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Maza of the Moon
This astonishing science-fiction classic begins like a prophecy of today's space achievements--a missile is fired from Earth to hit the surface of the Moon. It is successful and the misslemen are heroes, until...the Moon fires back!
Terrible Lunar missiles blast New York, London, and Paris. And an ultimatum is delivered from the unsuspected civilization of our satellite: "You have attacked us! You will pay the penalty!"
MAZA OF THE MOON is a novel of adventure, daring and heroism as a lone Earthman invades the Moon to find out the truth and save his world.
Terrible Lunar missiles blast New York, London, and Paris. And an ultimatum is delivered from the unsuspected civilization of our satellite: "You have attacked us! You will pay the penalty!"
MAZA OF THE MOON is a novel of adventure, daring and heroism as a lone Earthman invades the Moon to find out the truth and save his world.
143 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1930
About the author
Otis Adelbert Kline
203 books23 followersA popular pulp era writer who served on the original Weird Tales editorial staff & appeared frequently in the magazine's early issues, Kline is perhaps best known for his novelistic feud with Edgar Rice Burroughs. He wrote "Planet of Peril" (1929) and two other novels set on the planet Venus and written in the storytelling form of the John Carter of Mars novels, prompting Burroughs to write his own stories set on Venus. In return, Kline wrote two novels set on Mars, as well as several jungle adventurers quite reminiscent of Burroughs's Tarzan.
In the mid-1930s Kline largely abandoned writing to concentrate on his career as a literary agent (most famously for fellow Weird Tales author Robert E. Howard, pioneer sword and sorcery writer and creator of Conan the Barbarian). Kline represented Howard from the Spring of 1933 until Howard's death in June 1936, and continued to act as literary agent for Howard's estate thereafter.
In the mid-1930s Kline largely abandoned writing to concentrate on his career as a literary agent (most famously for fellow Weird Tales author Robert E. Howard, pioneer sword and sorcery writer and creator of Conan the Barbarian). Kline represented Howard from the Spring of 1933 until Howard's death in June 1936, and continued to act as literary agent for Howard's estate thereafter.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 4, 2024
The legend goes that Otis Aldebert Kline had a bit of a rivalry going on with Edgar Rice Burroughs and made his own Martian saga in response to the Barsoom series. "Maza of the Moon" is sort of a sequel to Kline's Martian stories, or at least takes place in the same universe.
Here, a young industrialist is the first to launch an unmanned rocket to the Moon, not realizing that our satellite is actually inhabited. Suddenly, Earth is being bombarded with the Moon's own supply of rockets--to devastating effect.
That's quite an interesting premise. But it devolves into your typical sword-and-planet adventure, as our hero feels bad for inadvertently starting a war, so builds a spaceship to take him to the Moon in the hopes of negotiating peace. Which begs the question why he didn't just do that in the first place rather than blindly firing a missile. Anyway, he stumbles upon a beautiful princess, who he of course rescues multiple times. In so doing, he makes things even worse for the Earth, as the princess is a controversial figure. She is of Martian decent, and therefore Caucasian, while the indigenous lunar inhabitants are all "Mongoloid," and in fact are the original ethnic ancestors to the Chinese. Yep, we have another "Yellow Peril" novel. In this case, the Moon people have been locked in combat for millennia with the Martians, which is why the surface of the Moon is so pitted with craters and why long ago their ruler fled to our planet and seeded ancient Asian civilization. And so a faction of rebels wishes to overthrow Princess Maza's rule and return to the glory days of the original Lunar Empire.
So what we have here is more of a Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon styled conflict mixed with Barsoom-like fantasy. We have an extraterrestrial heroine and a human hero with no distinct personalities who are in love without saying hardly a word to each other. We have splendid psychedelic landscapes of phosphorescent mushroom jungles, towering stalagmites, and underground cities. We have aerial combat against flying saucers. We have ray guns disintegrating ships and slicing ugly monsters into pieces. Kline's writing competency is stepped up a notch here, switching back and forth between perspectives after ending each chapter with a cliffhanger that somehow keeps you engaged even though you know all the while what is going to happen.
If you are reading this review, you already know what to expect, and you likely want to read it. So get on it!
