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Eric John Stark #2
Black Amazon of Mars and Other Tales from the Pulps
Leigh Brackett may be best known for her screenplay for "The Empire Strikes Back," but her lush tales of interplanetary adventures were thrilling readers long before "Star Wars." Collected here are the short novel "Black Amazon of Mars" (the final magazine appearance of her hero, Eric John Stark), as well as "A World Is Born" and "Child of the Sun."
136 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 1951
59 people are currently reading
372 people want to read
About the author
Leigh Brackett
399 books240 followersLeigh Brackett was born on December 7, 1915 in Los Angeles, and raised near Santa Monica. Having spent her youth as an athletic tom-boy - playing volleyball and reading stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs and H Rider Haggard - she began writing fantastic adventures of her own. Several of these early efforts were read by Henry Kuttner, who critiqued her stories and introduced her to the SF personalities then living in California, including Robert Heinlein, Julius Schwartz, Jack Williamson, Edmond Hamilton - and another aspiring writer, Ray Bradbury.
In 1944, based on the hard-boiled dialogue in her first novel, No Good From a Corpse, producer/director Howard Hawks hired Brackett to collaborate with William Faulkner on the screenplay of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.
Brackett maintained an on-again/off-again relationship with Hollywood for the remainder of her life. Between writing screenplays for such films as Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Hatari!, and The Long Goodbye, she produced novels such as the classic The Long Tomorrow (1955) and the Spur Award-winning Western, Follow the Free Wind (1963).
Brackett married Edmond Hamilton on New Year's Eve in 1946, and the couple maintained homes in the high-desert of California and the rural farmland of Kinsman, Ohio.
Just weeks before her death on March 17, 1978, she turned in the first draft screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back and the film was posthumously dedicated to her.
In 1944, based on the hard-boiled dialogue in her first novel, No Good From a Corpse, producer/director Howard Hawks hired Brackett to collaborate with William Faulkner on the screenplay of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.
Brackett maintained an on-again/off-again relationship with Hollywood for the remainder of her life. Between writing screenplays for such films as Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Hatari!, and The Long Goodbye, she produced novels such as the classic The Long Tomorrow (1955) and the Spur Award-winning Western, Follow the Free Wind (1963).
Brackett married Edmond Hamilton on New Year's Eve in 1946, and the couple maintained homes in the high-desert of California and the rural farmland of Kinsman, Ohio.
Just weeks before her death on March 17, 1978, she turned in the first draft screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back and the film was posthumously dedicated to her.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews
December 21, 2016
Normally, I like to start a series at the beginning. But I chose to read this second novella of Brackett's Eric John Stark series, as my long-awaited first introduction to her work, because Amazon offered me the chance to read it for free on my Kindle app. (And yes, I'll definitely be buying a paper copy!)
Genre giant Brackett stands in the Romantic tradition, and represents SF's "soft" school; she's known for her "swords-and-planet" tales of adventure and derring-do on mostly low-tech worlds, and her style was shaped in the hey-day of the pulp magazines. Stark himself has affinities to the typical Burroughs hero, or to some of Robert E. Howatd's protagonists; the appeal of "primitivism" (which I've discussed elsewhere) is clearly present here, though in Stark's case, he's not a refugee or escapee from civilization. (Of Earth stock, he was born on Mercury, and apparently grew up in a rough setting and circumstances, with trauma that left him carrying a lot of psychological damage.) He's a bit more rough-edged than , say, John Carter, and indeed can at times seem almost feral. But he's clearly a person of principle, with a strong sense of loyalty and duty, and a willingness to put his life on the line for what's right when it really matters.
Like many SF authors who wrote before the advent of space exploration by unmanned probes, Brackett imagined the other inner planets of our solar system to be much more hospitable to human life than they actually are. Her Mars is a cold, arid world whose fragile ecology depends on the annual summer melting of much of the polar ice cap; but it's a world with a human-like native race (if they differ from Earth humans in any way, it's not stated here), with a civilization originating a million years earlier, in the time of a culture hero called Ban Cruach. Much of his story is forgotten and mysterious; but at the end of his life, he passed through the Gates of Death, the high pass that is the only way through the mountains enclosing the uninhabited, permanently frozen region around the North Pole itself, after leaving behind an enigmatic talisman in the northern city of Kushat (which controls access to the pass). Now, at the behest of a dying friend, who stole the talisman years before, Stark is journeying through the bitterly cold Martian winter and across the wild, mountainous North (a region much less civilized than southern Mars) to return the object to Kushat.
Brackett's world-building is much more plausible than that of Burrough's Barsoom novels, and (allowing for the basic premise) the science isn't, to a lay reader like myself, glaringly off-beam. (How the high technology --yes, there is some here, but I'm not writing any spoilers-- works isn't explained, and it's not extrapolated from any existing technology, but that's because we're in the realm of soft SF; the author's purpose isn't to speculate about what high technology might someday do, but to use it to tell and enable a story about people in a particular dramatic situation.) Brackett's imagination is genuinely original, in a type of story that often wasn't handled with great originality in the time period when she wrote. The plot covers just a few days, and incorporates a lot of action, usually violent action (corpses at one point are lying in "windrows"), but there's no graphic wallowing in violence for its own sake. (There's also no bad language, and while consensual illicit sex is implied a couple of times, it's handled tastefully --if I'd read this as a kid, I'd have had no clue that it happened.) Our main characters here aren't plaster saints, and we might disapprove (big time, in some cases!) of some of their actions; but they're each vibrantly alive, understandable men and women whose fate we come to care deeply about. They'll face conflicts and challenges here that involve extremely high stakes, and that will tax physical, mental and moral strength to overcome (IF they're overcome....); and the personal interrelationships are complex and emotionally evocative. For a reader with my tastes, there's not much more one could ask of a work of fiction!
