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The Coming of the Terrans
A dying planet, dried up and hostile -- a planet of countless years and countless mysteries.
When the Terrans came, they found a world of dead sea-bottoms, lost civilizations, and secretive tribes bitterly resenting the intrusion of the Terrans on the fading glory of an ancient planet.
The Earthmen looked down upon the crumbling ruins of a brilliant culture, and laughed at the stories of invincible gods and forgotten magic lingering in the forbidden cities of Jekkara, Barrakesh, Valkis ...
But the dangers were real--and only a few renegade Earth-born adventurers who had adopted the Martian way of life could understand the planet-wide disaster that was building up.
When the Terrans came, they found a world of dead sea-bottoms, lost civilizations, and secretive tribes bitterly resenting the intrusion of the Terrans on the fading glory of an ancient planet.
The Earthmen looked down upon the crumbling ruins of a brilliant culture, and laughed at the stories of invincible gods and forgotten magic lingering in the forbidden cities of Jekkara, Barrakesh, Valkis ...
But the dangers were real--and only a few renegade Earth-born adventurers who had adopted the Martian way of life could understand the planet-wide disaster that was building up.
157 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
192 people want to read
About the author
Leigh Brackett
401 books243 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 - 24 of 24 reviews
March 15, 2016
Just recently, I reviewed "The Best of Leigh Brackett," a big, 400+-page affair from Ballantine Books that was first released in 1977. But this collection was not the first to gather the older works of Leigh Brackett, the so-called "Queen of Space Opera," into a nice, compact collection. That honor, it seems, goes to the volume entitled "The Coming of the Terrans," which was released by Ace in 1967. The "Best of" book was a deluxe affair, with a foreword by Brackett's husband, Edmond Hamilton, an afterword by Brackett herself, fan maps of Brackett's Mars, and 10 stories and novellas ranging from 1944--'57, with settings on Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and beyond; the book enjoyed several reprintings. "The Coming of the Terrans," on the other hand, is a no-frills affair consisting of a mere five novellas and novelettes; only 157 pages, no maps or introductions, and with a single setting: the Red Planet. The book was reprinted only once...a shame, really, as the five stories that it contains are all doozies, scanning the period from 1948 - '64. And happily, for this reader, there is but one instance of overlapping between the two books. "The Coming of the Terrans," it would seem, presents itself as a history of mankind's early ventures on Mars, and the story titles in the Table of Contents are followed by the year in which they supposedly occur...dates not at all provided in the original stories themselves!
By the way, when I refer to "novellas" and "novelettes" here, I am going by the guidelines set down by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, which state that a short story contains under 7,500 words; a novelette, 7,500 to 17,500; a novella, 17,500 to 40,000; and a novel, 40,000 words or more.
The collection kicks off in a big way with the novella entitled "The Beast-Jewel of Mars," which originally appeared in the Winter '48 edition of the pulp magazine "Planet Stories," the periodical in which so many of Brackett's earliest tales first appeared. Here, a starship captain, grieving over the death of his lady love, who was an addict of shanga radiation, decides to seek out the most powerful form of shanga himself. (Shanga, which atavistically reverts its users to a temporary bestial state, with more permanent effects with longer use, was later used as a plot device in Brackett's first Eric John Stark story, "Queen of the Martian Catacombs," in the Summer '49 "Planet Stories"; the story was expanded to novel form in 1964 as "The Secret of Sinharat.") Captain Winters ultimately finds his woman alive, a captive of the depraved rulers of the evil Martian city of Valkis; along with many other Earthlings, she is being subjected to nightly doses of shanga as an amphitheater entertainment for the Valkis rulers. Winters's attempt to free his Jill, fighting off both the Martians and the devolved shanga brutes, makes up the bulk of this exciting, colorful and pulpy tale, in which the horrors of shanga addiction act as an analogue for more terrestrial drug dependencies. The story is at times wonderfully written--"Her hair was the color of night after moonset"--and strangely, features a character named Halk...but a different Halk as would figure in Brackett's Skaith trilogy of the 1970s.
In the novelette "Mars Minus Bisha" ("Planet Stories," 1/54), a young Earthling doctor, working alone in the Martian desert, is left with an unexpected bundle one evening: a 7-year-old Martian girl, whose mother and entire tribe shun and deem unfit to live with. Dr. Fraser performs tests on the young girl, Bisha, and finds her to be perfectly healthy. Bisha lives with Fraser in his Quonset hut for months, and the two grow close. But then, why does the good doctor begin to suffer comatose blackouts, and an increasing lethargy? This is a comparatively sweet tale from author Brackett, albeit one leading to a tragic and moving conclusion.
"The Last Days of Shandakor" ("Startling Stories," 4/52) represents the one bit of overlap with "The Best of Leigh Brackett." As I said in my earlier review of this novelette, here, a "planetary anthropologist" from Earth explores the ruins of the dead titular city and learns that it is peopled by the specters of its past...and by a few actual survivors. He falls in love with Duani, a young (living) Shandakor girl, leading to an unfortunate end for the entire populace. As Hamilton wrote in his intro, this was "the last, finest, and saddest of all her Mars stories...a summing-up, a valedictory, of the Brackett Mars." But Mr. Hamilton, this was hardly Brackett's "last" Mars story, as will be shown momentarily! Anyway, suitably elegiac in tone, this truly is a lovely piece of storytelling.
