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The Vampires of Mars #1
Prisoner of the Vampires of Mars
Robert Darvel, a young and penniless French engineer at the turn of the twentieth century, is an amateur astronomer obsessed with the planet Mars. Transported by a combination of science and psychic powers to Mars, Robert must navigate the dangers of the Red Planet while trying to return to his fiancée on Earth. Through his travels, we discover that Mars can not only support life but is also home to three different types of vampires. This riveting combination of science fiction and the adventure story provides a vivid depiction of an imagined Mars and its strange, unearthly creatures who might be closer to earthly humans than we would care to believe.
Originally published in French as two separate volumes, translated as The Prisoner of the Planet Mars (1908) and The War of the Vampires (1909), this vintage work is available to English-language audiences unabridged for the first time and masterfully translated by David Beus and Brian Evenson.
Originally published in French as two separate volumes, translated as The Prisoner of the Planet Mars (1908) and The War of the Vampires (1909), this vintage work is available to English-language audiences unabridged for the first time and masterfully translated by David Beus and Brian Evenson.
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1908
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203 people want to read
About the author
Gustave Le Rouge
295 books5 followersGustave Henri Joseph Le Rouge (22 July 1867 - 24 February 1938) was a French writer who embodied the evolution of modern science fiction at the beginning of the 20th century, by moving it away from the juvenile adventures of Jules Verne and incorporating real people into his stories, thus bridging the gap between Vernian and Wellsian science fiction.
Le Rouge was born at Valognes, Manche.
He burst onto the literary scene with La Conspiration des Milliardaires [The Billionaires' Conspiracy] (1899-1900), co-written with Gustave Guitton, in which American billionaire William Boltyn uses Thomas Edison's "Metal Men" (Karel Čapek coined the term "robot" only in 1920) and the power of mediums to try to become master of the world. Le Rouge and Guitton went on to produce two more novels in the same vein, La princesse des airs [The Princess of the Skies] (1902) and Le sous-marin Jules Verne [The Submarine Jules Verne] (1903).
After they quarreled and went their separate ways, Le Rouge continued to produce solo fiction such as L'Espionne du Grand Lama (1906), which introduced a Lost World inhabited by prehistoric creatures and La Reine des Éléphants [The Queen of Elephants] (1906), which featured a society of intelligent elephants.
Sandwiched between Arnould Galopin's Doctor Omega (1906) and Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars (1912), Le Rouge's masterpiece was Le Prisonnier de la Planète Mars (1908) and its sequel, La Guerre des Vampires (1909), a Martian Odyssey in which French engineer Robert Darvel is dispatched to Mars by the psychic powers of Hindu Brahmins. On the Red Planet, Darvel runs afoul of hostile, bat-winged, blood-sucking natives, a once-powerful civilization now ruled by the Great Brain. The entity eventually sends Darvel back to Earth, unfortunately with some of the vampires. The second volume deals with the war of the vampires back on Earth. Le Rouge's Mars is elaborately described, with its fauna, flora and various races of inhabitants, à la C. S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet (1938). Planetary romance blends with "cosmic horror" as the characters switch from swashbuckling he-men to helpless bundles of gibbering terror.
In 1907, Le Rouge first made the acquaintance of the Swiss poet Blaise Cendrars, who later painted an affectionately colorful portrait of him in his memoir L’homme foudroyé (1945).
Le Rouge's classic mad scientist / conspiracy saga is Le Mystérieux Docteur Cornelius (1912–13). Cornelius Kramm and his brother, Fritz, rule an international criminal empire called the Red Hand. Cornelius is a brilliant cosmetic surgeon nicknamed the "Sculptor of Human Flesh" for his ability to alter people's likenesses. The Red Hand's growing, global, evil influence eventually causes the creation of an alliance of heroes, led by Dr. Prosper Bondonnat, billionaire William Dorgan and Lord Burydan, who band together to fight and, ultimately, defeat them.
During World War I, Le Rouge became a war correspondent for various magazines, eventually settling into a long-term position with Le Petit Parisien. He continued to produce books of various sorts, including some pioneering exercises in spy fiction and some detective fiction throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, but none of his later works made any considerable impact.