Two quick closing comments: first, there are unanswered questions here about Stark's origins and background, and about the Martian world --what kind of "beasts" are used as mounts here, for instance, as another reviewer mentioned, or what the economic base of a city-state like Kushat is. But these are questions that probably have answers in the first book, which I skipped over for now. Second, Brackett incorporates one plot element here, at a crucial moment, that's meant to come as a major surprise. It does to Stark, but it probably won't to the reader. Not to share any spoilers, but there are a couple of dead giveaways here; had they been avoided, the "surprise" might actually have been a more effective surprise. But these are minor criticisms of a very good read of its type.
Genre giant Brackett stands in the Romantic tradition, and represents SF's "soft" school; she's known for her "swords-and-planet" tales of adventure and derring-do on mostly low-tech worlds, and her style was shaped in the hey-day of the pulp magazines. Stark himself has affinities to the typical Burroughs hero, or to some of Robert E. Howatd's protagonists; the appeal of "primitivism" (which I've discussed elsewhere) is clearly present here, though in Stark's case, he's not a refugee or escapee from civilization. (Of Earth stock, he was born on Mercury, and apparently grew up in a rough setting and circumstances, with trauma that left him carrying a lot of psychological damage.) He's a bit more rough-edged than , say, John Carter, and indeed can at times seem almost feral. But he's clearly a person of principle, with a strong sense of loyalty and duty, and a willingness to put his life on the line for what's right when it really matters.
Like many SF authors who wrote before the advent of space exploration by unmanned probes, Brackett imagined the other inner planets of our solar system to be much more hospitable to human life than they actually are. Her Mars is a cold, arid world whose fragile ecology depends on the annual summer melting of much of the polar ice cap; but it's a world with a human-like native race (if they differ from Earth humans in any way, it's not stated here), with a civilization originating a million years earlier, in the time of a culture hero called Ban Cruach. Much of his story is forgotten and mysterious; but at the end of his life, he passed through the Gates of Death, the high pass that is the only way through the mountains enclosing the uninhabited, permanently frozen region around the North Pole itself, after leaving behind an enigmatic talisman in the northern city of Kushat (which controls access to the pass). Now, at the behest of a dying friend, who stole the talisman years before, Stark is journeying through the bitterly cold Martian winter and across the wild, mountainous North (a region much less civilized than southern Mars) to return the object to Kushat.
Brackett's world-building is much more plausible than that of Burrough's Barsoom novels, and (allowing for the basic premise) the science isn't, to a lay reader like myself, glaringly off-beam. (How the high technology --yes, there is some here, but I'm not writing any spoilers-- works isn't explained, and it's not extrapolated from any existing technology, but that's because we're in the realm of soft SF; the author's purpose isn't to speculate about what high technology might someday do, but to use it to tell and enable a story about people in a particular dramatic situation.) Brackett's imagination is genuinely original, in a type of story that often wasn't handled with great originality in the time period when she wrote. The plot covers just a few days, and incorporates a lot of action, usually violent action (corpses at one point are lying in "windrows"), but there's no graphic wallowing in violence for its own sake. (There's also no bad language, and while consensual illicit sex is implied a couple of times, it's handled tastefully --if I'd read this as a kid, I'd have had no clue that it happened.) Our main characters here aren't plaster saints, and we might disapprove (big time, in some cases!) of some of their actions; but they're each vibrantly alive, understandable men and women whose fate we come to care deeply about. They'll face conflicts and challenges here that involve extremely high stakes, and that will tax physical, mental and moral strength to overcome (IF they're overcome....); and the personal interrelationships are complex and emotionally evocative. For a reader with my tastes, there's not much more one could ask of a work of fiction!
Two quick closing comments: first, there are unanswered questions here about Stark's origins and background, and about the Martian world --what kind of "beasts" are used as mounts here, for instance, as another reviewer mentioned, or what the economic base of a city-state like Kushat is. But these are questions that probably have answers in the first book, which I skipped over for now. Second, Brackett incorporates one plot element here, at a crucial moment, that's meant to come as a major surprise. It does to Stark, but it probably won't to the reader. Not to share any spoilers, but there are a couple of dead giveaways here; had they been avoided, the "surprise" might actually have been a more effective surprise. But these are minor criticisms of a very good read of its type.
June 27, 2015
I had never heard of Leigh Brackett until a fellow group member mentioned her and this title (thanks, Werner!). Of course I had to investigate. I had already started reading when I happened to go to Wiki to learn more about Brackett, who wrote science fiction fantasy adventures at a time when most authors in the genre were men. That is how I learned that this story is actually the third of three about our hero Eric John Stark, all written for a fiction magazine of the early 50's called Planet Stories.
I was curious enough about the other two stories to put them on my wish list at my favorite online bookseller, but I was also happy to see that there was not a lot of background explaining going on here. This story is pure action from start to finish, with a few tantalizing hints tossed in about Stark's past. He seems to be a complex type of man, a hero who is not afraid to admit to himself he is afraid. He was a bit over the top in some ways, like a combination of Tarzan, John Carter, and Conan The Barbarian, but I liked him anyway. He was true to his Martian friend Camar, and honest with himself. The story rolled along at a very fast pace, and kept me interested all the way to the end.
Although I must admit, I do wish there had been a few more clues about the appearance of the 'beasts' the warriors were riding. At one point Stark is riding as a captive into the enemy's war camp, surrounded by warriors who might kill him at any second. He makes his mount prance as he goes along, just to show that he is not afraid. Which is cool, but I simply could not picture his beast. Being Mars, and knowing from the Wiki article that Brackett was influenced by Burroughs and Howard, I pictured some sort of lizard or T-Rex type of creature, but I might have thought of a prancing, purple polka-dotted elephant instead, so a little hint would have been nice.
Oh, just a note to those of you with tender tummies: like most stories of this type, there is a lot of blood and guts involved in the battles, and a torture scene that is a bit gruesome. But it took place in the wild northern parts of Mars, you know. You have to be prepared for anything there!
I was curious enough about the other two stories to put them on my wish list at my favorite online bookseller, but I was also happy to see that there was not a lot of background explaining going on here. This story is pure action from start to finish, with a few tantalizing hints tossed in about Stark's past. He seems to be a complex type of man, a hero who is not afraid to admit to himself he is afraid. He was a bit over the top in some ways, like a combination of Tarzan, John Carter, and Conan The Barbarian, but I liked him anyway. He was true to his Martian friend Camar, and honest with himself. The story rolled along at a very fast pace, and kept me interested all the way to the end.
Although I must admit, I do wish there had been a few more clues about the appearance of the 'beasts' the warriors were riding. At one point Stark is riding as a captive into the enemy's war camp, surrounded by warriors who might kill him at any second. He makes his mount prance as he goes along, just to show that he is not afraid. Which is cool, but I simply could not picture his beast. Being Mars, and knowing from the Wiki article that Brackett was influenced by Burroughs and Howard, I pictured some sort of lizard or T-Rex type of creature, but I might have thought of a prancing, purple polka-dotted elephant instead, so a little hint would have been nice.
Oh, just a note to those of you with tender tummies: like most stories of this type, there is a lot of blood and guts involved in the battles, and a torture scene that is a bit gruesome. But it took place in the wild northern parts of Mars, you know. You have to be prepared for anything there!
November 21, 2020
An excellent and suspenseful sword & planet short from Brackett, placed in her world of Eric John Stark, the adventuresome hero with a dark, primal side. First published in 1951, the story is notable for its kick ass female protagonist, in the role of the barbarian queen, i.e. the Black Amazon, who must conceal her gender to retain control over her warriors. In a bit of a Lovecraftian twist, Stark ventures beyond the Gates of Death and encounters some bizarre sorcery which if disturbed threatens to unleash an ancient race of evil aliens bent on reclaiming Mars for themselves after millennia of imprisonment.
September 21, 2024
This volume collects two very different stories. The first, Black Amazon of Mars, is a really good sword and planet story featuring Eric John Stark. I love all of her Stark stuff. This particular piece features a female axe wielding barbarian chieftain, an interesting, malicious race of beings that thrive in icy settings, and some pieces of ancient tech from the ice people and artifacts that were used by humans to stop them centuries past. 5 stars.
The second story, A World is Born, was more middling for Brackett. It was a tale of some interplanetary war convicts working on Mercury. It featured the usual corrupt interests once a valuable mining source was discovered. There were some decent plot twists and intriguing entities . 3 stars.
The second story, A World is Born, was more middling for Brackett. It was a tale of some interplanetary war convicts working on Mercury. It featured the usual corrupt interests once a valuable mining source was discovered. There were some decent plot twists and intriguing entities . 3 stars.
January 4, 2018
There's a lot of awesome here. Some of it is the work, but a lot of it is the author.
Leigh Brackett was a writer in many genres and a screenwriter also. Born in 1915, she defied stereotype and became known for her space operas. John Erik Stark, the hero of this story, is probably her best known character. I see Stark as a mix between Tarzan and John Carter, with a healthy side of Conan. Leigh Brackett read the early pulps of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard and their influence is felt here.
In listening to the story (from Librivox), I greatly enjoyed the prose. Her writing was quite good and entertaining. Stark is a fairly dark hero, but well done. I also must note that the two women in the story were not the fainting damsels of the early pulps. Both had a strength and independence that was notable for 1951 when this story was published.
Other notable work by Leigh Brackett includes writing on the screenplays for three of my favorite movies: Rio Lobo, Rio Bravo, and The Empire Strikes Back. I do want to find some other John Erik Stark to read and possibly some of her western stories and mysteries too.
Leigh Brackett was a writer in many genres and a screenwriter also. Born in 1915, she defied stereotype and became known for her space operas. John Erik Stark, the hero of this story, is probably her best known character. I see Stark as a mix between Tarzan and John Carter, with a healthy side of Conan. Leigh Brackett read the early pulps of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard and their influence is felt here.
