Queen of the Martian Catacombs: Planet Stories, Summer '49

Eric John Stark #1 short

by Leigh Brackett

Queen of the Martian Catacombs by Leigh Brackett - First Eric John Stark tale. Gaunt giant and passionate beauty, two dragged thirst-crazed across endless crimson sands in terrible test of endurance. One knew where cool life-giving water lapped old stones smooth - a place of secret horror, death to reveal
S.O.S. Aphrodite by Stanley Mullen - No wonder that signal stabbed out into the icy void from a ship of hate and evil. IP patrolman Steve Coran trusted only one person aboard - after strapping her in her bunk

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Pulp, Sword and Planet, Adventure, Classics

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

Leigh 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.

Reviews

[S.E. Lindberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many Sword & Sorcery readers also adore Leigh Brackett. To date, I had only read The Sword of Rhiannon which I enjoyed. As part of a group-read in the
GR S&S group I'm reading more.

Brackett was a prolific writer, notable known for writing part of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (Episode V). In the Queen of the Martian Catacombs, written in 1949 (~30 yrs prior Star Wars) you can see some overtones. "Eric John Stark" is the hunky rogue, a mercenary for hire with a heart--clearly a Han Solo figure. Women adore him, in this case, a princess causing rebellion Berild (Leia?).

The romance is heavy-handed, but the action and scenery are expertly paced. There is a ton of information provided with just the right amount of words. Even though Stark is the awesome hero you'll still feel that he is in peril, and will even feel for the characters he forms relationships with.

At ~25K words, this is more of a novella than a novel. It is available online via the Gutenberg project, but I enjoyed the paperback; the edition I read was illustrated well.

To boot, there are splendid descriptions that are stunning (bold font is mine).

Excerpt 1:

But Berild had gone a few steps farther. With a hoarse cry, she bent over what had seemed merely a slab of stone fallen from the cliff, and Stark saw that it was a carven pillar, half buried. Now he was able to make out the mounded shape of a ruin, of which only the foundations and a few broken columns were left.

For a long while Berild stood by the pillar, her eyes closed. Stark got the uncanny feeling that she was visualizing the place as it had been, though the wall must have been dust a thousand years ago. Presently she moved. He followed her, and it was strange to see her, on the naked sand, treading the arbitrary patterns of vanished corridors.

Excerpt 2)

Stark saw it rising against the morning sky--a city of gold and marble, high on an island of rose-red coral laid bare by the vanished sea. Sinharat, the Ever-Living.

Yet it had died. As he came closer to it, plodding slowly through the sand, he saw that the place was no more than a beautiful corpse, the lovely towers broken, the roofless palaces open to the sky. Whatever life Kynon and his armies might have foisted upon Sinharat was no more than the fleeting passage of ants across the perfect bones of the dead.

This is great stuff! I'm on to Black Amazon of Mars next.

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't help but compare to the Northwest Smith stories of C L Moore. Brackett conveys not through purpled prose or lengthy rumination but by economic language and a very deliberate action-oriented plot. This is not something where "character gawks at amazing mind-destroying thing" but one filled with event and relationship.

The artwork in this edition is on the anime/manga side, and is slightly too subtle for this reader's e-ink Kindle. I enjoy the style but find that it leaves the Martians looking not very "martian".

[Jim Kuenzli · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first introduction to this story sits on my shelf. It’s a 2007 Pazio Planet Stories book containing the expanded version of this story which Leigh renamed the Secret of Sinharat. This was a good revisit, and makes me remember why she is one of my favorite authors. It was nice to see the original published version, obviously not Leigh’s choice, as she later revised it, as she did to many of her works. It’s a great Stark book. If you like Planetary Romance/Sword and Planet, Pulp adventure you would definitely enjoy this. Stark almost has a Conan feel at times. Recommend!

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable planetary romance romp. Got a little action, a little body swapping, sexy dames. I've read later brackett work and enjoyed it slightly more but this was worth the pick up and read. Especially this edition as Cirsova is the publisher who is worth supporting by themselves, but also added in some cool illustrations.