Le Rouge was born at Valognes, Manche.
He burst onto the literary scene with La Conspiration des Milliardaires [The Billionaires' Conspiracy] (1899-1900), co-written with Gustave Guitton, in which American billionaire William Boltyn uses Thomas Edison's "Metal Men" (Karel Čapek coined the term "robot" only in 1920) and the power of mediums to try to become master of the world. Le Rouge and Guitton went on to produce two more novels in the same vein, La princesse des airs [The Princess of the Skies] (1902) and Le sous-marin Jules Verne [The Submarine Jules Verne] (1903).
After they quarreled and went their separate ways, Le Rouge continued to produce solo fiction such as L'Espionne du Grand Lama (1906), which introduced a Lost World inhabited by prehistoric creatures and La Reine des Éléphants [The Queen of Elephants] (1906), which featured a society of intelligent elephants.
Sandwiched between Arnould Galopin's Doctor Omega (1906) and Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars (1912), Le Rouge's masterpiece was Le Prisonnier de la Planète Mars (1908) and its sequel, La Guerre des Vampires (1909), a Martian Odyssey in which French engineer Robert Darvel is dispatched to Mars by the psychic powers of Hindu Brahmins. On the Red Planet, Darvel runs afoul of hostile, bat-winged, blood-sucking natives, a once-powerful civilization now ruled by the Great Brain. The entity eventually sends Darvel back to Earth, unfortunately with some of the vampires. The second volume deals with the war of the vampires back on Earth. Le Rouge's Mars is elaborately described, with its fauna, flora and various races of inhabitants, à la C. S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet (1938). Planetary romance blends with "cosmic horror" as the characters switch from swashbuckling he-men to helpless bundles of gibbering terror.
In 1907, Le Rouge first made the acquaintance of the Swiss poet Blaise Cendrars, who later painted an affectionately colorful portrait of him in his memoir L’homme foudroyé (1945).
Le Rouge's classic mad scientist / conspiracy saga is Le Mystérieux Docteur Cornelius (1912–13). Cornelius Kramm and his brother, Fritz, rule an international criminal empire called the Red Hand. Cornelius is a brilliant cosmetic surgeon nicknamed the "Sculptor of Human Flesh" for his ability to alter people's likenesses. The Red Hand's growing, global, evil influence eventually causes the creation of an alliance of heroes, led by Dr. Prosper Bondonnat, billionaire William Dorgan and Lord Burydan, who band together to fight and, ultimately, defeat them.
During World War I, Le Rouge became a war correspondent for various magazines, eventually settling into a long-term position with Le Petit Parisien. He continued to produce books of various sorts, including some pioneering exercises in spy fiction and some detective fiction throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, but none of his later works made any considerable impact.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 16, 2022
Here's a bit of Radium-Age science fiction perfect for Spooktober reading or anytime. Developed and written independently of the American interplanetary adventures like those of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ralph Milne Farley, or E.E. Smith, this book still shares the same sense of wonder and excitement that we all love in our early scientific romances. But the weird execution is what sets this apart. And of course it's weird. It's French! :)
"Le Prisonnier de la Planéte Mars" was never before translated into English until a century after its initial publication, when two modern greats of speculative fiction, both by the name of Brian, independently published two different translations of this work. Brian Evenson gave us perhaps the best known and most recent version in 2015, but the version I read for this review was by Brian Stableford, who actually translated both this book and its sequel in one volume for Black Coat Press.
A good third to a half of this novel takes place on Earth, concerning an engineer named Robert (we'll call him Bob, as usual), who is down on his luck but who is offered a job by a wealthy Brahmin eccentric. While in India, Bob develops a bizarre means of propulsion via psychic energy. His benefactor, completely out of the blue, proves to be a traitor and a mustachio-twirling villain, suddenly bent on using Bob's invention for evil. To get Bob out of the way, he has local fakirs drug him up and mummify him so that he can shoot Bob off to Mars in a coffin using the psychic energy collector. Why does he do this instead of just killing Bob? Ask James Bond. Though he does succeed in sending Bob to Mars, the whole scheme blows up in the traitor's face. Literally.