Next up, we have a novelette bearing the wonderfully pulpy title "Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon" (from "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction," 10/64). Here, a young, naïve Earthling, an expert on Martian relics and artifacts, arrives at the capital city of Kahora. He is quickly kidnapped and brought to another Martian city with an evil reputation, Jekkara, to witness an ancient rite. True to its title, this tale features as pulpy a monstrosity as ever shambled forth from the pages of Robert E. Howard or H.P. Lovecraft...one that Brackett never shows clearly, but rather only subtly hints at. Good fun, this one, with still more wonderful verbiage from the author, as in "A chain of time-eaten mountains, barren as the fossil vertebrae of some forgotten monster, curved across the northern horizon." I love it!
To close the collection, we have the novelette "The Road to Sinharat" ("Amazing Stories," 5/63). Here, a seasoned Earthman, Matt Carey, an historian and member of the Rehabilitation Project for Mars, goes rogue. With the aid of an old Martian friend and a Martian woman named Arrin, he flees both Interpol and his fellows on the Project to search for the legendary desert city of Sinharat--a derelict metropolis sitting atop an island of coral in a dried-up ocean bed--where he believes lost records will convince his fellow Earthmen that the redevelopment of the dying planet is a very bad idea. Sinharat, and the reason for its evil reputation, had naturally been delved into in that "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" story 14 years earlier; numerous references to that earlier work are made here. The city of Sinharat itself, where the winds moan eternally amongst the coral block that supports it, is the star of the show here, and it is wonderful to be back in this eerie and haunted area of Mars. As in Brackett's 1948 masterpiece "The Moon That Vanished," here, an Earthman goes on a near-impossible quest, accompanied by a Martian couple; as in the earlier Sinharat story, here, all the tribes of the Drylands of the planet are about to rebel against the Earthling occupiers. An object lesson in the inadvisability of uninformed humanitarianism, "The Road to Sinharat" is at once exciting and evocative; another bravura piece of work from this wonderful author.
You will note that I have only given "The Coming of the Terrans" 4 stars out of a possible 5 here. Well, my only reason for docking this terrific little collection a star is because the book IS a tad on the slender side, and I have learned long ago that with the "Queen of Space Opera," more is always better than less. Still, what we DO have here is some pretty dynamite stuff; a must-read for all lovers of Golden Age sci-fi....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most excellent destination for all fans of Leigh Brackett....)
By the way, when I refer to "novellas" and "novelettes" here, I am going by the guidelines set down by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, which state that a short story contains under 7,500 words; a novelette, 7,500 to 17,500; a novella, 17,500 to 40,000; and a novel, 40,000 words or more.
The collection kicks off in a big way with the novella entitled "The Beast-Jewel of Mars," which originally appeared in the Winter '48 edition of the pulp magazine "Planet Stories," the periodical in which so many of Brackett's earliest tales first appeared. Here, a starship captain, grieving over the death of his lady love, who was an addict of shanga radiation, decides to seek out the most powerful form of shanga himself. (Shanga, which atavistically reverts its users to a temporary bestial state, with more permanent effects with longer use, was later used as a plot device in Brackett's first Eric John Stark story, "Queen of the Martian Catacombs," in the Summer '49 "Planet Stories"; the story was expanded to novel form in 1964 as "The Secret of Sinharat.") Captain Winters ultimately finds his woman alive, a captive of the depraved rulers of the evil Martian city of Valkis; along with many other Earthlings, she is being subjected to nightly doses of shanga as an amphitheater entertainment for the Valkis rulers. Winters's attempt to free his Jill, fighting off both the Martians and the devolved shanga brutes, makes up the bulk of this exciting, colorful and pulpy tale, in which the horrors of shanga addiction act as an analogue for more terrestrial drug dependencies. The story is at times wonderfully written--"Her hair was the color of night after moonset"--and strangely, features a character named Halk...but a different Halk as would figure in Brackett's Skaith trilogy of the 1970s.
In the novelette "Mars Minus Bisha" ("Planet Stories," 1/54), a young Earthling doctor, working alone in the Martian desert, is left with an unexpected bundle one evening: a 7-year-old Martian girl, whose mother and entire tribe shun and deem unfit to live with. Dr. Fraser performs tests on the young girl, Bisha, and finds her to be perfectly healthy. Bisha lives with Fraser in his Quonset hut for months, and the two grow close. But then, why does the good doctor begin to suffer comatose blackouts, and an increasing lethargy? This is a comparatively sweet tale from author Brackett, albeit one leading to a tragic and moving conclusion.
"The Last Days of Shandakor" ("Startling Stories," 4/52) represents the one bit of overlap with "The Best of Leigh Brackett." As I said in my earlier review of this novelette, here, a "planetary anthropologist" from Earth explores the ruins of the dead titular city and learns that it is peopled by the specters of its past...and by a few actual survivors. He falls in love with Duani, a young (living) Shandakor girl, leading to an unfortunate end for the entire populace. As Hamilton wrote in his intro, this was "the last, finest, and saddest of all her Mars stories...a summing-up, a valedictory, of the Brackett Mars." But Mr. Hamilton, this was hardly Brackett's "last" Mars story, as will be shown momentarily! Anyway, suitably elegiac in tone, this truly is a lovely piece of storytelling.
Next up, we have a novelette bearing the wonderfully pulpy title "Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon" (from "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction," 10/64). Here, a young, naïve Earthling, an expert on Martian relics and artifacts, arrives at the capital city of Kahora. He is quickly kidnapped and brought to another Martian city with an evil reputation, Jekkara, to witness an ancient rite. True to its title, this tale features as pulpy a monstrosity as ever shambled forth from the pages of Robert E. Howard or H.P. Lovecraft...one that Brackett never shows clearly, but rather only subtly hints at. Good fun, this one, with still more wonderful verbiage from the author, as in "A chain of time-eaten mountains, barren as the fossil vertebrae of some forgotten monster, curved across the northern horizon." I love it!
To close the collection, we have the novelette "The Road to Sinharat" ("Amazing Stories," 5/63). Here, a seasoned Earthman, Matt Carey, an historian and member of the Rehabilitation Project for Mars, goes rogue. With the aid of an old Martian friend and a Martian woman named Arrin, he flees both Interpol and his fellows on the Project to search for the legendary desert city of Sinharat--a derelict metropolis sitting atop an island of coral in a dried-up ocean bed--where he believes lost records will convince his fellow Earthmen that the redevelopment of the dying planet is a very bad idea. Sinharat, and the reason for its evil reputation, had naturally been delved into in that "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" story 14 years earlier; numerous references to that earlier work are made here. The city of Sinharat itself, where the winds moan eternally amongst the coral block that supports it, is the star of the show here, and it is wonderful to be back in this eerie and haunted area of Mars. As in Brackett's 1948 masterpiece "The Moon That Vanished," here, an Earthman goes on a near-impossible quest, accompanied by a Martian couple; as in the earlier Sinharat story, here, all the tribes of the Drylands of the planet are about to rebel against the Earthling occupiers. An object lesson in the inadvisability of uninformed humanitarianism, "The Road to Sinharat" is at once exciting and evocative; another bravura piece of work from this wonderful author.
You will note that I have only given "The Coming of the Terrans" 4 stars out of a possible 5 here. Well, my only reason for docking this terrific little collection a star is because the book IS a tad on the slender side, and I have learned long ago that with the "Queen of Space Opera," more is always better than less. Still, what we DO have here is some pretty dynamite stuff; a must-read for all lovers of Golden Age sci-fi....
(By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most excellent destination for all fans of Leigh Brackett....)
March 29, 2020
This is a collection of five Martian novelettes written by Leigh Brackett, three of which were originally published in pulp sf magazines (two from Planet Stories and one from Startling) and two from sf digests (one from Amazing and one from F & SF) from 1948 through 1964. Brackett's Mars was never as well known as Bradbury's Chronicles or Burroughs Barsoom (lots of B's, huh?!), but is still one of sf's more under-appreciated works. Her most famous character, Stark, doesn't appear in any of these, but they're still well rooted in that construct, including the lyrical cities of Sinharat and Shandakor for example. There's a very brief and pithy lovely introduction inside the cover. (The cover of my edition is a kind of odd mermaid-looking thing that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the book; the original had a nice colorful one that must have been by Jack Gaughan.) There are dates next to the stories on the contents page raging from 1998 to 2038 that didn't appear with the magazine versions; I wonder if Brackett added them or if they were put there by the book editor, probably Donald A. Wolheim. Anyway, this is a good introduction to Brackett's sf prose; they don't write 'em like this anymore!
August 1, 2020
Read it back in early 1991 and enjoyed its atmosphere of a desert world with an incredibly old, dying civilization. The second reading was as enjoyable as the first one.
June 29, 2021
Leigh Brackett was writing science fiction at a time when very few women were doing so, in the era of pulp magazines. And she could certainly hold her own in this male-dominated field -- hell, she was better than most. This book is a collection of stories (novelettes and novellas) set on Mars, a planet whose civilizations here dying and had been colonized by Earth people, to the resentment of the Martians (I couldn't help thinking about what we did to Native Americans -- or how the people of any occupied country would feel). These stories are poweful and they are very dark -- but they also have a strange beauty about them.
April 14, 2020
This rather dark collection of short stories by Leigh Brackett, all set on the dying but not yet dead Mars, pre-Mariner and pre-Viking, starts off a bit slow, but finishes strong. The culture clash between the scientifically-minded and vigorous Earthmen and the proud and impoverished Martians is explored in five short stories covering forty years of what used to be future history, and is now alternative history, as the first is set in 1998.
Leigh Brackett wrote the greater part of her work in the 1940s and 50s, but since she mostly wrote space opera and planetary romance, I feel reasonable in mentally including her in the pulp era that preceded her active years.
This particular collection of short stories also fits that era of storytelling, as it is all set on a habitable Mars of venerable antiquity. It is also my introduction to Brackett’s work, which I only know by reputation. As is often the case, this was the first physical volume I found at the local used bookstore. As is my usual process with a collection of short stories, I will pen a paragraph or two on each entry, and then sum up my impressions of the collection as a whole.
1998: The Beast-Jewel of Mars ****
Science fiction doesn’t get written like this anymore. Or I should say, almost anymore. There is an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that uses a premise similar to this, except that in that episode, where almost the entire crew de-evolves due to an ill-considered bit of genetic therapy, probably should have given the survivors PTSD, but didn’t.
Brackett’s take on de-evolution is very noble savage, with the devotees of Shanga frolicking and fighting merrily [under the watchful eyes of guards with less-than-lethal weapons]. Or at least it looks that way until we see its seamy underbelly, following Captain Burk Winters’ desperate quest to find his lost love, lost to Shanga.
This one grew on me as I read the rest of the collection. In isolation, I might have rated it lower, but as a preface to what follows, it sets the mood perfectly. The fallen grandeur of Valkis, the haughty Martian princess as nemesis, the half-forgotten eldritch powers of Mars, are what you should expect from this volume.