[John Defrog: global citizen, local gadfly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuing my exploration of the works of Leigh Brackett, this is her first novella to feature Eric John Stark, her most famous series character who is equal parts Tarzan, Mowgli and John Carter – born on Earth, orphaned on Mercury, raised by a local indigenous tribe, now a mercenary on Mars. Awhile back I read the first two books of her Stark reboot in the 1970s (The Ginger Star and The Hounds of Skaith), and while the results were mixed, the character was interesting enough for me to want to see what Brackett did with him in the 1940s.

Stark’s debut sees him on the run from the Earth Police Control for running guns on Mars. Simon Ashton – the man who rescued him from Mercury and, as it happens, an EPC officer – gives him a choice: do 20 years for gun-running, or help stop a civil war. Stark has already been hired by a man named Delgaun for what he thinks is a private war, but is in fact part of a plot by the barbarian leader Kynon – who claims to offer immortality by way of ancient cult magic – to start a rebellion against the ruling govt. Ashton wants Stark to join Delgaun’s army in order to stop Kynon and his queen, the luscious redhead Berild, who may have plans of her own.

And so. It’s classic “planetary romance” swords-and-sorcery stuff, and here it works for two main reasons: (1) Brackett really was good at writing this sort of thing, and wrote it as good as (or arguably better than) Edgar Rice Burroughs did, and (2) Stark is a strangely compelling character – an anti-hero that embodies an uneasy mixture of savagery and civility with a soft spot for the oppressed. The story is alright as these kinds of stories go, although – typical of the genre – the love-interest angle is even less convincing than the idea that there is indigenous life on Mars, Venus and Mercury. Anyway, I liked it well enough.

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is set at a midpoint between the fantastical, magical Mars of Burroughs’s filled with royal houses and ancient myths and the harder science-fiction based Mars of Bradbury filled with ray guns and rocket ships.

Brackett’s Mars has crumbling ancient civilizations all over the place, but with the humans slowly taking over, American imperialism style, with bureaucracy and “police actions”. The descriptions of the ancient city with the levels of buildings following the drying up sea resonated as much as the descriptions of how the incoming colonists looked down on all non-humans.

The exotification of the original people of Mars, was, however, painful to read, with constant use of words like “barbarians” and “savage”, all the men broad, muscular and shirtless, all the women pert breasted and sloe-eyed, and all of them clearly being depicted as “less-than” due to not following the “proper” ways of western civilization.

Still, not a single character is willing to lay down and just die for someone else, and watching these characters fight to live and fight for agency was just as good as the actual power plays that happen throughout, as a few characters have visions of ruling empires dancing in their heads.

I’m not loving the fact this doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test. And don’t use the time period as an excuse – Anne McCaffrey was writing in the same time period and getting A+’s on the Test with her work. There are three named female characters here, and none of them talk to each other! And it wouldn’t have taken more than a few slight changes to have at least one conversation between two of them – they are perfectly positioned to have had an old fashioned Xavier-Magneto showdown debate about how power corrupts.

Still, despite its flaws, I LOVED this story and intend to look for more of her work.

[Skjam! · Rating 3 out of 5]

As previously discussed on this blog, Planet Stories was a science fiction pulp magazine published from 1939-1955. It was heavy on the space opera and planetary romance, and usually had a curvy and/or scantily-clad woman on the cover. This Adventure House reprint is of a key issue.

Even before the stories, there’s the readers’ letters column, “The Vizigraph.” It leads off with a letter asking for more acknowledgement of sex, not, mind you, on page depictions of it, just that stories acknowledge that sex is a thing that happens. Even extramaritally or in non-monogamous relationships. Another calls out the habit of having the pulp hero be a white American man, preferably of Anglo-Saxon origin, while the villains are of other ethnicities and races, or alien masks over same. “Already STF writers with no better ideas are beginning to discover on the outer planets races of savage bearded androids who maintain communist systems complete with iron curtains.” Oh, and a letter calling into question the very concept of letter columns as a useful feature.

“Queen of the Martian Catacombs” by Leigh Brackett is the cover story, and the reason this issue was chosen for reprint. It’s the first appearance by her character Eric John Stark, a.k.a. N’Chaka, the Tribeless One. In Stark’s backstory, he was orphaned early in life and adopted by a tribe of Mercurians, who raised him as one of their own. Then in his early teens, that tribe was massacred by Earth miners who wanted their land and N’Chaka was caged for…purposes. The lad was rescued by the Earth Police Control officer Simon Ashton, who raised him for the rest of his youth and gave him an education.

This story opens with Eric John Stark being pursued for gun-running to oppressed natives of Venus, whence he has fled to the deserts of Mars. His pursuer turns out to be Ashton, who is sympathetic and offers a deal. A man named Delgaun in the dry city of Valkis has made an alliance with a tribal leader named Kynon, and hired a selection of the nastiest criminals in the planetary system to create a nomadic uprising. This is all too likely to result in the deaths of many nomads and “civilized” Martians to no gain except to the leaders lining their pockets. The EPC needs an inside man to gather information, and if possible stymie the war plans. If Stark can do this, Ashton can get him off the hook on the gunrunning.

The deal has an extra hook. One of Delgaun’s other hires is Luhar the Venusian, Stark’s partner in gunrunning who’d betrayed him. Delgaun might not realize how bad the blood is between them, considering he’s already sent a job offer to Stark. Stark agrees to take on the mission, despite the obvious dangers.

Eventually Stark arrives at Valkis, and learns that his job will be training the nomads under Kynon in military tactics along with Luhar, the two men being ordered not to kill each other until after the job is complete. Kynon himself turns out to be running a scam where he claims to have access to the immortality secret of the vanished Ramas cult, which involves mind-swapping technology. Stark easily sees through the “demonstration” but isn’t quite ready to share that with the troops yet.

Kynon, his troops, and the mercenaries head off to their own home base, along with Delgaun’s “woman” Berild, a haughty and gorgeous redhead who seems to be more interested in Eric John Stark than might be proper, and her maidservant Fianna, a slightly less spectacular woman who has an unnerving habit of popping up exactly when needed.

Soon, there is treachery afoot, and a series of other strange twists that bring danger to Eric John Stark and those around him.

Stark was Leigh Brackett’s riff on Tarzan, raised in a harsh environment and an expert at combat and survival, but also highly intelligent and knowledgeable about civilization. Thus he tended to sympathize with the “uncivilized” natives of various worlds rather than their colonialist exploiters. It’s repeatedly mentioned that his skin has been permanently “burned black” by the intensity of the Sun on Mercury, and other people in the stories bring this up a lot. This was as close to having a black protagonist as Brackett could get into a pulp SF magazine in the 1940s.

Also of note is that Leigh Brackett generally wrote better female characters than was common for SF pulps of the time. Berild and Fianna are both complex characters with their own agency, much as Stark might rue the day he met them. And there’s also Kala, a minor character who runs a Shanga parlor, where addicts subject themselves to lamps that cause their minds to become animalistic (roughly treated like an opium den in story.) She’s a piece of work.

Overall, this story is an exciting adventure with an unusual protagonist for the time period.

“The Madcap Metalloids” by W.V. Athanas concerns two space explorers that crash on an asteroid. A radioactive asteroid that despite its small size has 3.4 gravities! That can’t be good. The engines don’t have enough thrust left to take off from that heavy of a start, and the life support isn’t going to keep that radiation out for long. On the other hand, this tiny world is inhabited by metalloid spheres with shapeshifting abilities and the ability to read human minds. Could they be of help?

Mildly amusing, goes heavy on the “friendly banter” that used to be considered a mark of comradeship.

“S.O.S. Aphrodite!” by Stanley Mullen has loose cannon ISP officer Steve Coran assigned to go undercover aboard the title emigration ship to Venus to try to a) stop space pirates from stealing the plutonium secretly in the cargo, and b) find and assassinate a man in illegal possession of documents that could embarrass the government.

Steve is less than thrilled that his two-fisted, shoot first ways are no longer considered appropriate for the rapidly civilizing frontier worlds, and political assassin is not a role he relishes. So after this mission, he’s resigning. Next problem, as an emigration ship, they won’t let a single man aboard as a passenger, and there are no available female officers to be his beard. Steve’s first thought is to hire a prostitute from the spaceport brothel to fake-marry him, but then he meets Gerda Mors.

Gerda Mors needs to get to Venus ASAP, and it has to be on the Aphrodite, but she doesn’t have a partner either. Even though the couple take an instant dislike to each other, they figure they can be “married” just long enough to take that spaceship.

