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First on Mars
Used Book
- GenresScience FictionFiction
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
About the author
Rex Gordon
9 books2 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Pseudonym of Stanley Bennett Hough, son of Simeon and Eva (Bennett) Hough. Married Justa Elisabeth Cecilia Wodschow on June 25, 1938. (No children.)
Attended Radio Technical College, Prestion (1935-36).
Also wrote as S.B. Hough
Occupations:
Radio operator 1936-1945.
Yachting business 1946-1951.
Freelance writer.
For the 1955 born US author of the same name see Rex Gordon
Pseudonym of Stanley Bennett Hough, son of Simeon and Eva (Bennett) Hough. Married Justa Elisabeth Cecilia Wodschow on June 25, 1938. (No children.)
Attended Radio Technical College, Prestion (1935-36).
Also wrote as S.B. Hough
Occupations:
Radio operator 1936-1945.
Yachting business 1946-1951.
Freelance writer.
For the 1955 born US author of the same name see Rex Gordon
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
June 13, 2017
I was lucky enough to find a copy of this book for $7 at a second hand bookstore, after being on the lookout for it for quite a while. Great old school story of the first man to set foot in Mars. Written before the first Moon landing, there many technical inaccuracies which may put off the modern reader. However I consider those inaccuracies to be offset by an engaging storyline and by many innovative ideas for the time. The book flows well and one gets the feeling there is always a surprise just around the corner!
If you loved Andy Weir's "The Martian", you will certainly enjoy this book - I know I did!
If you loved Andy Weir's "The Martian", you will certainly enjoy this book - I know I did!
November 25, 2014
THE classic science fiction robinsonade!
September 16, 2019
I'm currently reading a book called - in America - Gulliver of Mars. That would have been a good title for this book too if it hadn't been already taken. Mr. Gordon references Gulliver on several occasions and there are similarities. Robinson of Mars would also have been apt.
This was published in 1957 so some of the science is laughable, as is the amateurish Mars expedition; a crew of seven in a ship riveted together, secretly, at Woomera in Australia. Our protagonist manages to scrape his way onto the mission mostly by being "handy". This proves a valuable asset - in this respect he's not unlike Andy Weir's Martian.
Not unlike Robinson Crusoe Holder manages to cannibalize his ship for useful parts and soon manages to provide the essential ingredients - air and water - he needs for his survival. This is not the Mars we know now. "This was a flat planet, without seas or great outstanding features..." No Olympus Mons, for example. And there is some air - as on the top of Everest, and it's not always freezing. None of which is true as we know it now. Whether there is air pocketed deep in caverns where the ancient Martians still survive - as Lucky Starr discovered in another book - we still don't know. A few other scientific expressions are equally suspect: "Man without fire was a naked, helpless thing, hardly better than the tree-rat he had once been a thousand million years ago. Even three hundred million years ago Man had had fire...." Bit of a miss there. Lucy is only three million years old and it was a long time after her that her ancestors began to use fire.
I like a good robinsonade and this starts out well, solving problems and exploring. The cover illustrator has actually read the book - or at least a part of it. The "tricycle" pictured is a good representative of the description given in the text. This is, to me, the Sense of Wonder I enjoy in good Science Fiction. Starting out from a crashed rocket to explore a totally unknown planet.
Mr. Gordon is writing a story however and as Robinson Crusoe finds a footprint in the sand so Holder finds a giant footprint. And in the night strange lights are seen over the near horizon.
There were things I did enjoy when I felt the story lost impetus, particularly the philosophical reflections Holder engages in.
Could Martians be Buddhists?
This was published in 1957 so some of the science is laughable, as is the amateurish Mars expedition; a crew of seven in a ship riveted together, secretly, at Woomera in Australia. Our protagonist manages to scrape his way onto the mission mostly by being "handy". This proves a valuable asset - in this respect he's not unlike Andy Weir's Martian.