In listening to the story (from Librivox), I greatly enjoyed the prose. Her writing was quite good and entertaining. Stark is a fairly dark hero, but well done. I also must note that the two women in the story were not the fainting damsels of the early pulps. Both had a strength and independence that was notable for 1951 when this story was published.
Other notable work by Leigh Brackett includes writing on the screenplays for three of my favorite movies: Rio Lobo, Rio Bravo, and The Empire Strikes Back. I do want to find some other John Erik Stark to read and possibly some of her western stories and mysteries too.
June 18, 2025
Pulp at it's best. This is a story of the backwaters of Mars, away from the technology and spaceships, where a man's worth is determined by his wiles and prowess. Barbarian hordes are at the gates and want to claim the power beyond the Gates of Death. Eric John Stark fights the horde and its indomitable leader, then goes beyond the Gates of Death to rescue a friend only to discover first hand the true nightmare beyond the Gate. This tale reminded me of Black God's Kiss by C. L. Moore. Even though the setting are far from the same I got the same vibe from both. Great fun!
February 3, 2024
Golden-Age science fiction fans have encountered all of this before. And love it! Classic sword-and-planet mayhem featuring a grunting, square-jawed ball of sinew and testosterone... and I'm talking about our heroine! A refreshing story for an era where women were largely relegated to making coffee. Not surprising considering this was written by one of the first ever woman to be shortlisted for the Hugo, and who is noted for her screenplays for classics like "The Big Sleep" and even an early draft of "The Empire Strikes Back"!
I have not read the other stories in this series, but if they are as fun as this, I'm sure I wouldn't begrudge the small investment of time it takes to read them.
SCORE: 3 battle axes out of 5
I have not read the other stories in this series, but if they are as fun as this, I'm sure I wouldn't begrudge the small investment of time it takes to read them.
SCORE: 3 battle axes out of 5
May 22, 2017
Black Amazon of Mars features a kickass female character that is first an antagonist and later an ally of Eric John Stark, Leigh Brackett's great sword and planet character.
The story starts with Stark is taking his friend Camar to his birthplace, Kushat, in the north of Mars to die. Unfortunately Camar dies before they can get there from a bullet wound he received that he took for Stark. He gives Stark a talisman to take to the City of Kushat beyond which lies the Gates of Death. This is not just any talisman as Stark soon discovers there is a power from this ornament that was created to save the people of Mars from extinction. I am now reading the expanded version of this story called "The People of the Talisman".
The story starts with Stark is taking his friend Camar to his birthplace, Kushat, in the north of Mars to die. Unfortunately Camar dies before they can get there from a bullet wound he received that he took for Stark. He gives Stark a talisman to take to the City of Kushat beyond which lies the Gates of Death. This is not just any talisman as Stark soon discovers there is a power from this ornament that was created to save the people of Mars from extinction. I am now reading the expanded version of this story called "The People of the Talisman".
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December 30, 2022well first of all, i dont know why its called black amazon of mars, unless its reference to her armor which i didn't notice was black until looking at the cover. the pulp era, man. wild as shit.
anyway. this was great, significantly better than the dancing girl of ganymede, fully committed to the planetary romance genre. the titular amazon, ciara, is a fabulous character and i wonder the kind of stories brackett would have written if she published in a time where she didn't need erik john stark to carry the tale. the type of setting, too, is one of my favorites--a millions of years old mars with a deep history of sorcery and war and an ancient king. really my only sadness is that brackett really can't hack it when compared to c.l. moore (nothing i've read this far has any of the vivacity of black thirst, insanity of shambleau, romantic melancholy of joirel of jirey, or sheer balls to the wall horniness of the tree of life. and brackett wrote after moore, who was well liked and celebrated both as a solo writer and as a co-writer with her husband. either way--there is a kind of solemnity to brackett's writing that i enjoy, especially in her martian stories that have more to do with war than with individuals. excited to see what the rest of the starke tales shape up to be and my fingers are crossed for sword of rhiannon, which should put all her strengths on display!
anyway. this was great, significantly better than the dancing girl of ganymede, fully committed to the planetary romance genre. the titular amazon, ciara, is a fabulous character and i wonder the kind of stories brackett would have written if she published in a time where she didn't need erik john stark to carry the tale. the type of setting, too, is one of my favorites--a millions of years old mars with a deep history of sorcery and war and an ancient king. really my only sadness is that brackett really can't hack it when compared to c.l. moore (nothing i've read this far has any of the vivacity of black thirst, insanity of shambleau, romantic melancholy of joirel of jirey, or sheer balls to the wall horniness of the tree of life. and brackett wrote after moore, who was well liked and celebrated both as a solo writer and as a co-writer with her husband. either way--there is a kind of solemnity to brackett's writing that i enjoy, especially in her martian stories that have more to do with war than with individuals. excited to see what the rest of the starke tales shape up to be and my fingers are crossed for sword of rhiannon, which should put all her strengths on display!
September 28, 2021
I'm curious how much control Brackett had over the title and the artwork (the latter, probably none), because the identity of Lord Ciaran is well and truly given away by both the title and most cover art associated with the story. Yet within the story it is treated as a nontrivial mystery and surprise.