It’s not going to be that easy, especially when Steve tries to check up on the ship’s captain, only to find the man murdered and him being framed. It turns out that Gerda has more to her than being a spoiled rich girl, and by the end of the story that fake marriage may be turning real… The romance angle feels forced.

“The Starbusters” by Alfred Coppel, Jr. has the aging battleship Tellurian Rocket Ship Cleopatra being called up for retrofitting a new experimental warp drive. Notably, the starships already have faster than light travel through what’s referred to as “second order flight” but this, if feasible, will be even faster through using “hyperspace.” However, just as she’s being finished with the new engine, Old Aphrodisiac is ordered into the fray against the invading Eridans.

The leathery-tentacled Eridans are a hive mind, so even though the Terrans are much better at space combat, there’s no escaping their immense numbers. Lover-Girl better hope that this warp drive has some way of turning the tide!

Good: The Cleopatra is a gender-integrated ship without it being made a plot point of. There just are men and women working professionally together in a military shipboard atmosphere.

Less Good: Our main characters are rather casual about wiping out an entire intelligent species.

“Peril Orbit” by C.J. Wedlake takes place in a decaying orbit around Sol as a spaceship pilot who was attempting to use a slingshot maneuver wound up getting waylaid by a gravitational anomaly. Content note: At one point the pilot is contemplating suicide, and this is the moment the illustrator chose to draw. This is a more realistic “physics puzzle” story than the usual Planet fare. Not particularly good, but nice to have as a contrast.

“Garden of Evil” by Margaret St. Clair stars Ericson, an ethnographer on the planet Fyhon. He has become addicted to a local plant that’s a natural stimulant, and a derelict. The native woman Mnathl picks him out of the gutter and gets him detoxified and back on his feet. She needs him to come with her to her remote hidden city. You might be able to figure out the twist before it’s revealed on the last page.

“Stalemate in Space” by Charles W. Harness finishes out the issue. It’s a doozy. Evelyn Kane is woken from suspended animation when the Scythians win their decade-long battle between their world-ship, The Invader, and the Earth’s world-ship, The Defender. Back when the two battlespheres first rammed each other, her father had anticipated the outcome, so Evelyn volunteered for a last-ditch suicidal revenge.

Except that during her long sleep, the automated system she was supposed to use to ensure the destruction of both ships was wrecked. Evelyn is forced to infiltrate the Scythian forces posing as one of their secretarial women (thankfully the aliens look just like humans) to find another way to activate the doomsday device. The first part goes pretty smoothly, and she is soon the favored woman of Perat, Viscount of Tharn and the Sector Commander of the Scythians.

After that, it gets trickier. It turns out the elites of both sides are telepathic, and Evelyn must attempt to use her mind powers to gain access to the equipment she needs without triggering Perat’s mind-reading suspicions. Plus, for some reason his father recently sent him a picture of a woman on their home planet who looks exactly like Evelyn down to the curious scar on her forehead.

That scar is where some of her brain tissue was removed and replaced to allow her to control a doll version of herself. She needs to conceal the true purpose of the toy. Also, as Evelyn and Perat spend time dancing together, they are growing closer.

Then comes the big twist at the end where a previously unmentioned (but foreshadowed) bit of technology comes into play, and we learn that “dancing” was at least partially a euphemism because there’s now proof that the two main characters were having extramarital sex. And this stops the war.

Interesting, but maybe tries to pack too many cool ideas into a short story.

Overall, a decent and fairly typical set of stories for this magazine. The Brackett is the one that most people will be reading it for, but I think most of the others are at least worth looking at. Consider it for the pulp scientifiction fan in your life.

[mabuse cast · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhere on the Venn diagram of Robert E Howard's "Conan the Barbarian", Edgar Rice Burroughs' "John Carter of Mars", and Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles" is Leigh Brackett's set of pulp sci-fi stories featuring the character of "Eric John Stark"!

This was my first time reading a piece of Brackett's fiction from start to finish, and I really enjoyed it and think she lives up to her reputation as the "queen of space opera" for the most part!

There are parts of this where I kinda lose interest or found it was a bit murky on what exactly was happening in the story, BUT overall I enjoyed this as a cool middle ground between the rawness of Robert E Howard's "Conan" stories, and The planetary adventures of Burroughs "John Carter of Mars" with a little bit of Ray Bradbury mixed in for good measure!

So happy birthday (December 7th) to Leigh Brackett one of the more notable mid-century women sci-fi and fantasy authors! I for sure will be reading more of her fiction in the near future!

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Stark is a human, raised on Venus, by native Venusians, until they are murdered by miners and Stark is caged and brought to Mars where he now lives on the outskirts of society. He is hired as a mercenary in a war that's about to begin, between various Martian cultures, but all is not what it seems...

Written by Leigh Brackett, who wrote the original screenplay for Star Wars shortly before her death, I can see those classic sci-fi elements that made that movie so great. While this isn't a space opera, as it takes place entirely among the deserts and ancient ruins of Mars, it is a wonderful example of classic sci-fi. There are alien races, strange customs and weapons, and a touch of romance, and plenty of adventure and mystery. Anyone who enjoys classic sci-fi and/or Star Wars would really enjoy Queen of the Martian Catacombs. My ebook copy, from Midwest Classics Press, also has a really cool cover (just saying).

[Shaun · Rating 3 out of 5]

Queen of the Martian Catacombs: Planet Stories, Summer '49

Leigh Brackett showing serious skills with pulp writing.

One of three more or less novella-length stories originally published in "Planet Stories" magazine, collected in a single volume (which I've had trouble finding on here.) This had been stalled out for a while, and while a long haul the collection was ultimately fun and worthwhile. Of note, the quality of this "pulp" writing notably higher than a lot of higher-brow things I've read recently. Simple plot, simple characters, and a worthy throw back to a vanished age.

[Maeve Gallagher · Rating 3 out of 5]

This first entry in the Eric John Stark series can't really be called science fiction; it's fantasy with some science fiction window dressing, even more than Star Wars. Planetary Romance describes it well enough but if some of the words were changed around it could easily be another Conan story.

However, it is tightly plotted and fast-paced, with an interesting enough main character. Brackett's story is hardly unique but competently written. It makes for a decent read during public transit.

Note; to anyone expecting this to be exceptionally different from other stories of the time on account of having a woman writer, you would be incorrect. At best you have a competent female villainess; otherwise this is part and parcel of its time.

[Drasko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Conan - like space fantasy/Sword and Sorcery adventure with rapidly flowing action and well delineated characters. I find female characters strong, ambitious and relying on their own abilities to achieve their goals and ambitions. Definitely not a shrinking violets quick on gun or dagger if need arises. If story fails a Bechdel test I think problem is with the test and not with the story!!

[Victoria]

Another edition e-book in Storytel 2019-06-08. Published by Anncona Media.

[Leserling Belana · Rating 3 out of 5]

It couldn't grab my interest. Maybe it was just the wrong time for this book, but I frequently got distracted, and don't really know what it was all about.

[Howard Brazee]

John Eric Stark story from 1949. The protagonist was born on Mercury but most of his stores are on Mars. Brackett is best known for her screenplays, but this is pure space opera.

[Jeff Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much fun!

[James T · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a perfect blend of Burroughs setting and Howards darker sword and sorcery elements. This story has a great sense of deep time. My only major complaint is the end is rushed. Otherwise. Fantastic.

[Gautam · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing first entry in the stories of Eric John Stark the Earthman from Mercury a pulp hero of the vein of Tarzan and John Carter of Mars. Leigh Bracketts Mars is a dying wasteland more akin to Howard's Hyborea where Stark wanders, a Conan-like space opera hero.

Brackett writes a classic pulp space opera yarn with this story with rich dialogue and complex characters. In particular, the woman are no mere Dale Arden damsel in distress, rather they are strong power players in the story.

All in all an excellent addition to the sword and planet subgenre of Martian set space opera,

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leigh Brackett’s John Eric Stark's first appearance is a science fantasy/ Sword and Sorcery set on Mars. Stark is a wanted man who will be given clemency if he can avert a war that would turn Mars into a blood bath.

Much like the Seas Kings of Mars it’s a rousing adventure story that races to a climatic conclusion. This was my first time with John Stark I’m glad that Brackett wrote more about the native Mercurian, whose skin was burned black by the sun a rouge who is always for the native.