Not unlike Robinson Crusoe Holder manages to cannibalize his ship for useful parts and soon manages to provide the essential ingredients - air and water - he needs for his survival. This is not the Mars we know now. "This was a flat planet, without seas or great outstanding features..." No Olympus Mons, for example. And there is some air - as on the top of Everest, and it's not always freezing. None of which is true as we know it now. Whether there is air pocketed deep in caverns where the ancient Martians still survive - as Lucky Starr discovered in another book - we still don't know. A few other scientific expressions are equally suspect: "Man without fire was a naked, helpless thing, hardly better than the tree-rat he had once been a thousand million years ago. Even three hundred million years ago Man had had fire...." Bit of a miss there. Lucy is only three million years old and it was a long time after her that her ancestors began to use fire.
I like a good robinsonade and this starts out well, solving problems and exploring. The cover illustrator has actually read the book - or at least a part of it. The "tricycle" pictured is a good representative of the description given in the text. This is, to me, the Sense of Wonder I enjoy in good Science Fiction. Starting out from a crashed rocket to explore a totally unknown planet.
Mr. Gordon is writing a story however and as Robinson Crusoe finds a footprint in the sand so Holder finds a giant footprint. And in the night strange lights are seen over the near horizon.
There were things I did enjoy when I felt the story lost impetus, particularly the philosophical reflections Holder engages in.
Without man, it would be true to say that the universe itself would have no consciousness of itself. Then, indeed, it would be blind and purposeless. (p.52)
I wondered what form what we knew as life would take on gaseous bodies like the sun, on worlds of snow and ice and frozen gases like the planet Neptune. For what I had seen seemed to imply, to me, that life was not an unique thing, existing only in a form adapted to the special conditions of our planet, Earth, but a fundamental regenerative quality of all matter. (p.139)
I needed to prove to myself, as well as for all other men who were to come, that Man, even naked, with no more tools than would fit him for survival, could yet dominate an alien planet. For it seemed to me that either there was something in humanity, some grasp, some spirit, some intelligence and transcending understanding which would make all human history worth while, or there was nothing: nothing but a momentary squirming of helpless, fated life in all the myriads of individuals of our species, doomed to end and as meaningless while it lasted as cloud of bacteria... (p.144)
We are born of a race that has lived, for long ages, as far as its emotions are concerned, by ear and sound. We are affected directly by exhortations, and cries, and screams of agony... To us, the sublime is almost always sound... (p.158)
An alien view of Man:
"I think you strive only to gain the strength and comfort that your bodies lack. I think there are too many of you already. I think that each of you feels weak and does not know why or what his is nor where he leads. You crave for power, because power means safety. You crave for strength because you are weak and uncertain of yourselves. you crave for knowledge because you know nothing. You crave to conquer the universe because it is so vast and you are so small. You think always that if you can know a little more if you can travel a little farther, you will stumble on some secret which will transform your nature. But your nature is what it is. It is you that should try to change." p.170-1)
Could Martians be Buddhists?
December 23, 2017
A mid-1950s Science Fiction novel, Gordon Holder is the sole crew survivor of a landing on Mars. This is the story of how he survived.
October 23, 2020
Published in 1957, it does not translate well in the 21st century. Apparent secret mission to Mars ends in a crash with only one survivor. Mars has an atmosphere, water in the form of dew, plant life, and intelligent life although the "creatures" are not described in detail except that they are about 20' tall. The survivor manages to survive and communicates with the natives via light - something like Morse code. About three quarters into the story suddenly it is 15 years later; this happens without any warning. A space ship from Earth lands; the survivor greets them, but it seems that when they discover they are not the first to land, they pack up and go back to Earth. In this world, the trip takes 2 months.
Story is difficult to follow because the author loves long, rambling, complex sentences which are difficult to read, much less understand. Here is an example from page 109:
"Only while, before, I had been ready for anything, including almost any subversion of the laws of nature, I now understood that the natural laws of science must and did apply but that what I lacked was the knowledge, the imagination even, to understand the ways, different from those on Earth, that they could apply."
What???
Story is difficult to follow because the author loves long, rambling, complex sentences which are difficult to read, much less understand. Here is an example from page 109:
"Only while, before, I had been ready for anything, including almost any subversion of the laws of nature, I now understood that the natural laws of science must and did apply but that what I lacked was the knowledge, the imagination even, to understand the ways, different from those on Earth, that they could apply."