SCORE: 3 space dragons out of 5
Here, a young industrialist is the first to launch an unmanned rocket to the Moon, not realizing that our satellite is actually inhabited. Suddenly, Earth is being bombarded with the Moon's own supply of rockets--to devastating effect.
That's quite an interesting premise. But it devolves into your typical sword-and-planet adventure, as our hero feels bad for inadvertently starting a war, so builds a spaceship to take him to the Moon in the hopes of negotiating peace. Which begs the question why he didn't just do that in the first place rather than blindly firing a missile. Anyway, he stumbles upon a beautiful princess, who he of course rescues multiple times. In so doing, he makes things even worse for the Earth, as the princess is a controversial figure. She is of Martian decent, and therefore Caucasian, while the indigenous lunar inhabitants are all "Mongoloid," and in fact are the original ethnic ancestors to the Chinese. Yep, we have another "Yellow Peril" novel. In this case, the Moon people have been locked in combat for millennia with the Martians, which is why the surface of the Moon is so pitted with craters and why long ago their ruler fled to our planet and seeded ancient Asian civilization. And so a faction of rebels wishes to overthrow Princess Maza's rule and return to the glory days of the original Lunar Empire.
So what we have here is more of a Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon styled conflict mixed with Barsoom-like fantasy. We have an extraterrestrial heroine and a human hero with no distinct personalities who are in love without saying hardly a word to each other. We have splendid psychedelic landscapes of phosphorescent mushroom jungles, towering stalagmites, and underground cities. We have aerial combat against flying saucers. We have ray guns disintegrating ships and slicing ugly monsters into pieces. Kline's writing competency is stepped up a notch here, switching back and forth between perspectives after ending each chapter with a cliffhanger that somehow keeps you engaged even though you know all the while what is going to happen.
If you are reading this review, you already know what to expect, and you likely want to read it. So get on it!
SCORE: 3 space dragons out of 5
February 25, 2021
Early 1930's, pulp, easily thwarted alien invasion story.
My dead tree copy would be about 200 pages. The original US copyright was 1929. The book can be found free at: Project Gutenberg Australia: Maza of the Moon by Otis Adelbert Kline.
Otis Adelbert Kline was an American author of pulp fiction in the 1930’s. He wrote more than ten novels, most first serialized in science fiction magazines of the era, and then later published as novels. He quit writing to become a successful agent for science fiction and fantasy writers. He passed in 1946. This was the first book I’ve read by the author.
TL;DR Synopsis
This was epic, authentic, Ray Gun Gothic. To win an exploration prize, Ted Dustin, an Elon Musk-like American inventor fires a shell at the Moon. He unwittingly hits the crater containing the subsurface city of an advanced human civilization. The Moon retaliates with projectile and beam weapon bombardment of the Earth. Dustin goes to the Moon in a prototype space ship using advanced tech to forestall the invasion of Earth. There he meets the female, leader of the other advanced, lunar human civilization (Maza). They bond through separate adventures, although it has always been coup de foudre (love at first sight). Together with her kingdom’s armed forces and the prototype tech he’s weaponized they defeat the Earth bombarding empire. They live happily ever after.
The Review
I’ve taken an interest in reading fiction from the early 20th Century and late 19th Century. You can see how differently folks thought versus now. Stories that actually are 100-years old are historically much more authentic than contemporary historical fiction set in that period. At heart, modern authors are 21st century men and women and can’t get their characters into character. Their characters end-up being modern folks in period clothing and affecting the speech and manners of that historical period. This book was written for the science fiction consuming hoi polloi of the late 1920’s. Its set in a 1950's future as imagined in 1929. Its early 20th century edu-tainment being read by a 21th century audience (me). The resulting narrative was different from modern fiction set in the period, but not so completely different as to be unrecognizable.
Prose was good. Dialog was better than descriptive prose. The dialog was in the vernacular of the American 1930’s.
In general, the dialog was a tad melodramatic by contemporary standards. This was especially true, when the lunar folks start talking.
I got a laugh out of the scientific language. For example, the Asian lunar empire was ethnologically Mongoloid Asiatic and the Anglo lunar humans were simply white. I noted that except for "Chinamen", there were no people-of-colour in the story.