And like all pulp stories of its era, it is a fast-moving thing that incorporates and discards elements as necessary before it arrives at its final state: romance as necessary, travel to a lost city, war siege, and horror across the millennium. Brackett bends everything to fit with the overriding goal of keeping things moving and interesting.
And like all pulp stories of its era, it is a fast-moving thing that incorporates and discards elements as necessary before it arrives at its final state: romance as necessary, travel to a lost city, war siege, and horror across the millennium. Brackett bends everything to fit with the overriding goal of keeping things moving and interesting.
June 29, 2018
Lot of people have lots of things to say about the stuff penned by Brackett. Most of them are purple, and rightly so. If you have any doubt, go through this one. Apart from threading in the red hues of revenge, redemption, and retribution into a sword & sorcery plot, this novella gives us Eric John Stark in full glory.
And, it gives us a human, fallible, and yet incredible female warrior who creates her own destiny with courage and force, while being not entirely devoid of a flaming beauty.
Ah! Those were the days of high fantasy indeed.
Read Leigh Brackett. Enjoy those days.
And, it gives us a human, fallible, and yet incredible female warrior who creates her own destiny with courage and force, while being not entirely devoid of a flaming beauty.
Ah! Those were the days of high fantasy indeed.
Read Leigh Brackett. Enjoy those days.
January 11, 2016
And now for my latest highly philosophical read...a masterpiece of literary fiction, laying bare the soul of Woman as with a scalpel, we have...BLACK AMAZON OF MARS!!! by Leigh Brackett.
*grin*
So, rewatching a favourite movie, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, recently, reminded me just how little I'd read of the work of legendary scriptwriter and Queen of Space Opera Leigh Brackett. These days Brackett's most well-known for her first-draft work on the second (and only really good) Star Wars movie, and though apparently very little of her work remains in the finished film, her pioneering work as an author of pulp sci-fi well merited the film's being dedicated to her.
Turns out she also recently had a centenary: December 7th, 1915, was her birthday. I nipped off to Project Gutenberg and downloaded (*clears throat*) BLACK AMAZON OF MARS.
This is really only a novella in length, but it was oodles of fun. Brackett's two main influences here are quite clearly Burroughs's Barsoom/John Carter stories and Howard's Conan the Barbarian. And while the story makes no pretences to either psychological or scientific realism, or to philosophical heft, it was jolly good--better written, possibly, than any but the best of Burroughs's or Howard's work. Brackett tells her tale with a glorious, taut economy of words--and of everything else. This is a very lean, spare story, but the plot and the world-building are both good enough to keep it from feeling like a mere skeleton of a tale. Pulp fiction was all about the plot and the melodramatics; with everything else pared down to the minimum, Brackett's essential artistic talent shines all the more brightly.
From a worldview perspective, I was fascinated to compare Brackett's story with Edgar Rice Burroughs's. Brackett's hero, Eric John Stark, we are regularly told, has only the lightest veneer of civilisation over a caveman core, having been raised by animal tribes on Mercury. As a pulp hero, he is obviously intended to be the coolest, biggest, baddest warrior barbarian ever, and he's all about the primal urges, which is what makes him so cool. That puts him in rather stark (pun not intended) contrast with Burroughs's chivalrous Southern gentleman hero John Carter. What makes John Carter so cool is that as well as being the best swordsman on two worlds and an unstoppable one-man-army, he's also a thorough gentleman, a man of refinement and self-control. Everyone on Barsoom is a barbarian; it takes the Earthman to transcend that, to win the princess's hand through humble service, tame wild beasts through kindness, and become the Totally Awesome Warlord of Barsoom through winning the savage loyalty of his barbaric opponents.
Brackett's story was good. But when it comes to main characters, give me John Carter over Eric John Stark any day.
*grin*
So, rewatching a favourite movie, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, recently, reminded me just how little I'd read of the work of legendary scriptwriter and Queen of Space Opera Leigh Brackett. These days Brackett's most well-known for her first-draft work on the second (and only really good) Star Wars movie, and though apparently very little of her work remains in the finished film, her pioneering work as an author of pulp sci-fi well merited the film's being dedicated to her.
Turns out she also recently had a centenary: December 7th, 1915, was her birthday. I nipped off to Project Gutenberg and downloaded (*clears throat*) BLACK AMAZON OF MARS.
This is really only a novella in length, but it was oodles of fun. Brackett's two main influences here are quite clearly Burroughs's Barsoom/John Carter stories and Howard's Conan the Barbarian. And while the story makes no pretences to either psychological or scientific realism, or to philosophical heft, it was jolly good--better written, possibly, than any but the best of Burroughs's or Howard's work. Brackett tells her tale with a glorious, taut economy of words--and of everything else. This is a very lean, spare story, but the plot and the world-building are both good enough to keep it from feeling like a mere skeleton of a tale. Pulp fiction was all about the plot and the melodramatics; with everything else pared down to the minimum, Brackett's essential artistic talent shines all the more brightly.
From a worldview perspective, I was fascinated to compare Brackett's story with Edgar Rice Burroughs's. Brackett's hero, Eric John Stark, we are regularly told, has only the lightest veneer of civilisation over a caveman core, having been raised by animal tribes on Mercury. As a pulp hero, he is obviously intended to be the coolest, biggest, baddest warrior barbarian ever, and he's all about the primal urges, which is what makes him so cool. That puts him in rather stark (pun not intended) contrast with Burroughs's chivalrous Southern gentleman hero John Carter. What makes John Carter so cool is that as well as being the best swordsman on two worlds and an unstoppable one-man-army, he's also a thorough gentleman, a man of refinement and self-control. Everyone on Barsoom is a barbarian; it takes the Earthman to transcend that, to win the princess's hand through humble service, tame wild beasts through kindness, and become the Totally Awesome Warlord of Barsoom through winning the savage loyalty of his barbaric opponents.
Brackett's story was good. But when it comes to main characters, give me John Carter over Eric John Stark any day.
January 4, 2014
Quite amazing.
In my defense, I've just lost my 14-year old dog, and was drinking to forget, so it came as a surprise to me when I figured out, only about half-way through, who the Black Amazon was… but I hadn't realized when I downloaded this from Project Gutenberg that it was an Eric John Stark story, so I was focusing on that. Clearly, however, the Amazon wasn't wearing the armor shown on the cover of the "Planet Stories" magazine issue that the story appeared in, or Eric John Stark wouldn't have been so slow on the uptake either.
Leigh Brackett may well have been the last practitioner of the Edgar Rice Burroughs school of Mars stories. Like ERB's Mars, this story is completely unscientific. Generally, I prefer Brackett's Skaith novels, because they're set on a complete fantasy world that can be anything she wants, rather than a Mars that is nothing like what we know it is, but really, it doesn't matter what the setting is, because the stories are about Stark and his need to make things right in the face of oppression.
Stark is from a long literary line of humans-raised-by-animals (or at least savages) like Burroughs' Tarzan or Kipling's Mowgli, and like them he has learned to be the best of both worlds.
In this outing, Stark must return a stolen talisman (read: powerful artifact of long-forgotten science) that protects all of Mars from the return of an ancient race of pure Evil from beyond the Gates of the Dead. My only problem with the story is that, in its time, the solution probably seemed fine, but in 2014 I can't help thinking that "pure Evil" really means "unfathomably alien" (since no evidence of actual Evil is presented) and that there should have been a better solution to the co-existence of the two races.
August 13, 2018
I've just listened to an audio version of Black Amazon of Mars, which was originally published in Planet Stories magazine in 1951. It's one of Brackett's Eric John Stark novellas set on Mars, which were very enjoyable stories comparable to Burroughs' Carter or Bradbury's Chronicles. It has a very confusing history, because it was expanded to novel length in 1964 under the title of People of the Talisman. Legend has it that the expansion may well have actually been written by Brackett's husband, Edmond Hamilton. In any event, it's a very different story even though it intersects with the original on many points; I much prefer the original... or at least my memory of it for now. I'll have to re-read the expansion and compare while this one's this fresh in my mind. Also, I've found that Brackett is one of those writers that I have to actually read on paper to appreciate fully. It's a fun sword & planet romp.
December 29, 2012
Actually 3.5 stars
Fast and entertaining planetary romance. The writing is superb, and some of the imagery incredible. It is amazing what turns of phrase she conjures and how well Ms. Brackett can make sometimes sparse language (that would be at home in an old, hard-boiled mystery) work to paint a vivid image. She was definitely a master at her craft.
One possible issue would be that it is, after all, a product of its own time and place, and some of the characterization and attitudes might seem unrealistic to a contemporary reader. Then again, it's taking place on Mars, so realism isn't necessarily the goal...and that same issue might also be considered a perk to others: a refreshing change of pace and perspective. In either case, it doesn't detract and make the story any less readable, in my opinion, now than it was then.
Definitely enjoyable.
Fast and entertaining planetary romance. The writing is superb, and some of the imagery incredible. It is amazing what turns of phrase she conjures and how well Ms. Brackett can make sometimes sparse language (that would be at home in an old, hard-boiled mystery) work to paint a vivid image. She was definitely a master at her craft.
One possible issue would be that it is, after all, a product of its own time and place, and some of the characterization and attitudes might seem unrealistic to a contemporary reader. Then again, it's taking place on Mars, so realism isn't necessarily the goal...and that same issue might also be considered a perk to others: a refreshing change of pace and perspective. In either case, it doesn't detract and make the story any less readable, in my opinion, now than it was then.
Definitely enjoyable.
July 3, 2022
This was a fun afternoon read. If you enjoy pulp action fun and fighting on Mars this is for you! It was nothing mind riveting. But if you're in the mood for some old timey fun. This might be for you!
August 26, 2025
Continuing my dive into the works of Leigh Brackett, this pulp novella from 1951 is her third story featuring Eric John Stark, the Tarzan/John Carter hybrid who makes a living on Mars as a mercenary. This time, the story opens with Stark accompanying a dying native Martian named Camar to his home in Kushat, which is up around Mars’ polar ice cap. Camar wants to die in his homeland – which is awkward because the reason he left in the first place was that he stole a sacred talisman designed to protect Kushat from evil – namely, the evil beyond the Gates Of Death that Kushat is supposed to protect the rest of Mars from.
According to legend, a million years ago, Ban Cruach created the talisman – and embedded his own memories into it – so that people would not forget the evil lurking beyond the Gates of Death, and how to defeat it should it ever come back. Stark reluctantly promises Camar he will return the talisman to Kushat, and is promptly captured by barbarian soldiers of Lord Ciaran, who knows the talisman has been stolen and plans to take control of the unprotected Kushat – or better yet, recover the talisman to make the task easier. Suspecting Stark knows where it is, Ciaran decides to torture the information out of him. Big mistake!
And so on and so on. As before, it’s fairly standard pulp stuff that’s more fantasy than science, and yet Brackett writes it well. And while she sticks to the usual he-man tropes expected for the genre at the time, she also quietly subverts it with stronger-than-usual female characters that you generally don’t find in the works of her Golden Age contemporaries, let alone writers like E.R. Burroughs.
According to legend, a million years ago, Ban Cruach created the talisman – and embedded his own memories into it – so that people would not forget the evil lurking beyond the Gates of Death, and how to defeat it should it ever come back. Stark reluctantly promises Camar he will return the talisman to Kushat, and is promptly captured by barbarian soldiers of Lord Ciaran, who knows the talisman has been stolen and plans to take control of the unprotected Kushat – or better yet, recover the talisman to make the task easier. Suspecting Stark knows where it is, Ciaran decides to torture the information out of him. Big mistake!
And so on and so on. As before, it’s fairly standard pulp stuff that’s more fantasy than science, and yet Brackett writes it well. And while she sticks to the usual he-man tropes expected for the genre at the time, she also quietly subverts it with stronger-than-usual female characters that you generally don’t find in the works of her Golden Age contemporaries, let alone writers like E.R. Burroughs.
April 16, 2024
This is a fun little story that touches on virtually every element of the planetary romance genre I love - martians, neo-feudalism, magic and technology side by side, barbarians, barbarian women, weirdo protagonists, steely thews, open-ended conclusions. Brackett is really only ever mentioned as a contemporary of other Appendix N authors like Howard, Burroughs, etc. and that's honestly too bad, because for my money there is no better planetary romance author better than Leigh Brackett; her imagination and skillful prose is FAR superior to her more lauded and popular peers.
December 27, 2018
Oh, ‘Problematic’ and ‘Pulp’ go hand-in-hand so often, don’t they?
This is a rousing adventure story, another fine example of Leigh’s Eric John Stark saving the day, and the idea of Old Mars at its finest with crumbling civilizations, ancient foes, religious tech, and shining swords ready for battle.
It’s also highly cringe-worthy at how gender, sexuality, and race are portrayed.
Overall, a great example of both what to do and what not to do if you want to write Space Opera today.
July 20, 2020
Sword and sorcery, fantasy on Mars. Thoroughly enjoyable.
June 4, 2015
I read this as a sort of follow up to 'Sea Kings of Mars' by the same author. It's another pulp story from 1951 with the same basic outline.. hero fights and defeats the evil ones, gets the girl in the end.
Although I did not find this as good as Sea Kings of Mars I did notice one interesting description of how a magic sword effected the ice dwelling creatures.
"The strange force in the blazing sword made an invisible barrier across the mouth of the pass, protected Ban Cruach himself. A barrier of short waves, he thought, of the type used in deep therapy, having no heat themselves but increasing the heat in body cells by increasing their vibration."
That's a pretty good description of microwaves. The first patent for a microwave cooker was filed in 1945, but it was not until about 1967 that it became applicable as a household appliance.
An interesting short work for pulp fans, but not up to the standard of pulp masters such as Burroughs or Howard.
Although I did not find this as good as Sea Kings of Mars I did notice one interesting description of how a magic sword effected the ice dwelling creatures.
"The strange force in the blazing sword made an invisible barrier across the mouth of the pass, protected Ban Cruach himself. A barrier of short waves, he thought, of the type used in deep therapy, having no heat themselves but increasing the heat in body cells by increasing their vibration."
That's a pretty good description of microwaves. The first patent for a microwave cooker was filed in 1945, but it was not until about 1967 that it became applicable as a household appliance.
An interesting short work for pulp fans, but not up to the standard of pulp masters such as Burroughs or Howard.
April 25, 2017
I love Leigh Brackett's writing and this was a really nice small collection. Here were just three short stories, the first was a sword and sorcery epic on Mars, the second and third more of a traditional science fiction golden age story, with some rather pulpy film noir sounding parts. Alien intelligences, haunting visions from the past, intelligent women, what's not to love?
January 8, 2013
Actually 3.5 stars. It was a fun romp with a strong, anti-cliche, female character compared to most pulp of it's time. Similar to Barsoom, and equally enjoyable.
April 29, 2013
"His nostrils twitched to the smell of evil . . ."
January 15, 2020
A sword and planet tale, fast and sharp. It really felt more fantasy than most Eric John Stark tales, with much less technology present.
September 6, 2019
I picked this 1951 book because I had a few days before the new Stephen King book comes out. I didn't realize at the time that the author, Leigh Brackett, was a screenwriter for the original Star Wars. I also didn't realize she was a she as that was a rarity back in those days.