What???
June 12, 2026
FULL SUMMARY
Even though it has been a while since I have read this book, I am still confident in saying that my report that not much of note happens in the first half is not inaccurate. It starts in Australia, where our main character launches off into space on some privately-funded spaceship. Of course, he crashes on the planet Mars, and is the only survivor. The ship, when it was still one piece, didn't even come equipped with communication devices, as nothing could make the distance, so our main character's only hope is that help will come, eventually.
Unlike Robinson Crusoe, our main character is very stoic about the whole thing, and sets right to work in true industrious fashion. He immediately sets to work making devices necessary for his survival out of the wreckage. Of course, the first peril is the loss of air. The ship has emergency air supply that he can pump into his helmet, but he needs to find a way to make an air bubble inside the wreckage. He eventually, after many losses and tribulations, comes upon a machine that transforms water into air or something like that. The first half of this relatively short novel really is just the whole Robinson Crusoe thing of the main character narrating how they made stuff necessary for survival, except here it's combined with engineer-speak and technobabble, so it's a lot less engaging, unless maybe you're an engineer yourself and can understand some of it.
He also tries to find food to eat, but finds in the Martian wilderness only a couple of weird little vegetable things which he gradually makes his body get used to, quite surprisingly. There are also some animals that he notices moving in herds, but they aren't very interesting. But the story gets going when he meets intelligent martian life. The intelligent martian life here comes in the form of giant caterpillar-like creatures. The first chapter where he first comes close to one and tries to communicate is a really gripping and mystifying part of the book. It turns out the caterpillars talk through ESP, and after they spend a little bit of time hashing out language, they can understand each other a lot better. But conversation is still hard, because the caterpillars have almost none of the same concepts that humans do, despite being very, very intelligent. In fact, they have almost no concepts at all. Their thing is that they don't "do things." Even though they have all this intelligence, they don't build cities, or form societies, or have laws, or wars, or clothing, or tools, or even try to switch up how they hunt their food, the strange animals the main character saw earlier moving in herds. They just roam around, talk, forage for food, and when they die they consider it a life well spent.
This discourse about "doing things" is this book's own specific nugget which forms the book's philosophical core; the main character clashing with the caterpillars and each causing the other consternation as they nevertheless try to reach an understanding. Like the Great explosion by Eric Frank Russell, a lot of these factory-made science fiction paperbacks revolve around a small idea not fully fleshed out, due either to time or perhaps because the author wants to save their ideas for next month's novel and the one after that; but unlike the Great Explosion or the Syndic by C.M Kornbluth I find this one's patented Small Big Idea to be a lot more believable lorewise.
The caterpillars, though, accept our main character into their circle, as it seems they do not lack curiosity despite not desiring to do things. But all the while, they are pretty condescending to our hero and his ideas of doing things. But, over the course of months, the main character tries to convince the caterpillars to adapt methods for catching their food. He concocts a plan to build a bunch of fences and make a trap in a valley, so as to trap an entire herd of prey. The caterpillars actually decide to go with the idea, willing to give "doing things" a shot, and even demonstrate their ability to do things if they wanted to by building the whole trap themselves and even making some improvements on the original idea. Sadly, or perhaps not so sadly, the idea does not pan out. No prey is trapped. And so the caterpillars remain unconvinced, and the main character decides to stop trying. By the end of the book, he gets picked up by a shuttle of humans, these ones from the United States, not from British Australia, somewhat to our hero's disappointment. The guys on the ship foreshadow that they are going to colonize the planet, especially from those stupid caterpillars they've met. But our main hero maintains that the caterpillars are intelligent, and that you know, maybe they should think twice before doing this thing.
So, that was the book. A pretty simple sci fi romp. I definitely wish there was more of the caterpillar stuff. If anything, the Robinson Crusoe building stuff chapters should have been greatly condensed so we could have gotten to the caterpillars later, or maybe intermix the two a bit more, because that was the heart of the story and I feel their relationship should have been explored a bit more. I do love that even though the caterpillars were so condescending to him, they were still willing to try his idea. Overall, though, this was another scifi paperback from the SF Rediscovery series of more-than-average quality; and one of the better of what I will call the sci-fi Small Big Idea-stories I have read.
Even though it has been a while since I have read this book, I am still confident in saying that my report that not much of note happens in the first half is not inaccurate. It starts in Australia, where our main character launches off into space on some privately-funded spaceship. Of course, he crashes on the planet Mars, and is the only survivor. The ship, when it was still one piece, didn't even come equipped with communication devices, as nothing could make the distance, so our main character's only hope is that help will come, eventually.
Unlike Robinson Crusoe, our main character is very stoic about the whole thing, and sets right to work in true industrious fashion. He immediately sets to work making devices necessary for his survival out of the wreckage. Of course, the first peril is the loss of air. The ship has emergency air supply that he can pump into his helmet, but he needs to find a way to make an air bubble inside the wreckage. He eventually, after many losses and tribulations, comes upon a machine that transforms water into air or something like that. The first half of this relatively short novel really is just the whole Robinson Crusoe thing of the main character narrating how they made stuff necessary for survival, except here it's combined with engineer-speak and technobabble, so it's a lot less engaging, unless maybe you're an engineer yourself and can understand some of it.
He also tries to find food to eat, but finds in the Martian wilderness only a couple of weird little vegetable things which he gradually makes his body get used to, quite surprisingly. There are also some animals that he notices moving in herds, but they aren't very interesting. But the story gets going when he meets intelligent martian life. The intelligent martian life here comes in the form of giant caterpillar-like creatures. The first chapter where he first comes close to one and tries to communicate is a really gripping and mystifying part of the book. It turns out the caterpillars talk through ESP, and after they spend a little bit of time hashing out language, they can understand each other a lot better. But conversation is still hard, because the caterpillars have almost none of the same concepts that humans do, despite being very, very intelligent. In fact, they have almost no concepts at all. Their thing is that they don't "do things." Even though they have all this intelligence, they don't build cities, or form societies, or have laws, or wars, or clothing, or tools, or even try to switch up how they hunt their food, the strange animals the main character saw earlier moving in herds. They just roam around, talk, forage for food, and when they die they consider it a life well spent.
This discourse about "doing things" is this book's own specific nugget which forms the book's philosophical core; the main character clashing with the caterpillars and each causing the other consternation as they nevertheless try to reach an understanding. Like the Great explosion by Eric Frank Russell, a lot of these factory-made science fiction paperbacks revolve around a small idea not fully fleshed out, due either to time or perhaps because the author wants to save their ideas for next month's novel and the one after that; but unlike the Great Explosion or the Syndic by C.M Kornbluth I find this one's patented Small Big Idea to be a lot more believable lorewise.
The caterpillars, though, accept our main character into their circle, as it seems they do not lack curiosity despite not desiring to do things. But all the while, they are pretty condescending to our hero and his ideas of doing things. But, over the course of months, the main character tries to convince the caterpillars to adapt methods for catching their food. He concocts a plan to build a bunch of fences and make a trap in a valley, so as to trap an entire herd of prey. The caterpillars actually decide to go with the idea, willing to give "doing things" a shot, and even demonstrate their ability to do things if they wanted to by building the whole trap themselves and even making some improvements on the original idea. Sadly, or perhaps not so sadly, the idea does not pan out. No prey is trapped. And so the caterpillars remain unconvinced, and the main character decides to stop trying. By the end of the book, he gets picked up by a shuttle of humans, these ones from the United States, not from British Australia, somewhat to our hero's disappointment. The guys on the ship foreshadow that they are going to colonize the planet, especially from those stupid caterpillars they've met. But our main hero maintains that the caterpillars are intelligent, and that you know, maybe they should think twice before doing this thing.
