A Red Desert World, Full of Mystery: Old Mars, edited by George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois
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Old Mars (Bantam Books, October 8, 2013). Cover by Stephen Youll
This isn’t a Sword & Planet collection per se but is likely to prove interesting to readers of S&P.
It’s a big book, 548 pages of reading in 15 longish stories and an introduction by Martin. All the tales evoke the kind of Mars that readers of Burroughs, Bradbury, and Brackett will recognize — a red desert world full of mystery.
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Jacket copy for Old Mars
The stories are,
Red Planet Blues, intro by George R.R. Martin
“Martian Blood,” Allen M. Steele
“The Ugly Duckling,” Matthew Hughes (Very Bradburyesque. One of my favorites.)
“The Wreck of the Mars Adventure,” David D. Levine (Captain Kidd sails to Mars; what’s not to love?)
“Swords of Zar-Tu-Kan,” S.M. Stirling (Set in the same universe as Stirling’s wonderful S&P novel In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, and featuring the same main character)
“Shoals,” Mary Rosenblum
“In The Tombs of the Martian Kings,” Mike Resnick
“Out of Scarlight,” Liz Williams (Channeling Brackett. Very good.)
“The Dead Sea-Bottom Scrolls,” Howard Waldrop
“A Mand Without Honor,” James S.A. Corey
“Written in Dust,” Melinda Snodgrass
“The Lost Canal,” Michael Moorcock (Brackettesque)
“The Sunstone,” Phyllis Eisenstein
“King of the Cheap Romance,” Joe Lansdale (Gonzo fiction. Lansdale always good.)
“Mariner,” Chris Roberson (S&P with pirates)
“The Queen of Night’s Aria,” Ian McDonald (A riff off H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds)
Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for Black Gate was review of the Conan: City of the Dead by John C. Hocking.
Sounds interesting.
Reading Leigh Brackett among others gave me a longing for the old pulp version of the solar system. The way I long for Middle-Earth.
Matthew, I know exactly what you mean. Mars, Venus, Earth, Mercury. All inhabited. Was very cool.
Perhaps the prototype for this sort of story is Roger Zelazny’s “A Rose for Ecclesiastes,” written just when we were learning the truth about Mars, and ignoring it.
That’s an excellent story.
Another prototype story comes from Leigh Brackett herself, her last piece for F&SF, “Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon” from the October 1964 issue.
This is a fine anthology. Though I have to admit I bought it mainly for Stirling’s Swords of Zar-tu-kan. Hope he’ll do a sequel, the novel In the Courts of the Crimson Kings ended on such an intriguing note.
Courts of the Crimson Kings is an outstanding work
I too really wanted a sequel.
Thumbs up
I have to say that on one hand, I liked it a great deal, and have bought a physical copy to ensure the ability to reread it. But on the other hand, the opening of the interstellar gateway in the final chapters left me feeling disappointed, and I don’t think I would be very interested in reading a sequel. The event somehow seemed extraneous to the theme of the novel and to its central conflict.
I can see your point. It seemed somewhat out of place with the rest of the story but I didn’t mind it too much
My review from Locus back then — it was a very enjoyable anthology.
Old Mars is a collection of stories set on the Mars of mid-Century SF – Bradbury’s Mars, Brackett’s Mars, complete with canals and ancient Martians and an atmosphere of decadence. This is just the sort of thing I like, and the anthology delivers very well on its promise.
Some authors embrace the pulpish past wholeheartedly – most notably Mike Resnick, with “In the Tombs of the Martian Kings”, featuring a Earthman named Scorpio and his doglike blue Venusian sidekick Merlin as they guide a Martian scholar to the supposed site of the tomb of alien kings who ruled Mars long ago … This might be said to set a template: it’s fun implausible stuff, with a nice closing twist. Also pulpish in overall shape, but ultimately one of the best stories in the book, is “Out of Scarlight”, by Liz Williams, about Zuneida Peace, who began her career as “a seducer of Princes (and occasionally Princesses)” who is now a bounty hunter of sorts, tracking a Princess of the Desert People, who has apparently been kidnapped by a sorcerer … An old rival of hers, Nightwall Dair, is on the track of the same girl, for a different client. Of course there are changes to ring on this familiar setup – Zuneida has a perhaps unfortunate crush on the Princess in question, and both Nightwall Dair and the Princess have slightly untraditional agendas. The traditional pulpish color, and the variation on the traditional plot, are both well done. Really nice stuff.
There is a steampunkish cast to some of the better stories. For example, David D. Levine’s “The Wreck of the Martian Adventure” features Captain Kidd recruited by the King to sail a ship to Mars – I have to admit I something of a sucker for space sailing stories. The concept is pretty much the story here, but withal it’s very well done. And that’s not the only pirate story – James S. A. Corey, in “A Man Without Honor”, depict an 18th Century pirate enlisted by a Martian beauty to help bring some “Incan gold” back to Mars: fun stuff, with a good old-fashioned rousing moral about honor at its heart. A different slant comes in Ian McDonald’s “The Queen of Night’s Aria”, in which an over the hill singer is touring a Mars which Earth has invaded in revenge for a Wellsian Martian invasion. The singer’s tour takes him dangerously close the to front, and an unexpected fan. The story is near farce at times, and very well told, through the voice of the singer’s accompanist.
Of them all my favorite comes from Howard Waldrop. “The Dead Sea-Bottom Scrolls (A Recreation of Oud’s Journey by Slimshang from Tharsis to Solis Lacus, by George Weeton, Fourth Mars Settlement Wave, 1981)” is, as the title tells us, told at multiple levels – it’s a later edition of the account of an early Martian settler reenacting an old Martian’s journey as his journal described it … clever, moving, believable, and mysterious.
Lovely review, Rich. I truly love your story descriptions — they make me ache to dip into this book again.
“Also pulpish in overall shape, but ultimately one of the best stories in the book, is “Out of Scarlight”, by Liz Williams, about Zuneida Peace, who began her career as “a seducer of Princes (and occasionally Princesses)” who is now a bounty hunter of sorts, tracking a Princess of the Desert People, who has apparently been kidnapped by a sorcerer … An old rival of hers, Nightwall Dair, is on the track of the same girl, for a different client… Really nice stuff.”
Indeed
excellent review for sure