It's a pretty typical story, Earthman on Mars gets a talisman from his dying Martian friend and battles and quests ensue. The hero, Stark, runs into a warlord, Ciara, who leads a band of soldiers and always wears a mask.
Well during a battle Stark unmasks Ciara and discovers to everyone's horror that the warlord is a warlady! Also he, of course, falls in love with her at first sight. Not an uncommon scenario in these stories.
A difference though, usually the women swoon for the men, give up their former life and devote themselves to the hero. This woman does fall in love with him, but she gives up nothing and remains a leader after finding love. A nice touch and perhaps due to the author realizing a woman can love and lead.
It's a pretty typical story, Earthman on Mars gets a talisman from his dying Martian friend and battles and quests ensue. The hero, Stark, runs into a warlord, Ciara, who leads a band of soldiers and always wears a mask.
Well during a battle Stark unmasks Ciara and discovers to everyone's horror that the warlord is a warlady! Also he, of course, falls in love with her at first sight. Not an uncommon scenario in these stories.
A difference though, usually the women swoon for the men, give up their former life and devote themselves to the hero. This woman does fall in love with him, but she gives up nothing and remains a leader after finding love. A nice touch and perhaps due to the author realizing a woman can love and lead.
June 16, 2022
We recently did a puzzle comprised of pulp sci-fi covers, and I decided to download this novella from Project Gutenberg. Leigh Brackett, as a woman, was a rarity in the early days of science fiction.
The novella is full of action, and based on the idea of a warrior culture within a Mars populated by humans and also other strange creatures.
The Black Amazon of the title is Ciaran who, disguised in head to toe black armor, leads a tribe of barbarians determined to capture the city of Kushat and reveal the secret it guards. She is opposed by Eric John Stark, a rugged mercenary who reveals her as a WOMAN! Stark holds the key to the Gates of Death, an ancient pass which protects the inhabitants of Mars from unspeakable foes. Ciaran pursues Stark through the gates, and then realizes they must fight together to prevent the ice creatures behind the gate from destroying human life on Mars.
The novella is full of action, and based on the idea of a warrior culture within a Mars populated by humans and also other strange creatures.
The Black Amazon of the title is Ciaran who, disguised in head to toe black armor, leads a tribe of barbarians determined to capture the city of Kushat and reveal the secret it guards. She is opposed by Eric John Stark, a rugged mercenary who reveals her as a WOMAN! Stark holds the key to the Gates of Death, an ancient pass which protects the inhabitants of Mars from unspeakable foes. Ciaran pursues Stark through the gates, and then realizes they must fight together to prevent the ice creatures behind the gate from destroying human life on Mars.
October 30, 2019
A lost classic from the writer of The Empire Strikes Back.
Okay so imagine Han Solo is now an Earthman named Eric John Stark, raised by Mercurian aborigines, and now escorting his dying friend home to the polar ice caps of Mars. Imagine tusken raiders assaulting a magic ice castle on Hoth, only to be confronted with an ancient evil made out of ice crystal technology. That's Black Amazon of Mars. It's pretty good. Maybe the best SF/F pulp novel I've ever read.
Also I think George RR Martin owes something to this: two groups at war must put aside enmity to confront ancient ice-themed evil haunting the far north.
Okay so imagine Han Solo is now an Earthman named Eric John Stark, raised by Mercurian aborigines, and now escorting his dying friend home to the polar ice caps of Mars. Imagine tusken raiders assaulting a magic ice castle on Hoth, only to be confronted with an ancient evil made out of ice crystal technology. That's Black Amazon of Mars. It's pretty good. Maybe the best SF/F pulp novel I've ever read.
Also I think George RR Martin owes something to this: two groups at war must put aside enmity to confront ancient ice-themed evil haunting the far north.
August 26, 2020
The Amazon herself was amazing. Wow. (And, the "black" refers to her armor, not her skin color. What did you expect, this is 50s pulp after all.)
And I love that cover, even though...
But, I don't like the Manly Man.
Of course he would kiss her against her will. :-(
And, of course he cannot be "tamed". Of course. He's a MANly MAN. Grrr.
He probably has steel grey eyes and black hair. Don't really know, don't care either.
I wanted to read something by Leigh Brackett, and the cover got me. Who wouldn't want to know who THAT is?
But - uh... I'm not that into 50s space pulp.
And I love that cover, even though...
But, I don't like the Manly Man.
Of course he would kiss her against her will. :-(
And, of course he cannot be "tamed". Of course. He's a MANly MAN. Grrr.
He probably has steel grey eyes and black hair. Don't really know, don't care either.
I wanted to read something by Leigh Brackett, and the cover got me. Who wouldn't want to know who THAT is?
But - uh... I'm not that into 50s space pulp.
October 23, 2025
Fast easy read yet evidently by a distinctive auteur with little of the nauseatingly exhaustive introspection more common to contemporary writers (yr 2020's). Yet lurking in the substratum are several distracting glaring discontinuities. For instance, a million years without any hint of either advancement or rescue of an apparently sophisticated race? Talk about a thoroughly dead race yet still inexplicably living. This repeated million years timeframe badly leads one's interest astray. Also the protagonist is something akin to a diluted version of Conan. Nonetheless enjoyable for all of that.
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