2016: Mars Minus Bisha *****
An abrupt shift in form, from hopeless quest to something that mixes creeping dread with Greek tragedy. The Earthmen come to Mars with all the confidence and naive technocracy of the Kennedy Enlightenment, only to be continually confounded by the deep folk wisdom of the Martians, which is after all nothing but the bitter fruit of experience.
Frazer, a virologist from Earth, takes in a child cast out of a desert tribe for being cursed. Frazer assumes that the superstitions of the nomads mean nothing, but the ghosts of Mars’ past will come to haunt him.
2024: The Last Days of Shandakor ***
A bit of a low point in the collection for me. Perhaps my trouble is that I find the protagonist’s flaws less understandable or excusable than Winters’ or Fraser’s, who took in Bisha in the last story. However, it does well illustrate the motif of this collection, the utter incompatibility of the faded glory and wisdom of Mars with the brash overconfident energy of the Earthmen.
Perhaps part of the trouble is that Jon Ross is a scientist, studying the anthropology of Mars, and so is aligned with the technocrats who seek to remake Mars in the image of Earth, rather than an adventurer and a rogue like Winters, who is capable of simply taking Mars as it is. I am reminded very much of characters like Kit Carson, who opened the American West, and was very much at home with the people he met who already lived there, and was handy with the gun and the blade. Ross is not a Kit Carson, but rather a well-meaning do-gooder, more civilized, but less understanding.
Thus, when Ross stumbles upon the lost city of Shandakor, only tragedy can ensue.
2031: Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon *****
Another shift in form, this time into weird tales. At first, I was tempted to call it Lovecraftian, but rather than gibbering madness, the mood is one of resignation and despair. Harvey Selden is with the Bureau of Interplanetary Cultural Relations, and newly arrived to Mars.
Selden is quite sure that the Rites of the Purple Priestess are an exaggeration of piratical adventurers, much like the memoirs of conquistadors have absolutely never been proven right by subsequent archaeology. What will Selden do when he stumbles into a Mars he thought couldn’t exist?
2038: The Road to Sinharat *****
In the final installment, Brackett returns to the point of view of the piratical adventurers, but now forty years have passed, and the technocrats have swept all opposition before them with bureaucratic prolixity, or so they think.
Only a last reckless dash into a forbidden city in the desert can prevent war, and the destruction of the tenuous hold life and civilization have on Mars.
This is my favorite story in the collection, and a fine way to end it. I appreciate the feeling of a living world behind these stories, slowly changing, yet eternally the same. Again, I was reminded of Kit Carson, and his yearning and sadness as the West he had helped conquer became tamed and civilized.
Ben’s final verdict *****
It took me a while to get into the set of mind that made this mid-century modern sword-and-planet shine, but once I found the key that unlocked it for me, I enjoyed this collection. Brackett’s Mars stories draw on the energy that drove nineteenth century colonialism, and simultaneously lament the irreversible changes that Western exploration and exploitation brought to the American West, the Middle East, and Africa. Often, the very same men who brazenly forced their way into these places and cultures because their fiercest partisans. If you then add in a cast of mind critical of the technocratic order of mid-Century America, you get some great adventures with a bit of historical tragedy.
Leigh Brackett wrote the greater part of her work in the 1940s and 50s, but since she mostly wrote space opera and planetary romance, I feel reasonable in mentally including her in the pulp era that preceded her active years.
This particular collection of short stories also fits that era of storytelling, as it is all set on a habitable Mars of venerable antiquity. It is also my introduction to Brackett’s work, which I only know by reputation. As is often the case, this was the first physical volume I found at the local used bookstore. As is my usual process with a collection of short stories, I will pen a paragraph or two on each entry, and then sum up my impressions of the collection as a whole.
1998: The Beast-Jewel of Mars ****
Science fiction doesn’t get written like this anymore. Or I should say, almost anymore. There is an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that uses a premise similar to this, except that in that episode, where almost the entire crew de-evolves due to an ill-considered bit of genetic therapy, probably should have given the survivors PTSD, but didn’t.
Brackett’s take on de-evolution is very noble savage, with the devotees of Shanga frolicking and fighting merrily [under the watchful eyes of guards with less-than-lethal weapons]. Or at least it looks that way until we see its seamy underbelly, following Captain Burk Winters’ desperate quest to find his lost love, lost to Shanga.
This one grew on me as I read the rest of the collection. In isolation, I might have rated it lower, but as a preface to what follows, it sets the mood perfectly. The fallen grandeur of Valkis, the haughty Martian princess as nemesis, the half-forgotten eldritch powers of Mars, are what you should expect from this volume.
2016: Mars Minus Bisha *****
An abrupt shift in form, from hopeless quest to something that mixes creeping dread with Greek tragedy. The Earthmen come to Mars with all the confidence and naive technocracy of the Kennedy Enlightenment, only to be continually confounded by the deep folk wisdom of the Martians, which is after all nothing but the bitter fruit of experience.
Frazer, a virologist from Earth, takes in a child cast out of a desert tribe for being cursed. Frazer assumes that the superstitions of the nomads mean nothing, but the ghosts of Mars’ past will come to haunt him.
2024: The Last Days of Shandakor ***
A bit of a low point in the collection for me. Perhaps my trouble is that I find the protagonist’s flaws less understandable or excusable than Winters’ or Fraser’s, who took in Bisha in the last story. However, it does well illustrate the motif of this collection, the utter incompatibility of the faded glory and wisdom of Mars with the brash overconfident energy of the Earthmen.
Perhaps part of the trouble is that Jon Ross is a scientist, studying the anthropology of Mars, and so is aligned with the technocrats who seek to remake Mars in the image of Earth, rather than an adventurer and a rogue like Winters, who is capable of simply taking Mars as it is. I am reminded very much of characters like Kit Carson, who opened the American West, and was very much at home with the people he met who already lived there, and was handy with the gun and the blade. Ross is not a Kit Carson, but rather a well-meaning do-gooder, more civilized, but less understanding.
Thus, when Ross stumbles upon the lost city of Shandakor, only tragedy can ensue.
2031: Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon *****
Another shift in form, this time into weird tales. At first, I was tempted to call it Lovecraftian, but rather than gibbering madness, the mood is one of resignation and despair. Harvey Selden is with the Bureau of Interplanetary Cultural Relations, and newly arrived to Mars.
Selden is quite sure that the Rites of the Purple Priestess are an exaggeration of piratical adventurers, much like the memoirs of conquistadors have absolutely never been proven right by subsequent archaeology. What will Selden do when he stumbles into a Mars he thought couldn’t exist?
2038: The Road to Sinharat *****
In the final installment, Brackett returns to the point of view of the piratical adventurers, but now forty years have passed, and the technocrats have swept all opposition before them with bureaucratic prolixity, or so they think.
Only a last reckless dash into a forbidden city in the desert can prevent war, and the destruction of the tenuous hold life and civilization have on Mars.
This is my favorite story in the collection, and a fine way to end it. I appreciate the feeling of a living world behind these stories, slowly changing, yet eternally the same. Again, I was reminded of Kit Carson, and his yearning and sadness as the West he had helped conquer became tamed and civilized.
Ben’s final verdict *****
It took me a while to get into the set of mind that made this mid-century modern sword-and-planet shine, but once I found the key that unlocked it for me, I enjoyed this collection. Brackett’s Mars stories draw on the energy that drove nineteenth century colonialism, and simultaneously lament the irreversible changes that Western exploration and exploitation brought to the American West, the Middle East, and Africa. Often, the very same men who brazenly forced their way into these places and cultures because their fiercest partisans. If you then add in a cast of mind critical of the technocratic order of mid-Century America, you get some great adventures with a bit of historical tragedy.
September 9, 2016
Five fairly depressing stories set in the final throes of Martian civilization:
"The Beast-Jewel of Mars": A human space captain struggles to free the woman he loves from the grip of an addictive Martian regression therapy.
"Mars Minus Bisha": A Martian woman abandons her daughter to a human scientist after her village tries to murder the child, believing her to be cursed.
"The Last Days of Shandakor": An anthropologist finds himself in what appears to be an actual ghost town.
"Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon": An Earthman is witness to a horrific ritual.
"The Road to Sinharat": A fugitive archaeologist searches for ancient cultural records in an attempt to stop a disastrous development project.
I didn't care much for the first and last stories, but the three in the middle were very good. "Purple Priestess..." was rather Lovecraftian.
"The Beast-Jewel of Mars": A human space captain struggles to free the woman he loves from the grip of an addictive Martian regression therapy.
"Mars Minus Bisha": A Martian woman abandons her daughter to a human scientist after her village tries to murder the child, believing her to be cursed.
"The Last Days of Shandakor": An anthropologist finds himself in what appears to be an actual ghost town.
"Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon": An Earthman is witness to a horrific ritual.
"The Road to Sinharat": A fugitive archaeologist searches for ancient cultural records in an attempt to stop a disastrous development project.
I didn't care much for the first and last stories, but the three in the middle were very good. "Purple Priestess..." was rather Lovecraftian.
February 9, 2016
Written about the same time as Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles", Leigh Brackett uses the same format of a series of short stories to tell the main theme of the book. the tale is told of the interaction of Earthmen with the native Martians from early encounters to late in the merging of the two cultures. Very well written early SiFi that is a nice easy read. Written by one of the early Masters of the SiFi genre this is an excellent book for a new or old reader to discover the early years of SiFi. Recommended.
May 13, 2025
The collected short stories set in the same Mars universe as Shadow Over Mars/The Nemesis from Terra and The Sword of Rhiannon/Sea-Kings of Mars novels. This was published in 1976. At this time Ace released a uniform edition of all Leigh’s second Mars series stories which includes this collection, The Nemesis from Terra, and The Sword of Rhiannon.
Rather than an index of short stories this collection has been given a chronology, a future history of Mars with each story taking place in a specific year. Sadly the future history Leigh hoped for didn’t happen. The first story is set in 1998. However the stories were all originally published between 1948 and 1964.
1998: The Beast-Jewel of Mars (1948, Planet Stories)
This is set on the current Mars. The planet is dying and the Martians are resentful of Terrans who are taking over everything. The Beast-Jewel of Mars are ancient tech from Mars heyday that change cosmic rays into regressive metamorphic radiation that devolves those exposed into their ancestral forms. The process is highly addictive. The social commentary on drug addiction is very obvious, but that’s underlayed by subtler commentary about human nature, all wrapped in a SF/Fantasy casing. It could perhaps have been shorter; there’s an awful lot of excessively detailed scenerary that’s not really needed to get the story across.
2016: Mars Minus Bisha (1954, Planet Stories)
This is also set on dying frontier Mars. A tribe of nomad Martians want to sacrifice a young cursed girl to cure the sleeping sickness. But Terran Doctor knows better than these primitive savages and intends to spirit the girl back to Earth to live happily ever after. Needless to say things don’t go according to plan, and the Martians aren’t quite as primitive as they seem.
2024: The Last Days of Shandakor (1952, Startling Stories)
Once again set in the Terran takeover of an old and dying Mars. But rather than a Western frontier style story it’s more and Arabian Nights tale. The lost city of Shandakor out in the deserts which can only be reached by a caravan trek. The city contains the last vestiges of the Ancient Martian race and their high tech. It’s an embodiment of Clarke’s Third Law a decade before he stated it.
2031: Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon (1964, F&SF)
This story has Harvey Selden as it’s foundation. Mars is still a dying world with ancient Martian magic leftover. This story is tending towards Lovecraftian dark fantasy with a Martian Elder God that they sucker Terrans into satiating.
2038: The Road to Sinharat (1963, Amazing Stories)
According to ISFDB this is part of the Eric John Stark Mars stories. Mars is still a dying world and the incoming Terrans are hated by the locals, The story is primarily a fugitive chase across Mars to the cursed city of Sinharat. But the fugitive then turns hero with an ecological twist.
All things considered it’s a nice collection of old school frontier style Mars stories. I wish people still wrote fun stories like this now and then. And yes, I’ve read both the Old Mars and Old Venus collections.
Rather than an index of short stories this collection has been given a chronology, a future history of Mars with each story taking place in a specific year. Sadly the future history Leigh hoped for didn’t happen. The first story is set in 1998. However the stories were all originally published between 1948 and 1964.
1998: The Beast-Jewel of Mars (1948, Planet Stories)
This is set on the current Mars. The planet is dying and the Martians are resentful of Terrans who are taking over everything. The Beast-Jewel of Mars are ancient tech from Mars heyday that change cosmic rays into regressive metamorphic radiation that devolves those exposed into their ancestral forms. The process is highly addictive. The social commentary on drug addiction is very obvious, but that’s underlayed by subtler commentary about human nature, all wrapped in a SF/Fantasy casing. It could perhaps have been shorter; there’s an awful lot of excessively detailed scenerary that’s not really needed to get the story across.
2016: Mars Minus Bisha (1954, Planet Stories)
This is also set on dying frontier Mars. A tribe of nomad Martians want to sacrifice a young cursed girl to cure the sleeping sickness. But Terran Doctor knows better than these primitive savages and intends to spirit the girl back to Earth to live happily ever after. Needless to say things don’t go according to plan, and the Martians aren’t quite as primitive as they seem.
2024: The Last Days of Shandakor (1952, Startling Stories)
Once again set in the Terran takeover of an old and dying Mars. But rather than a Western frontier style story it’s more and Arabian Nights tale. The lost city of Shandakor out in the deserts which can only be reached by a caravan trek. The city contains the last vestiges of the Ancient Martian race and their high tech. It’s an embodiment of Clarke’s Third Law a decade before he stated it.
2031: Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon (1964, F&SF)
This story has Harvey Selden as it’s foundation. Mars is still a dying world with ancient Martian magic leftover. This story is tending towards Lovecraftian dark fantasy with a Martian Elder God that they sucker Terrans into satiating.
2038: The Road to Sinharat (1963, Amazing Stories)
According to ISFDB this is part of the Eric John Stark Mars stories. Mars is still a dying world and the incoming Terrans are hated by the locals, The story is primarily a fugitive chase across Mars to the cursed city of Sinharat. But the fugitive then turns hero with an ecological twist.
All things considered it’s a nice collection of old school frontier style Mars stories. I wish people still wrote fun stories like this now and then. And yes, I’ve read both the Old Mars and Old Venus collections.
July 25, 2024
More July Sci-Fi in the scorching southwest desert heat. This book is like a cool can of beer in that it goes down easy on a hot July afternoon. I've had this old ACE paperback for a number of years just sitting on a shelf. I know I've read the first one "The Beast-Jewel of Mars" before. Published in 1948 in PLANET STORIES Magazine it and "Mars Minus Bisha" are the earliest two stories in this slim collection. The latest story being from 1964. So you're talking the good-old-stuff here. All of the stories are set in Mars, each with years given for a loose timeline to connect them.
"I do not know of Earth," he answered courteously. "But on Mars man has always said 'I reason, I am above the beasts because I reason.' And he has always been very proud of himself because he could reason. It is the mark of his humanity. Being convinced that reason operates automatically within him he orders his life and his government upon emotion and superstition."
Earthmen, in these stories, seems to perpetually come to a sad reckoning between his Earth-born ego and ambitions against the ancient lost and dwindling civilizations of the Martians. You can draw your own meanings from what Leigh Brackett may have been trying to say in these stories, or you can enjoy them as they were written, stellar examples of planetary adventures. If stories like these are written anymore, I haven't been able to find them in current science fiction digests. Maybe it's just me (and it probably is) but I find current science fiction short stories mostly unreadable. The simple adventure and wonder that writers like Leigh Brackett were so good at is mostly extinct.
"I do not know of Earth," he answered courteously. "But on Mars man has always said 'I reason, I am above the beasts because I reason.' And he has always been very proud of himself because he could reason. It is the mark of his humanity. Being convinced that reason operates automatically within him he orders his life and his government upon emotion and superstition."
Earthmen, in these stories, seems to perpetually come to a sad reckoning between his Earth-born ego and ambitions against the ancient lost and dwindling civilizations of the Martians. You can draw your own meanings from what Leigh Brackett may have been trying to say in these stories, or you can enjoy them as they were written, stellar examples of planetary adventures. If stories like these are written anymore, I haven't been able to find them in current science fiction digests. Maybe it's just me (and it probably is) but I find current science fiction short stories mostly unreadable. The simple adventure and wonder that writers like Leigh Brackett were so good at is mostly extinct.
March 7, 2019
Five short stories chronicling Earth's experiences exploring Brackett's Mars, a decadent dying world Terrans smugly assume they can master. But Mars is old and it has ancient, scary secrets more dangerous than Earth can imagine. For instance the "Beast Jewel of Mars" devolves humans into our evolutionary ancestors, freeing us from civilized restraint. Can the protagonist penetrate the Shanga cult and break the woman he loves free from addiction to the jewel's power?
The stories are set from 1998 to 2038, though as the dates aren't mentioned in the tales themselves, I wonder if this was done for paperback publication rather than Brackett's original concept. The stories were written from the late 1940s to 1964; the last, "The Road to Sinharat," seems to reflect Third World independence movements by telling Earth to back off a little.
If you're into old-style pulp adventure, this is definitely a good read. 4.5 stars.
The stories are set from 1998 to 2038, though as the dates aren't mentioned in the tales themselves, I wonder if this was done for paperback publication rather than Brackett's original concept. The stories were written from the late 1940s to 1964; the last, "The Road to Sinharat," seems to reflect Third World independence movements by telling Earth to back off a little.
If you're into old-style pulp adventure, this is definitely a good read. 4.5 stars.
May 26, 2023
Letto nell'edizione collezione urania 128
Dopo La Spada di Rhiannon mi sono scoperto affamato di altre storie ambientate tra le dune romantiche di Marte, e questa raccolta ambientata nello stesso universo del romanzo (tratto a sua volta da un racconto di questo ciclo) mi ha saziato, lasciandomi anche con un certo languore per un'altra portata.
Metafore gastronomiche a parte, la prosa fiabesca e le atmosfere gotiche e sognanti di Brackett hanno il gusto (non ce la faccio proprio) di un epica lontana nel tempo e, naturalmente, nello spazio. La grande storia di Marte qui è raccontata attraverso piccole fughe, spioncini che ci danno solo un assaggio (...) della vertiginosa complessità di un setting che, aimé, rimarrà per sempre solo un vagheggiamento di lune e sabbie.
Dopo La Spada di Rhiannon mi sono scoperto affamato di altre storie ambientate tra le dune romantiche di Marte, e questa raccolta ambientata nello stesso universo del romanzo (tratto a sua volta da un racconto di questo ciclo) mi ha saziato, lasciandomi anche con un certo languore per un'altra portata.
Metafore gastronomiche a parte, la prosa fiabesca e le atmosfere gotiche e sognanti di Brackett hanno il gusto (non ce la faccio proprio) di un epica lontana nel tempo e, naturalmente, nello spazio. La grande storia di Marte qui è raccontata attraverso piccole fughe, spioncini che ci danno solo un assaggio (...) della vertiginosa complessità di un setting che, aimé, rimarrà per sempre solo un vagheggiamento di lune e sabbie.
March 18, 2023
Leigh Brackett's Mars is fairly similar to Burroughs' Mars, and very similar to C L Moore's Mars, but it's much better written than the former, and more darkly realistic than the latter.
These pulp-era stories slip down like your favourite slippery thing, satisfying and filling. Fast-paced, full of adventure and fading colour on the dry, decrepit Mars of the collective imagination. Recommended for the superior easy SF read.
These pulp-era stories slip down like your favourite slippery thing, satisfying and filling. Fast-paced, full of adventure and fading colour on the dry, decrepit Mars of the collective imagination. Recommended for the superior easy SF read.
January 10, 2019
Bellissima raccolta di racconti a tema marziano. L'autrice è abilissima nel tratteggiare immagini potenti e seducenti di un pianeta in declino ma con un grande passato, popoli in lotta fra loro, castelli e regine. Le storie seguono più o meno tutte uno stesso schema, ma è nell'insieme che esse funzionano: proprio perché tessere di uno stesso grande puzzle. Magico.
April 30, 2018
Usually I don't really like short story collections. However this one I did. Most likely because the loosely linked nature of the 5 short stories.
August 23, 2021
Some endings are a bit disappointing, but I loved this suggestive fantasy setting, I just want more of it! ;)
Read
October 23, 2025The Coming of the Terrans
March 1, 2025
Marte è sempre stato uno degli argomenti principe della vecchia sf, a partire dalla serie di Edgar Rice Burroughs ambientata su Barsoom. Per non parlare delle note Cronache di Bradbury e delle innumerevoli invasioni di marziani subite dalla Terra. Un posto d'onore lo occupa Leigh Brackett, incidentalmente moglie di Edmond Hamilton, con i suoi "planetary romance" ambientati su Marte.
In particolare "Storie marziane" ("The Coming of the Terrans", 1967; Urania Mondadori 2013; trad. di Gianni Montanari) raccoglie un ciclo di cinque racconti, scritti tra il 1949 e il 1964 (e internamente datati dal 1998 al 2038), ambientati sul pianeta rosso. Immaginando che siano storie che arrivano da un universo alternativo (i canali, le città, le antiche civiltà, le loro scienze e razze perdute), è possibile immergersi nelle vecchie rappresentazioni fantastiche di Marte, quelle di una razza e una cultura in decadenza su un pianeta in via di desertificazione, e lasciarsi trascinare dallo spirito avventuroso delle narrazioni, perché l'immaginazione e il sense of wonder riescono ad avere la meglio sulla fredda conoscenza.
La Brackett, tra l'altro, è una figura di rilievo sia nell'ambito della sf (senza dimenticare i suoi contributi al giallo e alla spy story) che in ambito cinematografico: fu sceneggiatrice di capolavori del cinema quali "Rio Bravo", "Il grande sonno" e "Il lungo addio" e accreditata nella sceneggiatura de "L'impero colpisce ancora" insieme al regista Lawrence Kasdan. Lippi vi dice tutto nell'articolo che segue le storie della Brackett, in cui vi racconta dell'autrice, di Marte e di planetary romance.
In particolare "Storie marziane" ("The Coming of the Terrans", 1967; Urania Mondadori 2013; trad. di Gianni Montanari) raccoglie un ciclo di cinque racconti, scritti tra il 1949 e il 1964 (e internamente datati dal 1998 al 2038), ambientati sul pianeta rosso. Immaginando che siano storie che arrivano da un universo alternativo (i canali, le città, le antiche civiltà, le loro scienze e razze perdute), è possibile immergersi nelle vecchie rappresentazioni fantastiche di Marte, quelle di una razza e una cultura in decadenza su un pianeta in via di desertificazione, e lasciarsi trascinare dallo spirito avventuroso delle narrazioni, perché l'immaginazione e il sense of wonder riescono ad avere la meglio sulla fredda conoscenza.
La Brackett, tra l'altro, è una figura di rilievo sia nell'ambito della sf (senza dimenticare i suoi contributi al giallo e alla spy story) che in ambito cinematografico: fu sceneggiatrice di capolavori del cinema quali "Rio Bravo", "Il grande sonno" e "Il lungo addio" e accreditata nella sceneggiatura de "L'impero colpisce ancora" insieme al regista Lawrence Kasdan. Lippi vi dice tutto nell'articolo che segue le storie della Brackett, in cui vi racconta dell'autrice, di Marte e di planetary romance.
July 22, 2020
Nice collection of Brackett's Mars stories. I almost have to like books with ethnologists and archaeologists/tomb-robbers as protagonists. The usual themes found in these stories are all here--Mars is super-ancient and mysterious, its dead and dying cities full of strange dangers and iniquities. "Mars Minus Bisha" has a moving sort of cold equations element to it. "The Last Days of Shandakor" feels like a rewrite/improvement of the major plot point from _Thuvia, Maid of Mars_ (a deserted Martian city populated with moving images of people). "Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon" is almost Lovecraftian in its themes, tone, and conclusion. It also develops a key theme of Brackett's: Mars isn't home to "noble" peoples of undeveloped promise but rather decadent peoples of failed civilizations, whom no one should admire but everyone should respect for their wisdom, experience, and dangerousness. And then that's the point in "The Road to Sinharat" for sure.
March 30, 2015
La fantascienza è un genere che non mi ha mai attirato e perciò non ho molti termini di paragone per dare un giudizio su questo libro. Si tratta di quattro racconti ambientati in un futuro sempre più lontano rispetto al momento in cui furono scritti. Il primo è ambientato nel 1998 e, a leggerlo ora, è strano considerarlo futuro ma i racconti furono scritti tra gli anni quaranta e gli anni sessanta. Da un racconto di fantascienza mi aspetto astronavi e esseri strani, ma qui delle prime si fa solo un accenno e i marziani a loro volta sono umani o non umani. Ciò che lega i quattro racconti è il passato del pianeta Marte e l'antica conoscenza. Perchè i terrestri dovrebbero sapere cosa è meglio per Marte e i suoi abitanti?
Leggendo la presentazione dell'autrice ho scoperto che si tratta di un planetary romance di cui ignoravo anche l'esistenza. In conclusione penso che continuerò a leggere poco questo genere che non credo faccia per me.
Leggendo la presentazione dell'autrice ho scoperto che si tratta di un planetary romance di cui ignoravo anche l'esistenza. In conclusione penso che continuerò a leggere poco questo genere che non credo faccia per me.
March 16, 2015
Da sogno!
Non avevo mail letto nulla di questa autrice ed stato un errore.
Il libro contiene diverse storie ambientate su Marte.
Scritto davvero bene..mi sembrava davvero di essere li. E questo Marte così malinconico, decadente, un mondo alla fine dei suoi giorni, e così "primitivo" sotto alcuni aspetti e..così..così...meravilgioso!
Mi è piaciuto tantissimo, mi ha fatto sognare.
E' questo che secondo me deve fare un buon libro e soprattutto un libro di fantascienza.
Non avevo mail letto nulla di questa autrice ed stato un errore.
Il libro contiene diverse storie ambientate su Marte.
Scritto davvero bene..mi sembrava davvero di essere li. E questo Marte così malinconico, decadente, un mondo alla fine dei suoi giorni, e così "primitivo" sotto alcuni aspetti e..così..così...meravilgioso!
Mi è piaciuto tantissimo, mi ha fatto sognare.
E' questo che secondo me deve fare un buon libro e soprattutto un libro di fantascienza.
Read
May 5, 2009The Coming of the Terrans by Leigh Brackett (1967)
May 12, 2014
Five separate stories set on a societally declining Mars. Great atmosphere and a wonderful introduction to this author.
March 13, 2016
A wonderful collection from the Queen of Space Opera. http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...
December 9, 2013
Thoroughly enjoyable and the best I've read by a very good fantasist
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