So, that was the book. A pretty simple sci fi romp. I definitely wish there was more of the caterpillar stuff. If anything, the Robinson Crusoe building stuff chapters should have been greatly condensed so we could have gotten to the caterpillars later, or maybe intermix the two a bit more, because that was the heart of the story and I feel their relationship should have been explored a bit more. I do love that even though the caterpillars were so condescending to him, they were still willing to try his idea. Overall, though, this was another scifi paperback from the SF Rediscovery series of more-than-average quality; and one of the better of what I will call the sci-fi Small Big Idea-stories I have read.
February 16, 2018
This book was originally published in 1957. I found it to be almost as accurate about Mars as the recent book The Martian by Andy Weir and almost as entertaining. Rex Gordon does not have a tongue in cheek main character but the resourcefulness and adaptability of his main character is very believable.
November 7, 2023
Goodreads review, ‘No Man Friday’ by Rex Gordon.
One of the difficulties when reading or indeed writing science fiction is producing a story that includes the social changes that evolve as much as technological advances. Detailed social conventions set in a science fiction future should be as complex as the machines, computers and say interstellar travel. ‘No Man Friday’ works for the most part when the hero is alive and alone on the planet Mars, however the bookmarked beginning and ending are out of whack with the detailed ‘scientific’ experience of this Robinson Crusoe on Mars. The writer, Rex Gordon does a hearty job of creating an alien culture on Mars and it is amusing but difficult to swallow. The struggle to survive and live on the planet after his craft has crash landed is entertaining and has some narrative grit. Enjoyable read but not one I would recommend. It’s a basic solo survival on a distant planet story. Bought from Gould’s Books, Erskinville for $9.50 (second hand). Enjoy.
One of the difficulties when reading or indeed writing science fiction is producing a story that includes the social changes that evolve as much as technological advances. Detailed social conventions set in a science fiction future should be as complex as the machines, computers and say interstellar travel. ‘No Man Friday’ works for the most part when the hero is alive and alone on the planet Mars, however the bookmarked beginning and ending are out of whack with the detailed ‘scientific’ experience of this Robinson Crusoe on Mars. The writer, Rex Gordon does a hearty job of creating an alien culture on Mars and it is amusing but difficult to swallow. The struggle to survive and live on the planet after his craft has crash landed is entertaining and has some narrative grit. Enjoyable read but not one I would recommend. It’s a basic solo survival on a distant planet story. Bought from Gould’s Books, Erskinville for $9.50 (second hand). Enjoy.
December 25, 2023
The best thing I can say about this book is that it really made me think. There ultimately ended up being a lot of introspective philosophy that was discussed that was thought provoking at the end of the novel. That being said, the vast majority of the book consisted of what could have been exciting adventure and survival (but ended up being exceptionally boring) in an uninhabited environment with very few resources. Furthermore, while there were interesting parts, they were thoroughly overcast by scientific inaccuracies, which one can forgive when taking into consideration that the book itself was written in 1957, but despite numerous opportunities to develop an exciting and engaging scene, the author never took advantage of it. I appreciate the interactions with other beings on the planet, and the insights the author developed, but at the end of the day I prefer an action packed, discovery driven, relationship building love interest with a dash of comedy and maybe a small message or token of encouragement to take with me at the end.
February 26, 2019
A philosophical meditation on man and the meaning of life, and our relationship with the universe. Entertaining, succinct, imaginative, and a classic of its kind. Well worth rereading again about 40 years on, and 60-something years after it was written.
July 20, 2025
Un científico es el único superviviente del viaje a Marte, en la soledad del planeta deberá afrontar la dificultad que supone mantenerse con vida.
La novela es una magnífica reflexión sobre el significado de lo que comúnmente se denomina sociedad civilizada.
La novela es una magnífica reflexión sobre el significado de lo que comúnmente se denomina sociedad civilizada.
May 9, 2023
Eh. Kind of a bore, and kind of hard to take seriously. Guy crashes on Mars, everyone else on the ship is killed, and then, without really knowing what he's doing, he survives on the alien planet. Lots of low-tech explanations, lots of crawling around in the busted up spaceship. DNF
December 4, 2019
Gelesen als Der Mars-Robinson
Projekt M ist ein Versager!