The original four-part serialization of the story was apparent in the narrative. There were periodic temporary cliffhangers. However, in the novel format, these were more like literary speedbumps.
This story was written for a popular audience in 1929. It could be considered a YA read, except for the racial and social subtexts. It was sanitized of anything that even a mostly male, science fiction reading audience might find objectionable. There are no profanities or vulgarities in the text. There was no sex. Although, Maza, the only woman named on the Moon, was an Anglo-Saxon beauty with a small, bosom. There was no substance abuse. Alcohol was not consumed. The United States was still under Prohibition for another four years after publication. Tobacco were consumed for medicinal purposes. Typically, after brushes with death or disaster. That Dustin smoked his pipe in the confines of his one-man space ship seemed particularly imprudent to me. Oddly, the lunar civilizations were vice-less. Violence was not graphic. It consisted of: edged-weapon, physical, firearms, and beam weapons (ray guns). Heavy ordinance was used for bombardment, air-to-air and space-to-space combat. The Lunar folks used edged weapons and beam weapons, the Earthmen firearms and later ray guns. The lunar beam weapons were an ill-explained combination of light sabre and ray gun. I can never understand, why swords, spears and metal armor co-exist with ray guns in science fiction? There was a minimum of blood and trauma. Heads got chopped-off, without the modern complications of bleeding out. Note there were instances of very complicated and unlikely tortures. The most recognizable might have been The Death of the Hot Oil. The body count was high, although this was mostly due to casualties from planetary bombardments.
There was a small number of characters. Interestingly, 3rd person POV was used throughout. The protagonist was Ted Dustin, a 30’s year old, Elon Musk-like American inventor. He’s an invincible, science hero. (He’s not really invincible, he just never gets hurt.) His love interest was Her Imperial Majesty, Maza an Ma Gong (Maza of the Moon). She’s the beautiful, much-loved, romantically unattached, leader of an underground lunar civilization of white folk. She and Dustin are instantly attracted to each other at their first video introduction. He saves her life 2-3 times completing the bonding. You get the idea she’s slightly younger than Dustin in age. Except for Miss Whitley, Dustin’s Information Clerk, she’s the only named woman in the story. The antagonist was the despotic emperor P'an-ku. He’s the cruel, grandiloquent, ruler of the Asiatic, underground civilization bent on conquering the Earth. He’s as ugly and twisted as Maza was beautiful and sweet. Rodger Sanders was Dustin’s right-hand-man, like Robin to his Batman. Kwan Tsu Khan was P’an-ku’s right hand man, although unlike Sanders’ in his role he sends folks to be tortured. Also, President Whitmore of the United States was on very friendly terms with Dustin. He had a deus ex machina like role in expediting Dustin’s plans and solutions. A favorite of mine was Bevans (no first name). He was an American, Earthman spear carrier. He started as Dustin’s hardman and pilot of Dustin’s Blettendorf, super-Electoplane until it was shot down by P’ an-ku’s invading spaceships. Then he became a space battleship pilot. (Pilots never cease to be cool?) He survived the war. There were of course many redshirts, both Earthlings, and Asiatic and Anglo Lunarians.
The story was terribly simple, although it was multi-threaded.
Dustin fires a massive shell at the Moon to win the princely sum of a million dollars of an exploration prize by making a mark on the Moon. He unwittingly bombs the underground city of a previously unknown, technologically advanced, ethnic-Chinese, lunar civilization. The empire of P’ an-ku retaliates first with missiles and the then with beam weapons. Peace negotiations were derailed by a perfidious terrestrial Chinese government. However, this doesn’t happen before Earth gets an inkling that there are two governments on the Moon, the other white and lead by Maza of the Moon.
Dustin takes off in a prototype space ship armed with revolutionary beam weapons. He never told anyone about the spaceship’s drive or weapons. He leaves Sanders to arm the Earth, namely the United States, with them. Sanders also was to build a space battleship to take the war to the Moon.
Arriving on the Moon, Dustin immediately and serendipitously meets-up with Maza. His spaceship was damaged on arrival. They have adventures traveling ‘overland’ (underground) to her capital city. He saves her life 2-3 times bonding them for life. They plan to overthrow P’ an-ku. Dustin leaves Maza to destroy P’ an-ku’s military capability with his repaired spaceship. She leads her army underground to attack P’ an-ku’s city.
Meanwhile, with Dustin’s secretly developed advanced weapons, Sanders with the help of the US Army Air Force defeats the lunar invasion fleet on Earth. With a civilian crew he takes Dustin’s completed space battleship to Luna. He arrives just in time to achieve air-superiority over the Moon.
Dustin destroys P’an-ku’s weapons of mass destruction, but gets captured in the process. Maza also gets captured lying siege to P’an-ku’s capital. (Blame it on love.) P'an-ku has the peculiar idea that if he conquers the Earth and kills Dustin, Maza will "marry" him? Dustin escapes, rescue’s Maza and in the process ends P’an-ku’s evil reign.
As a thriller, a modern reader has likely seen this story many times. There are numerous plot holes, discontinuities and pages of needless exposition that adversely affect the pacing. I was constantly annoyed when “good guys” were captured by the “bad guys” and easily escaped. This happened a lot. However, this was the formula of pulp fiction, particularly with its cliffhanger, punctuated serialization.
One of the things I look for in these old stories are instances of Cultural Shock. In particular, when the morality of American characters and culture of almost 100-years ago was different from the woke now. Things have not changed greatly. Racist fears of foreign cultures and sexual anxieties weren’t really too different 100-years ago. For example, this story was a common example of Yellow Peril literature. A then current psycho-cultural, belief of a racial menace from the East, which is not completely absent in modern America. In addition, there was also the culture shock of sexism. Women were not shown as equal to men. Even the eponymous Maza, an Empress of the Moon was incomplete without her American, Earthman.
Another point of interest to me, was purely historical. This story contained a 1929’s vision of the future world of 1950. It was based on the then: current science and technology, and historical events. The future was held great promise. The story was written at the very end of The Roaring Twenties, a period of great change and prosperity. In the United States, the megalopolis of Los Angeles didn't exist. I noted that World War II never happened, although there were a few references back to the First World War. Europe when the book was written was still largely democratic, having yet to see the rise of fascism. China in the story was a unified, western-style democracy. The key event in '30's Chinese history was the Japanese invasion of Manchuria began in 1931, two (2) years after the story’s publication. That evolved into WWII in Asia. Conservatively, folks in the United States were still eschewing liquor in 1950. Historically, Prohibition was repealed four (4) years after publication in 1933. There was also an, active Association of Nations on Earth. That was a candidate name for what became The League of Nations . When the book was written, the future was optimistic. This changed rather quickly. The beginning of the Great Depression started later in the year of the book's publication.
The science fiction world building was also of interest. It reminded me of The World of the Future exhibits I’d read about at World’s Fairs. irl 1950 the world had not progressed as far as the author’s science fiction 1950. Only recently have radiovisiophone (wifi, Zoom, video meetings) and wrist radiophones (phone watches) become ubiquitous. There were also omissions. Despite having atomic power, there were no atomic bombs. I thought a cigarette lighter powered by an atomic battery was a cool idea? Info-dumps described atoms as having electrons and protons, but not neutrons. (Neutrons were discovered in 1932, three years after publication.) There were no computers! Then, annoyingly, the known laws of physics got bent. Radio waves moved faster than the speed of light. All space flight was acceleration; there was no deceleration. And boy, a two hour, one-way trip, Earth to the Moon?
Finally, an underground world beneath the airless surface of the Moon? We can only hope.
So, this was not a great work. It reminded me of a period version of the movie serial Flash Gordon (1936), which the book predated by 7-years. Science fiction is a lot more sophisticated now. However, it was a good peek into what both the past was like almost 100-years ago, if you look closely. It was also instructive to see how the author imagined the future would look about 70-years in the past from today. He’d have been disappointed.
My dead tree copy would be about 200 pages. The original US copyright was 1929. The book can be found free at: Project Gutenberg Australia: Maza of the Moon by Otis Adelbert Kline.
Otis Adelbert Kline was an American author of pulp fiction in the 1930’s. He wrote more than ten novels, most first serialized in science fiction magazines of the era, and then later published as novels. He quit writing to become a successful agent for science fiction and fantasy writers. He passed in 1946. This was the first book I’ve read by the author.
TL;DR Synopsis
This was epic, authentic, Ray Gun Gothic. To win an exploration prize, Ted Dustin, an Elon Musk-like American inventor fires a shell at the Moon. He unwittingly hits the crater containing the subsurface city of an advanced human civilization. The Moon retaliates with projectile and beam weapon bombardment of the Earth. Dustin goes to the Moon in a prototype space ship using advanced tech to forestall the invasion of Earth. There he meets the female, leader of the other advanced, lunar human civilization (Maza). They bond through separate adventures, although it has always been coup de foudre (love at first sight). Together with her kingdom’s armed forces and the prototype tech he’s weaponized they defeat the Earth bombarding empire. They live happily ever after.
The Review
I’ve taken an interest in reading fiction from the early 20th Century and late 19th Century. You can see how differently folks thought versus now. Stories that actually are 100-years old are historically much more authentic than contemporary historical fiction set in that period. At heart, modern authors are 21st century men and women and can’t get their characters into character. Their characters end-up being modern folks in period clothing and affecting the speech and manners of that historical period. This book was written for the science fiction consuming hoi polloi of the late 1920’s. Its set in a 1950's future as imagined in 1929. Its early 20th century edu-tainment being read by a 21th century audience (me). The resulting narrative was different from modern fiction set in the period, but not so completely different as to be unrecognizable.
Prose was good. Dialog was better than descriptive prose. The dialog was in the vernacular of the American 1930’s.
"I mean," replied Dustin, flicking his lighter with his thumb, "that in order to prepare the projectile for launching, we've spent every cent we had, and borrowed a lot besides. Theodore Dustin, Inc., is flat broke, and the plant is mortgaged from roof to drains. If we don't win that reward our creditors will be picking our bones in thirty days."
In general, the dialog was a tad melodramatic by contemporary standards. This was especially true, when the lunar folks start talking.
"O, slimy worm and wriggling maggot of Du Gong," grated P'an-ku. "Think you that you have performed a great service for your people by destroying my experimental ray projector? Know then, that I am building, and will have completed in less than five of your days, a projector with ten times its power. You could have destroyed it as easily as the other, but you have merely saved me the effort of dismantling the smaller projector."
I got a laugh out of the scientific language. For example, the Asian lunar empire was ethnologically Mongoloid Asiatic and the Anglo lunar humans were simply white. I noted that except for "Chinamen", there were no people-of-colour in the story.
The original four-part serialization of the story was apparent in the narrative. There were periodic temporary cliffhangers. However, in the novel format, these were more like literary speedbumps.
This story was written for a popular audience in 1929. It could be considered a YA read, except for the racial and social subtexts. It was sanitized of anything that even a mostly male, science fiction reading audience might find objectionable. There are no profanities or vulgarities in the text. There was no sex. Although, Maza, the only woman named on the Moon, was an Anglo-Saxon beauty with a small, bosom. There was no substance abuse. Alcohol was not consumed. The United States was still under Prohibition for another four years after publication. Tobacco were consumed for medicinal purposes. Typically, after brushes with death or disaster. That Dustin smoked his pipe in the confines of his one-man space ship seemed particularly imprudent to me. Oddly, the lunar civilizations were vice-less. Violence was not graphic. It consisted of: edged-weapon, physical, firearms, and beam weapons (ray guns). Heavy ordinance was used for bombardment, air-to-air and space-to-space combat. The Lunar folks used edged weapons and beam weapons, the Earthmen firearms and later ray guns. The lunar beam weapons were an ill-explained combination of light sabre and ray gun. I can never understand, why swords, spears and metal armor co-exist with ray guns in science fiction? There was a minimum of blood and trauma. Heads got chopped-off, without the modern complications of bleeding out. Note there were instances of very complicated and unlikely tortures. The most recognizable might have been The Death of the Hot Oil. The body count was high, although this was mostly due to casualties from planetary bombardments.
There was a small number of characters. Interestingly, 3rd person POV was used throughout. The protagonist was Ted Dustin, a 30’s year old, Elon Musk-like American inventor. He’s an invincible, science hero. (He’s not really invincible, he just never gets hurt.) His love interest was Her Imperial Majesty, Maza an Ma Gong (Maza of the Moon). She’s the beautiful, much-loved, romantically unattached, leader of an underground lunar civilization of white folk. She and Dustin are instantly attracted to each other at their first video introduction. He saves her life 2-3 times completing the bonding. You get the idea she’s slightly younger than Dustin in age. Except for Miss Whitley, Dustin’s Information Clerk, she’s the only named woman in the story. The antagonist was the despotic emperor P'an-ku. He’s the cruel, grandiloquent, ruler of the Asiatic, underground civilization bent on conquering the Earth. He’s as ugly and twisted as Maza was beautiful and sweet. Rodger Sanders was Dustin’s right-hand-man, like Robin to his Batman. Kwan Tsu Khan was P’an-ku’s right hand man, although unlike Sanders’ in his role he sends folks to be tortured. Also, President Whitmore of the United States was on very friendly terms with Dustin. He had a deus ex machina like role in expediting Dustin’s plans and solutions. A favorite of mine was Bevans (no first name). He was an American, Earthman spear carrier. He started as Dustin’s hardman and pilot of Dustin’s Blettendorf, super-Electoplane until it was shot down by P’ an-ku’s invading spaceships. Then he became a space battleship pilot. (Pilots never cease to be cool?) He survived the war. There were of course many redshirts, both Earthlings, and Asiatic and Anglo Lunarians.
The story was terribly simple, although it was multi-threaded.
Dustin fires a massive shell at the Moon to win the princely sum of a million dollars of an exploration prize by making a mark on the Moon. He unwittingly bombs the underground city of a previously unknown, technologically advanced, ethnic-Chinese, lunar civilization. The empire of P’ an-ku retaliates first with missiles and the then with beam weapons. Peace negotiations were derailed by a perfidious terrestrial Chinese government. However, this doesn’t happen before Earth gets an inkling that there are two governments on the Moon, the other white and lead by Maza of the Moon.
Dustin takes off in a prototype space ship armed with revolutionary beam weapons. He never told anyone about the spaceship’s drive or weapons. He leaves Sanders to arm the Earth, namely the United States, with them. Sanders also was to build a space battleship to take the war to the Moon.
Arriving on the Moon, Dustin immediately and serendipitously meets-up with Maza. His spaceship was damaged on arrival. They have adventures traveling ‘overland’ (underground) to her capital city. He saves her life 2-3 times bonding them for life. They plan to overthrow P’ an-ku. Dustin leaves Maza to destroy P’ an-ku’s military capability with his repaired spaceship. She leads her army underground to attack P’ an-ku’s city.
Meanwhile, with Dustin’s secretly developed advanced weapons, Sanders with the help of the US Army Air Force defeats the lunar invasion fleet on Earth. With a civilian crew he takes Dustin’s completed space battleship to Luna. He arrives just in time to achieve air-superiority over the Moon.
Dustin destroys P’an-ku’s weapons of mass destruction, but gets captured in the process. Maza also gets captured lying siege to P’an-ku’s capital. (Blame it on love.) P'an-ku has the peculiar idea that if he conquers the Earth and kills Dustin, Maza will "marry" him? Dustin escapes, rescue’s Maza and in the process ends P’an-ku’s evil reign.
As a thriller, a modern reader has likely seen this story many times. There are numerous plot holes, discontinuities and pages of needless exposition that adversely affect the pacing. I was constantly annoyed when “good guys” were captured by the “bad guys” and easily escaped. This happened a lot. However, this was the formula of pulp fiction, particularly with its cliffhanger, punctuated serialization.
One of the things I look for in these old stories are instances of Cultural Shock. In particular, when the morality of American characters and culture of almost 100-years ago was different from the woke now. Things have not changed greatly. Racist fears of foreign cultures and sexual anxieties weren’t really too different 100-years ago. For example, this story was a common example of Yellow Peril literature. A then current psycho-cultural, belief of a racial menace from the East, which is not completely absent in modern America. In addition, there was also the culture shock of sexism. Women were not shown as equal to men. Even the eponymous Maza, an Empress of the Moon was incomplete without her American, Earthman.