Meanwhile, how Bob survived being mummified for a month, being burned up in the atmosphere, traveling through the airless void of space, and then crashing into Mars is beyond me, but when he wakes up from his fakir trance, he seems none the worse for wear. He immediately sets about exploring, foraging for alien plants and hunting alien birds, all of which are remarkably and unimaginatively similar to those found on Earth. He builds himself a shelter, fashions his own tools, starts his own fire, and makes his own clothes. I love how all these proto-scifi authors take the most fragile of European men of manners, these nerdy bookworm characters who spend their days dining out and living off a family inheritance, and expect us to believe they are such ubermensch as to be equally adept at survival in the wilderness. Oh, hell with it, if we can believe the absinthe-soaked imagination of Gustav Le Rouge's plot so far, we can believe Bob is Martian Tarzan.
"But Warren, you nerdy (and handsome) French ubermensch," I anticipate you saying, "all that is well and good. But we came here for vampires!"
Right you are, my friends! And have no doubt that if you want vampires, you will get them! It appears that there are many species evolved on the planet to feed off blood. We first encounter a vampiric squid monster, which I must confess has to be one of the most unique and fascinating literary creations I've ever encountered in all my years of fantasy literature. Next are the evil bat people, similar to those in Burroughs' Caspak novels, who have been ruling over a diminutive race of humanoids with centuries of terrorism. Bob makes it his personal mission to rid the innocent natives of Mars from these parasitic marauders. Will Bob fall victim to the folly of his own hubris, or is his earthly intellect up for the task? And what does he hope to accomplish? Because Bob does have alarming visions of grandeur, an imperialist desire awakened in the young scientist to not only share his science but to rule.
I like the questions the novel posits, as vampirism has served not only as an allegory for carnal desire but also for narcissism.
This novel is great fun, combining early cosmic horror concepts (before that was even a thing) with a survival adventure against alien menaces. The imagery is vivid and really immerses you in fantastic lands. Now, this is not a complete story arc in itself, as it abruptly ends to make set the reader up for the next installment. I will leave a separate review of that one at a later date.
In conclusion, you do have to seriously suspend your disbelief for this wildly fantastic tale, but if you do, you will be rewarded. A solid four stars!
"Le Prisonnier de la Planéte Mars" was never before translated into English until a century after its initial publication, when two modern greats of speculative fiction, both by the name of Brian, independently published two different translations of this work. Brian Evenson gave us perhaps the best known and most recent version in 2015, but the version I read for this review was by Brian Stableford, who actually translated both this book and its sequel in one volume for Black Coat Press.
A good third to a half of this novel takes place on Earth, concerning an engineer named Robert (we'll call him Bob, as usual), who is down on his luck but who is offered a job by a wealthy Brahmin eccentric. While in India, Bob develops a bizarre means of propulsion via psychic energy. His benefactor, completely out of the blue, proves to be a traitor and a mustachio-twirling villain, suddenly bent on using Bob's invention for evil. To get Bob out of the way, he has local fakirs drug him up and mummify him so that he can shoot Bob off to Mars in a coffin using the psychic energy collector. Why does he do this instead of just killing Bob? Ask James Bond. Though he does succeed in sending Bob to Mars, the whole scheme blows up in the traitor's face. Literally.
Meanwhile, how Bob survived being mummified for a month, being burned up in the atmosphere, traveling through the airless void of space, and then crashing into Mars is beyond me, but when he wakes up from his fakir trance, he seems none the worse for wear. He immediately sets about exploring, foraging for alien plants and hunting alien birds, all of which are remarkably and unimaginatively similar to those found on Earth. He builds himself a shelter, fashions his own tools, starts his own fire, and makes his own clothes. I love how all these proto-scifi authors take the most fragile of European men of manners, these nerdy bookworm characters who spend their days dining out and living off a family inheritance, and expect us to believe they are such ubermensch as to be equally adept at survival in the wilderness. Oh, hell with it, if we can believe the absinthe-soaked imagination of Gustav Le Rouge's plot so far, we can believe Bob is Martian Tarzan.
"But Warren, you nerdy (and handsome) French ubermensch," I anticipate you saying, "all that is well and good. But we came here for vampires!"
Right you are, my friends! And have no doubt that if you want vampires, you will get them! It appears that there are many species evolved on the planet to feed off blood. We first encounter a vampiric squid monster, which I must confess has to be one of the most unique and fascinating literary creations I've ever encountered in all my years of fantasy literature. Next are the evil bat people, similar to those in Burroughs' Caspak novels, who have been ruling over a diminutive race of humanoids with centuries of terrorism. Bob makes it his personal mission to rid the innocent natives of Mars from these parasitic marauders. Will Bob fall victim to the folly of his own hubris, or is his earthly intellect up for the task? And what does he hope to accomplish? Because Bob does have alarming visions of grandeur, an imperialist desire awakened in the young scientist to not only share his science but to rule.
I like the questions the novel posits, as vampirism has served not only as an allegory for carnal desire but also for narcissism.
This novel is great fun, combining early cosmic horror concepts (before that was even a thing) with a survival adventure against alien menaces. The imagery is vivid and really immerses you in fantastic lands. Now, this is not a complete story arc in itself, as it abruptly ends to make set the reader up for the next installment. I will leave a separate review of that one at a later date.
In conclusion, you do have to seriously suspend your disbelief for this wildly fantastic tale, but if you do, you will be rewarded. A solid four stars!
February 4, 2019
The book is a blend of Kipling, Wells, Rice Burroughs, Verne, and Lovecraft: Wild colonial steam punk adventure with a hefty helping of horror mixed in. Indiana Jones goes to Mars... a very unfriendly version of Mars.
I’m going to dive right into the sequel to see what happens.
I’m going to dive right into the sequel to see what happens.
March 27, 2025
Originally published in France in 1908 (*before* the Barsoom books) here is a completely bonkers early sci-fi novel relating the journey to Mars of an all conquering French colonial white saviour type - sent there by the mechanically concentrated psychic power of sinister Hindu fakirs. Yup, utterly bonkers.
This has the Jules Verne worship of science and technology, the overbearing H Rider Haggard style of colonial adventure, and a Lovecraftian taste for grotesque horrors and vanished civilisations. Throw in mad scientists (eccentrics hence obligatorily Anglo-Saxon), plucky heiresses with unlimited funds, and manly polymath adventurers (French, obviously) for all females to pine over, and you get the idea.
Obviously, Mars is inhabited with goodies and baddies as this is a planetary romance, and hence we have a wildly imaginative depiction of flora, fauna, natives, etc., drawing on all of the incorrect scientific theories of the time. One bit of actual science is the lower gravity of Mars, but this is hardly ever used as a plot device - although it’s hinted at as a reason for the adventurer’s superhuman attributes, which the John Carter books fully embraced.
All the prejudices of the time are present and (not) correct, making this very dated for all the visionary leaps of imagination.
Overall this is a fun read, particularly to spot all the early examples of a whole host of tropes. Early French sci-fi is becoming a favourite genre.
This has the Jules Verne worship of science and technology, the overbearing H Rider Haggard style of colonial adventure, and a Lovecraftian taste for grotesque horrors and vanished civilisations. Throw in mad scientists (eccentrics hence obligatorily Anglo-Saxon), plucky heiresses with unlimited funds, and manly polymath adventurers (French, obviously) for all females to pine over, and you get the idea.
Obviously, Mars is inhabited with goodies and baddies as this is a planetary romance, and hence we have a wildly imaginative depiction of flora, fauna, natives, etc., drawing on all of the incorrect scientific theories of the time. One bit of actual science is the lower gravity of Mars, but this is hardly ever used as a plot device - although it’s hinted at as a reason for the adventurer’s superhuman attributes, which the John Carter books fully embraced.
All the prejudices of the time are present and (not) correct, making this very dated for all the visionary leaps of imagination.
Overall this is a fun read, particularly to spot all the early examples of a whole host of tropes. Early French sci-fi is becoming a favourite genre.
February 10, 2018
An SF book from 1908... it was bound to be interesting and amusing at times. And it was. The way it assumed Mars is basically the same as Earth, the approaches to technology and parapshychology, the way people at that time imagined futuristic technology to look like... Yes, it was all amusing, maybe a bit naive.
It isn't a bad thing, I can barely imagine how life was in those times and apparently some things I thought existed since the dawn of time did not exist a hundred years ago. Huh.
What I really liked about this book was to see in what directions the author's imagination took as, without being "encumbered" with decades of SF legacy. And he takes into a really interesting journey, one that hasn't really been repeated for a hundred years.
It isn't a bad thing, I can barely imagine how life was in those times and apparently some things I thought existed since the dawn of time did not exist a hundred years ago. Huh.
What I really liked about this book was to see in what directions the author's imagination took as, without being "encumbered" with decades of SF legacy. And he takes into a really interesting journey, one that hasn't really been repeated for a hundred years.
December 28, 2022
This is an overall good book, but one that aged very poorly in the way it describes the martians as little more than savages and the French protagonist as someone who has the special mission to introduce the civilized way of life to the martians. This colonialist and eurocentric vision is incredibly outdated, as it is the way Mars is described as a planet full of life, blue skies, breathable air and big oceans. Most of the science presented in this book is actually very unscientific and implausible (what is kind of understandable, as this is a very early science fiction book written in 1908). If one can forget those flaws, the book can be a good read, with very nice descriptions of fantastic landscapes and incredible forgotten alien structures.
May 16, 2021
Nie jestem w stanie obronić tej książki i tym razem pierzyna, pt. "Ale Panie, kiedy on to pisał", niczego nie zmienia. Pozycja ta jest cholernie naiwna, ściśle odzwierciedla ignorancję epoki i skupia się na tym, by nikogo nie wprowadzić w osłupienie. Tak, są w niej aparaty robiące zdjęcia duchom...
September 10, 2018
Alguien se ha perdido en Marte. Conseguirá volver y narrara como unos extraños vampiros lo raptaron y su aventura de escape.
March 15, 2020
An early masterpiece of adventurous horror/fantasy. with HG Wells' influence evident, and a foretaste of Burroughs' Mars books.
July 21, 2025
No me ha gustado, aunque no lo suficiente como para no terminarlo.
Lo leí pensando que era un libro de Ciencia Ficción de la vieja escuela, pero casi es más un libro de fantasía o aventuras cuyo escenario es el planeta Marte. Incluso tiene un poco de esencia de horror cósmico, aunque muy de pasada.
Los personajes son bastante planos, creo que el personaje que tiene mayor profundidad es el cocinero, que es un personaje muy secundario y solo porque explicaron su pasado. El resto son personajes estándar, incluso el protagonista y el hermano de este.
La narrativa tampoco me convence apenas, usa una narrativa extremadamente recargada y atípica que para mi gusto, no es la idónea para el tipo de historia.
Creo que la historia se podría haber disfrutado más con el enfoque de relato corto más que como novela.
Lo leí pensando que era un libro de Ciencia Ficción de la vieja escuela, pero casi es más un libro de fantasía o aventuras cuyo escenario es el planeta Marte. Incluso tiene un poco de esencia de horror cósmico, aunque muy de pasada.
Los personajes son bastante planos, creo que el personaje que tiene mayor profundidad es el cocinero, que es un personaje muy secundario y solo porque explicaron su pasado. El resto son personajes estándar, incluso el protagonista y el hermano de este.
La narrativa tampoco me convence apenas, usa una narrativa extremadamente recargada y atípica que para mi gusto, no es la idónea para el tipo de historia.
Creo que la historia se podría haber disfrutado más con el enfoque de relato corto más que como novela.
May 14, 2024
Un libro bastante estrafalario; indudablemente no es una obra sobre los vampiros clásicos, ni tampoco es una historia sobre los vampiros modernos; se trata de una visión de los vampiros que creo que no se verá muchas veces a lo largo de la historia de la literatura; esta es una obra sobre vampiros marcianos; si deseas leer libros originales, no puedes pasar por alto a esta historia.
December 8, 2021
Chyba spore inspiracje jeżeli nie Vernem, to "Wehikułem Czasu" Wellsa na pewno. Jak na powieść sci-fi swojej ery całkiem niezłe, ale nie dziwię się, że nie przertwało próby czas
October 5, 2023
I love a satire as much as the next bitch XD
March 10, 2017
Rating: 2.7
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews