of Brackett's other Martian tales.

I'm going to post some covers for it in the appropriate thread, but this is some interior art from the 1953 reissue, by Virgil Finlay:

View attachment 77583

This collection of sf adventures and science fantasy is the first thing I ever read by Brackett. The stand-outs for me were 'The Shadows' and 'The Enchantress of Venus.'



As you probably know she was a mentor to a young Ray Bradbury and they wrote the fun, very romantic 'Lorelei of the Red Mist' together which one can find in Three Times Infinity and a few other anthologies (or online of course).

 

[urbwar]

I've read a few things lately. Been making my way through Savage Realms monthly some more. I also read a decent cosmic horror story called the Bledbooke Works

The author also wrote a sort of sequel (he calls it one of many possible futures), featuring the entity from Bledbrooke Works. It's called Congeal, and is more of an apocalyptic story:

I've also been reading The Rhast Saga, which is a collection of four short stories set in The Ocean of the Worlds. It's a Sword & Sorcery setting, but feels like it should be part of the Eternal Champion multiverse than regular S&S. It has floating islands, weapons made of crystal and glass, armor made of insect chitin, as well as most critters and mounts are insectile. So is some of the food.

The main character is a typical barbarian type, which feels out of place in the setting to me. He's ok, but the setting is what keeps me reading. There is a wonderful glossary at the end of each story that helps you get a better field for the world. I'd love to see this adapted to an rpg.



I'm also reading the first in the Keyport Cthulhu series by Armand Rosimilia. So far, the stories are interconnected, as most of the characters appear in multiple stories that come to a cliffhanger conclusion. The next story doesn't appear to be connected to the rest, but I only looked at the first page so far. It's ok, but nothing special when it comes to Mythos fiction. I've read worse, but I've also read better.

 

[Lofgeornost]

This collection of sf adventures and science fantasy is the first thing I ever read by Brackett. The stand-outs for me were 'The Shadows' and 'The Enchantress of Venus.'

As you probably know she was a mentor to a young Ray Bradbury and they wrote the fun, very romantic 'Lorelei of the Red Mist' together which one can find in Three Times Infinity and a few other anthologies (or online of course).

I'm sure I read some Brackett back in the day (late '70s-early 80s) but if so I've forgotten it. I read the Gollancz big collection of her works, Sea Kings of Mars, about a dozen years ago and always meant to come back for more. Recent threads here have inspired me to do so. I wish I could afford the Haffner Press deluxe collections of her stories, but I can't justify spending that amount. Baen used to publish e-books that were collections of her works, but doesn't currently, and sadly I missed their special offer for them back in December. On the other hand, the Internet Archive makes a lot of the stories available in their original format, since so many of the pulp magazines have been digitized.

 

[Lofgeornost]

Last night I read "Seven Came Back," by Clifford Simak, another of his Mars stories. It's better than his "The Hermit of Mars," but that's not surprising, given that it was written some years later, 1950 vs. 1939. Simak had clearly honed his craft in the meantime. The versions of the Martian setting in the two stories share some features: in both, Mars is (among other things) the stomping ground of rough pioneer-types, who hunt Martians for their fur (or used to, in "Seven Came Back,"--the practice has been outlawed). But there are differences, too. The later story says nothing about canals; its Mars is a harsh desert world, though in some ways more habitable than in the earlier tale--its atmosphere is apparently thick enough to breathe without mechanical aids. As in many of Brackett's stories, there is no mention of the fact that Martian gravity is less than Earth's. "Seven Came Back"'s Mars also has a largish number of (semi-)intelligent species, who can speak at least haltingly in a patois that mixes Martian with human languages. The only one we learn much about are the "Venerables," who are apparently the most advanced of the lot. But they have a problem--they have seven sexes and one of them has been hunted nearly to extinction by humans for its pelt.

The story opens when a group of six of the "Venerables" come upon a camp of humans in the Martian wilderness. The Earthmen are an archaeologist, Richard Webb, and two 'sandmen' he has hired to accompany him (one of them bearing the name Wampus Smith) as he looks for a legendary lost city of the Martians. The "Venerables" offer to take the men to the place, if they will help the Martians find a living member of the seventh sex. This leads to a clash between the Earthmen and Webb's subsequent adventures, which I won't detail in case somebody wants to read the story.

If you do seek it out, don't read the standalone version on the Internet Archive. This is a reproduction of the tale's reprint from Fantastic in 1966, and it omits the last page of the story. Fortunately, the Internet Archive also has a digitized version of magazine where it first appeared, Amazing Stories, October 1950.
Below is the art from the story's beginning, by Arthur Hutah--though this is from the reprint in Fantastic in 1966:

 

[Lofgeornost]

Yesterday I finished The Secret of Sinharat, one of Brackett's Eric John Stark novellas. It first appeared in an Ace Double in 1964, which is long out-of-print; I read it in an e-book reissue Eric John Stark: Outlaw of Mars, by Phoenix Pick. Aside from a few OCR typos, the e-book is fine, if basic. It's a well-crafted and engaging tale. Stark, currently wanted by the law, is sent by his old mentor to stop a projected rising of the Dryland tribes of Mars. This is led by Kynon, a redoubtable fighter and leader who claims to have rediscovered the secret of eternal life by transferring a dying person's consciousness into a new body. He is backed by the leader of one of the Low-Canal cities that keep showing up in Brackett's stories, Delgaun of Valkis, and a mysterious red-haired woman Berild, who is linked to both men. The story shares some locations, and plot-elements, with the later "Road to Sinharat," which the ISFDB thus lists as a Stark tale, though he doesn't actually appear in that story. It's not clear to me which of the stories takes place first.

I really enjoyed the story. Stark is an engaging hero, more along the Tarzan/Conan line than John Carter, though personally I prefer the less heroic protagonists of the stories inThe Coming of the Terrans. Brackett's skills at pacing, writing action scenes, and briefly but evocatively sketching a background are at full display in this work. Perhaps her screen-writing chops as well—it is very easy to visualize some of the scenes as they would appear on the movie screen.

The novella is an expanded version of a story Brackett published in Planet Stories in 1949, "Queen of Martian Catacombs." That shows up in the Gollancz collection of Brackett I read a decade or more ago, but I had little memory of it. The Wikipedia page for Secret of Sinharat has a detailed comparison of the contents—if it's accurate, then the original version was a bit darker, with Stark in particular acting in a more morally-gray fashion.

The version I read has no illustration, beyond a really uninspired cover, so here is the interior art from the Planet Stories version, which is uncredited.

 

[Lofgeornost]

I finished the second novella in Eric John Stark: Outlaw of Mars: "People of the Talisman." It's an expansion of a shorter work which Brackett published in 1951 as "Black Amazon of Mars," in Planet Stories. The later title at least avoids a massive spoiler. The story begins near the Martian North Polar cap; Stark has been accompanying a friend back to the latter's birthplace of Kushat. The friend dies, but not before getting Stark to promise to return an artifact he stole from his home city long ago (the 'talisman' of the title). En route to doing this, Stark falls captive to the barbarians of Mekh and their mysteriously masked leader Ciaran, but escapes and gains the city, only to find that its inhabitants do not believe his warning that the tribes of Mekh are about to attack. Ultimately Stark must venture through a forbidden pass, the 'Gates of Death,' looking for aid against the horde of attackers.

As was true for "The Secret of Sinharat," the first half or so of this novella is little changed from the original story. The second half is considerably expanded, including some evocative scenes in the burial chambers under Kushat, and the mystery that Stark unravels in the longer version is considerably different than in the original tale (which I also re-read). Ultimately I think the first version was stronger, though the second makes rather more sense, and is equally creepy. My understanding is that there is some thought that Edmond Hamilton, Brackett's husband, may have been responsible for the expansions in the later version. I'm not sure what the evidence is for this.

Anyway, I enjoyed it and would recommend either version. Here is some interior art from the Planet Stories original version--the cover of that issue, which also features the tale, is of course famous.

 

[Voros]

I finished the second novella in Eric John Stark: Outlaw of Mars: "People of the Talisman." It's an expansion of a shorter work which Brackett published in 1951 as "Black Amazon of Mars," in Planet Stories. The later title at least avoids a massive spoiler. The story begins near the Martian North Polar cap; Stark has been accompanying a friend back to the latter's birthplace of Kushat. The friend dies, but not before getting Stark to promise to return an artifact he stole from his home city long ago (the 'talisman' of the title). En route to doing this, Stark falls captive to the barbarians of Mekh and their mysteriously masked leader Ciaran, but escapes and gains the city, only to find that its inhabitants do not believe his warning that the tribes of Mekh are about to attack. Ultimately Stark must venture through a forbidden pass, the 'Gates of Death,' looking for aid against the horde of attackers.

As was true for "The Secret of Sinharat," the first half or so of this novella is little changed from the original story. The second half is considerably expanded, including some evocative scenes in the burial chambers under Kushat, and the mystery that Stark unravels in the longer version is considerably different than in the original tale (which I also re-read). Ultimately I think the first version was stronger, though the second makes rather more sense, and is equally creepy. My understanding is that there is some thought that Edmond Hamilton, Brackett's husband, may have been responsible for the expansions in the later version. I'm not sure what the evidence is for this.

Anyway, I enjoyed it and would recommend either version. Here is some interior art from the Planet Stories original version--the cover of that issue, which also features the tale, is of course famous.

View attachment 77938

I've heard that some prefer the magazine versions of these stories to the later expanded versions in the paperbacks. I've only read the paperbacks but intend to visit the magazine versions for comparison.

Not sure there's any evidence for the claims about Hamilton, we know C.L. Moore and Kuttner closely collaborated but I've never heard the same about Brackett and Hamilton.

Hamilton's early stories are crudely written compared to Brackett's, although also energetic and fun, but by the 50s and 60s his prose was significantly more sophisticated.

 

[Voros]

Almost done the epic Justin Cronan post-apocalyptic vampire novel The Passage, which is very well paced, excellent horror sequences and characterization that ranged from very good to slightly clumsy. Enjoyed it enough that I'll be reading the other two books, The Twelve and The City of Mirrors, a rare thing for me as I usually don't go in for trilogies or series.

Trying to decide what to jump into next and I think it will be the latest novel by the cult UK author Jim Crace. He is generally considered part of the literary mainstream but often works with historical, sf, supernatural and fantasy elements.

He never does the same thing twice, which I appreciate. I've enjoyed every novel of his I've read, including Quarantine, Being Dead and Harvest.

This one appears to be dark, satrical vision of what Eden is like after the expulsion of Adam & Eve.

 

[Lofgeornost]

Almost done the epic Justin Cronan post-apocalyptic vampire novel The Passage, which is very well paced, excellent horror sequences and characterization that ranged from very good to slightly clumsy. Enjoyed it enough that I'll be reading the other two books, The Twelve and The City of Mirrors, a rare thing for me as I usually don't go in for trilogies or series.

Trying to decide what to jump into next and I think it will be the latest novel by the cult UK author Jim Crace. He is generally considered part of the literary mainstream but often works with historical, sf, supernatural and fantasy elements.

He never does the same thing twice, which I appreciate. I've enjoyed every novel of his I've read, including Quarantine, Being Dead and Harvest.

This one appears to be dark, satrical vision of what Eden is like after the expulsion of Adam & Eve.

I read his Pesthouse a few years ago and enjoyed it; I’ve been meaning to read Harvest and The Gift of Stones sometime.

Continuing on my Mars kick, I read the Dick short story “The Crystal Crypt,” in The Martian Super-Pack, a collection of mostly o-o-c works in one e-book omnibus. I checked it out from the local library, but it’s cheap enough that I might buy a copy.

The story is a fairly early one by Dick (1954) and much more conventional than his later work. Mars and Earth are on the brink of war when the Martian capital city is suddenly wiped out by an unknown super-weapon. The last passenger flight from Mars to Earth is briefly boarded by Martian authorities, who are seeking the three saboteurs responsible. It’s not too much of a spoiler to say that they are on the spacecraft and that we learn about their mission.

Dick doesn’t spend much time describing Mars or its culture. It’s a fairly standard mix, in such tales, of super-science and the premodern. The Martian authorities have aircraft, ray-gun-equivalents, lie detectors, etc. but most Martians are peasants living traditional lifestyles. Interestingly, the Martian ruling group are known as ‘Leiters,’ a word that would have had immediate resonance for readers in 1954.

By odd happenstance, Dick's story appeared in the same issue of Planet Stories as Brackett's "Mars Minus Bisha,"--January 1954. This is the interior art for "The Crystal Crypt," by Kelly Freas. The city looks considerably more fantastic than Dick's description would imply:

 

[Lofgeornost]

Since Voros recommended Margaret St. Clair, I read one of her short stories that is available on Project Gutenberg--"Garden of Evil," which appeared in the same 1949 issue of Planet Stories as Brackett's "Queen of the Martian Catacombs." It was a fun brief read. The protagonist, a Terran ethnologist on the primitive planet of Fyhon, is saved from drug-addiction and other dangers by one of the green-skinned natives, and then led to a secret city, where revelations await. The story had some of the detachment you find in Vance's writing, but stylistically is very different from his work. Here's the uncredited interior art:

 

[Lofgeornost]

I've been reading my way through the Martian Super-Pack, an e-book anthology of SF on Mars and Martians. It combines some well-known stories, like Zelazny's "Rose for Ecclesiastes," Brackett's "Black Amazon of Mars," and Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey" with lesser-known material, much of it o.o.c. (I would guess). There are 40+ short stories, novellas, etc. and a couple of full novels in it. Some that I've read recently:

• Jerome Bixby's "The Holes Around Mars," (1954) a short humorous story with a fairly obvious Maguffin.
• Robert Young's "To See Ourselves," (1954) a very short tale of the first Earth expedition to Mars and cultural misunderstanding. The landing takes place in 1990!
• Harry Harrison's "Arm of the Law," (1958) a robot story where the Martian setting is inconsequential--but very hardscrabble.
• Ian Strock's "Mars is the Wrong Color," (2008) which actually appeared in Nature, and is more of a what-if than a story.
• David Bunch, "In the Jag-Whiffing Service," (1959) about Martians' interest in Earth; again short and humorous if a bit predictable.
• Nicole Kurtz's "Kanti's Black Box," (2016) about a Martian refugee on Earth; not all that successful, I thought.
• H. Beam Piper's "Omnilingual," (1957) a fairly famous tale about attempts to read the texts left behind by Mars' high-tech civilization, which had died out 50,000 years or more before humans arrived (in 1996). The protagonist is a female archaeologist, derided for her efforts by some of her male colleagues. The solution was a little too pat for my taste, but it's still an enjoyable story. One of the more amazing bits in it features one archaeologist chiding another for deciding to dedicate his career to Mars: "You could have anything you want in Hittitology. There are a dozen universities that would rather have you than a winning football team..." The mind boggles at this.
• Frank Belknap Long's "The Man the Martians Made," (1954) about a killer in a Martian colonial settlement that seems like an Okie jungle of the 1930s. Oddly, it shares a basic conceit with another story in the collection, Don D'Ammassa's "Jack the Martian," which was published forty years later (1994). Unless they'd been collected together my guess is no-one would have ever noticed.
• Damon Knight's "Doorway to Kal-Jmar," (1944), in which an interplanetary bandit accompanies a physicist to a dead Martian city which is still protected by its force-field and robots, though the inhabitants had disappeared ages ago. The ending is too abrupt, for my taste, but somewhat interesting for the pulpy version of Mars.
• C.L. Moore's "The Tree of Life," (1936) a Northwest Smith story I'd read previously. Typically for Moore, it is largely set in a pocket-dimension or universe, which is eerily rendered in the story.

 

[Lofgeornost]

I continue on with my Martian odyssey. Last night I read Clifford Simak's "Message from Mars," (1943) in the Martian Super-Pack. The setup is that Martians contacted the Earth via radio and began rudimentary communication; the Martians have also sent rockets here, with payloads of the seed of Martian lillies (which are spreading around our planet). Humans have been trying to reach Mars via rocket, but without success--some 50+ individuals have died in the attempt, as rocket after rocket fails to complete the journey successfully. Our hero, Scott Nixon, is bound and determined to be the next sacrificial victim; his brother went up a few attempts back.

It's not too much of a spoiler to say that Nixon reaches Mars and interacts with its inhabitants--or that they mean Earth no good. The most interesting thing about the story, though, is its picture of the space program. This combines some elements that we might say make perfect sense--the rockets launch from Mt. Kilimanjaro, to take advantage of altitude and the Earth's rotation--with a view of space travel as something akin to Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic. Though given the story's date, I wonder if the model in the audience's mind was more the fate of bomber crewmen. One of the space-pilots is noted as having made 8 successful flights to the moon and back, which is a record, because rocket malfunctions and the threat of meteors make every trip dangerous. Interestingly, the refueling station for Mars-bound rockets is located on the Sea of Tranquility.

Here's the interior artwork by Joseph Doolin, from the tale's first appearance in Planet Stories:

 

[Giganotosaurus]

Read a book by a local author "Legends & Lattes". A cozy novel where an Orc Adventurer decides to retire and open up a coffee shop. Shenanigans ensue.
Rather decent, although at some points it felt more like a collection of short stories than a proper novel. Definitely the authors first book as well.
Overall I found it decent and the ending was well done.

 

[Lofgeornost]

Read a book by a local author "Legends & Lattes". A cozy novel where an Orc Adventurer decides to retire and open up a coffee shop. Shenanigans ensue.
Rather decent, although at some points it felt more like a collection of short stories than a proper novel. Definitely the authors first book as well.
Overall I found it decent and the ending was well done.

Interesting--I saw this a few weeks ago at a local bookstore. It doesn't stock a lot of fantasy of SF, so I guess this book must be doing pretty well.

 

[Giganotosaurus]

Interesting--I saw this a few weeks ago at a local bookstore. It doesn't stock a lot of fantasy of SF, so I guess this book must be doing pretty well.

Well enough for there to be a sequel, "Bookshops and Bonedust".

 

[StubbornMule]

Well enough for there to be a sequel, "Bookshops and Bonedust".

Prequel. Both are enjoyable enough 1-or-2-afternoon reads. It's pretty obvious from these that the "cozy fantasy" genre is going to be HUGE over the next few years.

 

[Teyrnon]

Prequel. Both are enjoyable enough 1-or-2-afternoon reads. It's pretty obvious from these that the "cozy fantasy" genre is going to be HUGE over the next few years.

Yeah, definitely expect more. Publishers are rounding up their share of cozy fantasy, and we'll be seeing lots of authors, including some of the biggest names, throwing their ink at it.

 

[Lofgeornost]

More Martian tales for me, mainly from the Martian Super-Pack e-book.

• “Half-Tripper,” by Mack Reynolds’s (1951), about people who suffer from ‘space cafard’ and, on reaching their off-Earth destination, can never board a rocket to return. The Martian setting is unimportant, really.
• “To Cage a Phoenix,” (2015) by Jean-Louis Trudel. A rather involved short story about a complex murder-plot by a mastermind which involves a mind-wipe for his current wife and the deliberate cultivation of a young girl as an assassin. I didn’t think it worked all that well: the text itself is rather cryptic, the background is unusual—and on top of that the reader is supposed to keep track of what seems like a needlessly-complex scheme. There were a couple of neat Martian elements, though—the girl comes from a Martian slum which consists of buildings that dangle from vast cables stretched across part of the Valles Marineris.
• “The Well-Tempered Helix,” (1996) by Terry Franklin, in which the first human colony on Mars falls victim to a local disease, which is difficult to defeat because its DNA-structure is subtly different from terrestrial DNA. The difference is not all that well explained, I thought.
• “What’s He Doing in There,” (1957) by Fritz Leiber and “Communication,” (1956) by Charles Fontenay are both short, humorous tales about first contacts between humans and Martians, the former on Earth and the latter on Mars. Leiber’s was funnier.
• “Heart of the Scorpion,” by Gene Mederos (here published for the first time) depicts the first manned mission to Mars, which is presented as a kind of cross between Ender’s Game and Capricorn One, updated for the internet era. I didn’t find it that engaging.
• “The Grave of Solon Regh,” (1954), by Charles Stearns: a Terran relic-hunter seeks out a lost city near Mars’ Southern Polar region looking for tombs to loot. He finds one, but…
• “A Little Journey,” by Ray Bradbury (1951), in which little old ladies become incensed with a huckster who has promised them a spaceship ride to meet with God. No, really. Again, the Martian setting is particularly incidental.

 

[bleys21]

Since we're on a Mars trip (see what I did there? Lol) I would suggest:

A Rose for Ecclesiastes by Roger Zelazny.

 

[David Johansen]

Fred Saberhagen's Berserker and John Steakley both books I'd somewhat avoided in the past. Both quite good really.

 

[Voros]

Reading up on the modern history of the Middle East with a focus on the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia: Black Wave by Kim Ghattas.

I'd post the cover as usual but as part of the enshittification of the internet Google is now actively preventing me from downloading the book cover images to share here. God damn do I hate the modern internet.

 

[Acmegamer]

Reading up on the modern history of the Middle East with a focus on the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia: Black Wave by Kim Ghattas.

I'd post the cover as usual but as part of the enshittification of the internet Google is now actively preventing me from downloading the book cover images to share here. God damn do I hate the modern internet.

Was just bitching about that very thing yesterday to my wife.

 

[Mankcam]

Reading up on the modern history of the Middle East with a focus on the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia: Black Wave by Kim Ghattas.

I'd post the cover as usual but as part of the enshittification of the internet Google is now actively preventing me from downloading the book cover images to share here. God damn do I hate the modern internet.

Maybe its some weird USA censorship thing - not sure why you were unable to download an image of the cover, but there you go

 

[Lofgeornost]

Since we're on a Mars trip (see what I did there? Lol) I would suggest: A Rose for Ecclesiastes by Roger Zelazny.

A good suggestion! I actually posted about it a page or so ago in the thread.

Plugging along in the Martian Super-Pack:

• "Monsters of Mars," by Edmond Hamilton (1931), which was novelette length, I'd guess. Martians send an Earth physicist plans for a matter-transmission device to enable a trip to their planet. Their motives, you will be shocked to learn, are not benign. The Martians are rendered as crocodile people; their leader has three conjoined bodies to support his over-sized brain! There are also earthworm-like beings that may be descended from humanity. One of the relatively few Martian stories in which the lower gravity of the planet plays much of a role. It's a big deal in Burroughs (especially early on in the Barsoom series) but I've been surprised at how few Golden Age stories seem to mention it. I don't think Brackett ever does, for instance.
• "You'll Like it on Mars," by Tom Harris (1958)--a Hollywood underling is assigned by his studio-head boss to find out how a rival studio produced such realistic mayhem in its horror film set on Mars. Slight but entertaining; its picture of Hollywood seems more like the '40s than the late '50s. Mostly set on Earth.
• "Death Walks on Mars," by Alan J. Ramm. Basically a Western story set on Mars--outlaws kill the husband of a man-and-wife prospector team on Mars and force the woman to take them to the couple's cached 'sunbursts,' some valuable mineral or ore. She seeks revenge. There is some interesting, if derivative, world-building for a pretty short story: Martian vultures (who kill with poisoned stings in their tails, then wait for the victim to succumb), razor-tooth lizards, which burrow in the sand and can eat a person alive within a Mars-suit, if they get in, and the sand itself, which causes intense itching until one gets used to it.