Nur ein Mann - der letzte überlebende der siebenköpfigen Besatzung der ersten bemannten Marssonde - erreicht den Boden des roten Planeten...
Gordon Holder, ein Mann der Erde, allein auf einer unsäglich fremden Welt - und das Wrack der Rakete, die gar nicht für eine Marslandung vorgesehen war, ist alles, was der Schiffbrüchige besitzt, um fünfzehn lange Jahre zu überleben, bis die nächste Rakete von der Erde den Mars erreicht...
Robinson Crusoes... äh... Gordon Holders Überlebenskampf auf dem Mars.
Immerhin etwas besser als First To The Stars vom gleichen Autor, was allerdings nicht sehr schwer war. Hätte mich die Umsetzung dieser Robinson Crusoe Story nicht irgendwie belustigt (Leuchturm-Marsianer, das Trike mit Pedalen), wäre das ein weiterer 1 Sterne Kandidat.
Projekt M ist ein Versager!
Nur ein Mann - der letzte überlebende der siebenköpfigen Besatzung der ersten bemannten Marssonde - erreicht den Boden des roten Planeten...
Gordon Holder, ein Mann der Erde, allein auf einer unsäglich fremden Welt - und das Wrack der Rakete, die gar nicht für eine Marslandung vorgesehen war, ist alles, was der Schiffbrüchige besitzt, um fünfzehn lange Jahre zu überleben, bis die nächste Rakete von der Erde den Mars erreicht...
Robinson Crusoes... äh... Gordon Holders Überlebenskampf auf dem Mars.
Immerhin etwas besser als First To The Stars vom gleichen Autor, was allerdings nicht sehr schwer war. Hätte mich die Umsetzung dieser Robinson Crusoe Story nicht irgendwie belustigt (Leuchturm-Marsianer, das Trike mit Pedalen), wäre das ein weiterer 1 Sterne Kandidat.
January 20, 2022
What a wild and strange ride through golden age sci-fi. This book had it all: comfortable space ships, oxygen and life on Mars, military astronauts, and a philosophical conclusion.
Written a time when all we knew about Mars was from ground-based telescopes, the author clearly was able to let his mind wander. There was some hard science, and clearly the work was modeled after submarine life and Robinson Crusoe, but you know, on Mars. Since the author didn't presage communications satellites, he didn't give our astronauts any way to communicate with Earth, which was certainly an entertaining twist. The huge crew, the huge spaceship, and the apparent disregard for how fluids behave in the near-vacuum of Mars all just added to the fun. My one-line review would be: only someone named Rex could write a book like this.
Written a time when all we knew about Mars was from ground-based telescopes, the author clearly was able to let his mind wander. There was some hard science, and clearly the work was modeled after submarine life and Robinson Crusoe, but you know, on Mars. Since the author didn't presage communications satellites, he didn't give our astronauts any way to communicate with Earth, which was certainly an entertaining twist. The huge crew, the huge spaceship, and the apparent disregard for how fluids behave in the near-vacuum of Mars all just added to the fun. My one-line review would be: only someone named Rex could write a book like this.
February 16, 2020
An interesting idea of book that does not satisfy.
The first trip to Mars, by the Australian government, ends in death to all save a lower engineer. He survives on the planet, discovering plant life, insect life, and...intelligent life. Or is it intelligent?
The final chapters shoot the tale fifteen years forward for a surprise ending that comes across as really forced.
I don't know if I was expecting more of an action novel than this, but I was disappointed when it concluded. Entertaining sporadically, but not great.
The first trip to Mars, by the Australian government, ends in death to all save a lower engineer. He survives on the planet, discovering plant life, insect life, and...intelligent life. Or is it intelligent?
The final chapters shoot the tale fifteen years forward for a surprise ending that comes across as really forced.
I don't know if I was expecting more of an action novel than this, but I was disappointed when it concluded. Entertaining sporadically, but not great.
October 7, 2020
A good yarn, with a nice balance of hard science fiction, aliens, and philosophy (both human and alien).
August 4, 2018
Finito nel 01/gen/1970 00:00:00
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews