Hammer of Mars

The Martian Wars Trilogy #2

by M.S. Murdock

Buck Rogers travels to Venus to seek an alliance against RAM, the corporate empire of Mars

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1989

About the author

Melinda Seabrooke Murdock (born 30 April 1947; age 70) is a Star Trek novelist, author of Pocket TOS #10: "Web of the Romulans". Murdock has also contributed a series of novels to the Buck Rogers line.

Reviews

[Johnny · Rating 3 out of 5]

The thesis of Hammer of Mars (perhaps, Malleus Martiorum would have been the title if this had appeared in the Warhammer 2400 AD universe instead of that for the classic pulp adventure/movie serial series that Tactical Studies Rules (aka TSR) tried to launch as a role-playing and board game)? Is that the victory over Martian tyranny in the first volume of the trilogy, Rebellion 2456 is followed by a relentless punitive campaign of retaliatory destruction and intended genocide. At first, I thought this was a great title with reference to Edward I of England, known not only as “Longshanks” because of his height but as Malleus Scotorum (“Hammer of the Scots”) for his repeated offensives against Scotland. Of course, to be a clear parallel, this novel would be “Hammer of Earth” to reflect the continued pounding being suffered by those on earth, regardless of their allegiance in the battle between the “Capitalistic Totalitarian” regime of RAM and the “Freedom Fighters labeled by RAM as ”terrorists” and known as NEO, New Earth Order. Of course, “Hammer of Earth” wouldn’t have communicated the threat in this novel as well as Hammer of Mars does.

There are many things to like about Hammer of Mars. In my opinion, this second volume has more of a pulp adventure pacing with pulp adventure-style episodes than Rebellion 2456. The action sequences seem to be more crisply written, but their brevity is both a strength and a weakness. One doesn’t feel the tension in the midst of battle that one felt in the first volume. Yet, there was more variety in terms of the conflict, both via fleet, squad, personal, and political/conspiratorial. So, whatever might be missing in detail is compensated by fecundity.

Despite the fact that the overall concept of computers is tied to mainframes and a distributed population of terminals (“THE TERMINAL IS NOW AVAILABLE.” – p. 145), the idea of rival artificial intelligences engaging in cyber-espionage between the mainframe and its cybernetic neighborhoods proves to be quite fascinating. This is particularly true when some of these AI spies seem to be converging on huer.dos, Buck’s 25th century mentor. I enjoyed the musing of the AI when considering the importance of hiding one’s identity. “Huer reflected on the irony of intellectual advancement. In times beyond memory, man had a superstitious fear of revealing his true name to a stranger, believing that knowledge would give a person power over him. In the world of the computer, that superstition was a viable truth. Know a code name, be able to track data, that was the rule.” (p. 119)

I was also amused by the fact that one character was educated at the John Carter school on Mars (p. 150). I think ERB would have been pleased. The intertextual “meta” reference seemed quite welcome to me. I also like the way Ardala is so fascinated with Buck, but still involved with Killer Kane while, at the same time, Wilma Deering seems conflicted between the two. Two gorgeous women infatuated with both protagonist and antagonist seems very true to pulp adventure.

I enjoyed Hammer of Mars more than the initial volume in the series, but there is still something about all that I’ve read so far that doesn’t feel quite enough like the original Buck Rogers to satisfy me.

[Michael Battaglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hey, we get away from Earth! Sort of. By this volume it seems that the author (or the TSR committee dictating what went into the book) remembered that space opera probably needed at least one other planet to avoid just being "opera" and so this time out our heroes expand into the rest of the inner solar system, with side trips to Venus and the Moon, as well as a quick glimpse at Mercury, the planet where even I can get a tan.

The situation is much the same as we left it in the last volume . . . RAM is evil but chock-full of resources, NEO is pure of heart but a little short of everything you need to fight an interplanetary war and other players fiddle about at the edges without really affecting anything even if they will probably play a firmer role in the last volume. What does feel different is that the pace marginally quickens, from an opening sequence where RAM decides they can't take back what they lost so screw it, to all the various scurrying about between planets, along with RAM's shock troops deciding to take a scorched earth policy to well, the entire earth, the sudden infusion of a lot of things going on at once helps break it out from the first volume, where we mostly watched NEO argue in rooms while Buck Rogers went on a mission that no one said with possible. Repeatedly.

That happens here, too, and one reason the diversions to the planets are so welcome is because a lot of the missions involve a pattern of Buck coming up with a crazy plan, his grizzled commander saying, "Buck, you can't do it, it's crazy!" to which Captain Rogers tells his comrades, "Who cares if its crazy, it's the only chance we have, let's do it anyway" then go out and do it, succeed in the space of twenty pages only to come back victorious while the grizzled commander says, "Gosh, Buck, I should mark you for disobeying orders but that was a heckuva job, kid, heckuva job" while Buck looks all fake sheepish. After about the fifth time he succeeds, you'd think they'd have more faith in his nutty plans.

This would come off better if a sense of urgency or tension existed. It doesn't seem like Murdock has a grasp on the stakes at play here and isn't able to pull off the widescreen desolation that this requires, other than having people tell us, "Wow, this is pretty bad." When RAM basically starts carpet-bombing the earth throughout the entire novel, there doesn't seem to be any sense of panic amongst the NEO crew, and they keep going about their missions at about the same pace as they did before. RAM's destruction of their lost base (which no one seems that sad about even though a) it was the whole point of the last book and b) a ton of people die) is met with a shrug, more or less. Every so often the book cuts to scenes of people suffering from RAM's ongoing destruction but the full horror of this war is lost to you, it's just people we have no connection to grimly vowing to go on because they don't have any choice. When Buck goes on a crazy mission, he basically states what he's doing, goes out and pulls it off. There's some entertainment value in seeing how he pulls it off but there's never really any doubt that he will do it. You wonder how NEO ever doubted themselves, as RAM pretty much does nothing right here except have the larger artillery.

The glimpses we get of the other planets are fun, however, even if on some level its an advertisement for the game system. We make sure to visit every important part, however this is also where the "plot coupon" feel starts to creep into the story, where Buck and Wilma have to collect certain things before the plot can truly progress. This leads to some whiplash leaps of logic, especially in the Luna sequence (they spend most of it vowing how they don't want to take sides, and then an assassin from RAM tries to kill Wilma and suddenly Luna is declaring war on Mars because they're mad . . . I know they value security but that seems like an extreme reaction . . . it'd be like us declaring war on Russia because they tried to assassinate a visiting French diplomat) but its all designed to get all the players in place for whatever final confrontation we're heading for.

Meanwhile the ancillary players continue to gum up the sideplots, mostly by thinking with the lower portions of their bodies. Information queen Ardala frolics with her perfect men and pines for both Buck Rogers and Killer Kane, Kane stomps around being smug and arrogant in his giant moon palace while pining for Wilma and teasing Ardala while Masterlink and his Russian software counterpart take the bickering to new levels of hilarity, so in love they don't even realize they're in love. If this was played for high camp it could have become gloriously over the top, but for the most part they play it straight and it just feels like moving pieces across the board. The setting, despite its corporately mandated outlines, is rich with possibilities but it never a crazier sense here, instead of the sure but professional hand here guiding the tiller it needs an injection of an Doc Smith, someone who is willing to play it less safe and take this to new levels of out-thereness, to really go for broke and thrust as many nutty ideas as the book can hold.

Instead, it keeps the temperature tepid. Even given a gift like Black Barney, an out of his mind genetically enhanced pirate that only listens to Buck Rogers and is otherwise completely unpredictable, he's mostly reduced to securing money or scaring people at random, when he could have been played as brilliant but absolutely out of his mind, a live wire that nobody trusts and utterly over the top. If you're going to go, you might as well go all the way.

Meanwhile, beyond Wilma and Buck seeming to fancy each other as more than fellow pilots of the star system, nobody really develops beyond how we first met them. Its meant to be epic, the story of how Earth got away from its overlords thanks to the legendary help of one Buck Rogers but there's never a time when the stakes are so high that you get the impression that it's this or nothing. I like good versus evil as much as the next person, but it'd be nice if it didn't quite feel so inevitable, or I'm going to start feeling bad for RAM.

[Robert D · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the second book of the trilogy "The Martian Wars" set in TSR's Buck Rogers in the 25th century RPG.

Earth is 'free' but in reality Mars just pulled out all its important employees and is launches a fleet to retake the planet by force. The NEO needs help and decides to send Buck Rogers to Venus and Wilma Deering to the moon to try and secure aid.

The story is choppy often jumping around between major characters and even side note people that only appear for a few pages. It tries to paint a grand picture of Earth fighting an oppressor but because there are so many different views it fails to really develop any emotional attachment for the reader.

[Henry Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't read the first volume of the trilogy, so I may have missed some of the context. It's a fair read, with references to the names of historical figures sprinkled among that characters' names.