Interior art for "Monsters of Mars" by J. Fleming Gould, from Astounding Stories in 1931. Sorry about the gutter in the center.

 

[Nobby-W]

I read Project Hail Mary the other day. It's quite a good yarn if you don't mind the physics - which is unavoidable as it's a pretty central tenet of the story. The aliens were pretty good by the standards of such things, and I even found one or two ideas worth nicking.

 

[Lofgeornost]

I've also read a couple of other Mars stories that don't show up in the Martian Super-Pack:

• "The Derelict," by W.J. Matthews, which first appeared in Planet Stories in 1946. I read it courtesy of Project Gutenberg. A heroic space-pilot is 'on the beach' in Mars--literally, because he lives next to a polar swamp/sea--as the result of his addiction to a Martian drug. After he takes charity from a visiting Earthwoman, the Martians he lives with expel him and he goes walkabout in the desert, planning to die or find himself. It's interesting that drug-addiction shows up in a number of these stories, as does the trope that a city can be lost out in the desert.
• "The Titan," by P. Schuyler Miller. I went looking for this because I enjoyed his "The Forgotten Man of Space," in the Lost Mars collection, and the introduction to it mentioned this other work of his. It's a novella that first appeared in 1934/35, but the magazine publishing it, Marvel Tales, folded before the whole thing came out, so it was only fully published in 1952. I gather there was also some difficulty with 'sexual content' in 1935, though by modern standards there isn't any in the story. It paints an interesting version of 'Old Mars.' The Martian cities are built into the walls of the canals, here apparently large canyons. Their highest levels, now abandoned, are just below the level of the desert beyond. Mars' inhabitants, who are humanoid if apparently hairless, have split into two castes: a worker class and a master class. The latter has degenerated, rather like the humans in Wall-E: their legs have atrophied and they ride around in motorized carts. Further, they need recurrent blood transfusions from the workers to sustain themselves. The plot involves a romance by one of the leaders of the workers and a woman of the master class, who is something of an atavism (she still has legs), against the background of a revolution by the workers. Humans also make an appearance, with John-Carter-like muscular superiority. On the whole, a good adventure story with elements one might nick for an RPG.

This is the cover of the 1952 collection that reprinted "The Titan," Hannes Bok was the artist:

 

[Turkey Lurkie]

I just started reading, Sea Life in Nelson's Time. Getting data for a world I am building.

 

[Lofgeornost]

I just started reading, Sea Life in Nelson's Time. Getting data for a world I am building.

That’s a classic and available for free these days. If you’re interested in something a bit newer, my vague memory is that The Wooden World by N.A.M. Rodger is quite good.

 

[Lofgeornost]

I didn't have much time for pleasure reading yesterday, but I was able to breeze through a short story by Fritz Leiber, "The Foxholes of Mars," which I read courtesy of Project Gutenberg. It charts the experiences of a disillusioned soldier who is disgusted by the Terran Empire (or something like it) for which he fights. The Martian setting is fairly incidental; it's clear that humanity has spread beyond the solar system. The main character is, well, disturbing, but on purpose and it's an effective tale. Here is the interior art from Thrilling Wonder Stories, 1952, by J. Dreany:

 

[Turkey Lurkie]

That’s a classic and available for free these days. If you’re interested in something a bit newer, my vague memory is that The Wooden World by N.A.M. Rodger is quite good.

Thanks! I'll certainly get that when I finish with this book.

 

[Rated Aargh]

Since the Shōgun TV series started last night, it was an excellent time to dive back into the book. I started a discussion group on my Discord server to ensure that I stick with it. We plan to meet once a month and discuss each section in turn. The first meeting is Monday.