Another point of interest to me, was purely historical. This story contained a 1929’s vision of the future world of 1950. It was based on the then: current science and technology, and historical events. The future was held great promise. The story was written at the very end of The Roaring Twenties, a period of great change and prosperity. In the United States, the megalopolis of Los Angeles didn't exist. I noted that World War II never happened, although there were a few references back to the First World War. Europe when the book was written was still largely democratic, having yet to see the rise of fascism. China in the story was a unified, western-style democracy. The key event in '30's Chinese history was the Japanese invasion of Manchuria began in 1931, two (2) years after the story’s publication. That evolved into WWII in Asia. Conservatively, folks in the United States were still eschewing liquor in 1950. Historically, Prohibition was repealed four (4) years after publication in 1933. There was also an, active Association of Nations on Earth. That was a candidate name for what became The League of Nations . When the book was written, the future was optimistic. This changed rather quickly. The beginning of the Great Depression started later in the year of the book's publication.
The science fiction world building was also of interest. It reminded me of The World of the Future exhibits I’d read about at World’s Fairs. irl 1950 the world had not progressed as far as the author’s science fiction 1950. Only recently have radiovisiophone (wifi, Zoom, video meetings) and wrist radiophones (phone watches) become ubiquitous. There were also omissions. Despite having atomic power, there were no atomic bombs. I thought a cigarette lighter powered by an atomic battery was a cool idea? Info-dumps described atoms as having electrons and protons, but not neutrons. (Neutrons were discovered in 1932, three years after publication.) There were no computers! Then, annoyingly, the known laws of physics got bent. Radio waves moved faster than the speed of light. All space flight was acceleration; there was no deceleration. And boy, a two hour, one-way trip, Earth to the Moon?
Finally, an underground world beneath the airless surface of the Moon? We can only hope.
So, this was not a great work. It reminded me of a period version of the movie serial Flash Gordon (1936), which the book predated by 7-years. Science fiction is a lot more sophisticated now. However, it was a good peek into what both the past was like almost 100-years ago, if you look closely. It was also instructive to see how the author imagined the future would look about 70-years in the past from today. He’d have been disappointed.
August 9, 2008
Otis Adelbert Kline was in direct competition with Edgar Rice Burroughs and he did sword and planet books set on Mars and on Venus. And also did a moon one, like ERB's Moon Maid and Moon Men. ERB's is better.
July 29, 2016
A fun-ish read from 1930, in the vein of Edgar Rice Burroughs. You need to suspend a lot of disbelief for this one, and I wasn't quite up to it. I'm OK with people living on Mars, I don't mind alien races evolving on Mars, but I had a real hard time with Kline's descriptions of conditions on the Moon and with all the creatures living there. Maybe it was the flying reptiles.
And, as other reviewers have pointed out, it ends so suddenly it made my head spin. I'm tempted to try to find earlier editions to see if some over zealous editor along the way needed to get the page count down.
This is an early work of Kline's and the first of his that I've read. I bought several of his books on spec hoping they would be as fun as some of ERB's books. I'm going to be very disappointed if they're not at least a bit better than this one.
And, as other reviewers have pointed out, it ends so suddenly it made my head spin. I'm tempted to try to find earlier editions to see if some over zealous editor along the way needed to get the page count down.
This is an early work of Kline's and the first of his that I've read. I bought several of his books on spec hoping they would be as fun as some of ERB's books. I'm going to be very disappointed if they're not at least a bit better than this one.
September 17, 2024
A nice fast fun read of one of Kline's adventure books, originally published in 1930. Otis Adelbert Kline (1891-1946), of course, imitated Edgar Rice Burroughs and his type of adventure story. This one is Kline's version of ERB's "The Moon Maid".
Great cover by Frank Frazetta!
Great cover by Frank Frazetta!
August 31, 2020
I know this book probably doesn’t deserve the 5 but I just kind of loved it. It had both hokey sci-if elements that are in this day and age very charming and silly, and some weirdly accurate predications about the future. The world created is very fun and the kind of place you just want to go adventuring in. I liked that it fit in this weird halfway point between Ray Punk and Sword and Planet. The use of multiple perspectives in a time when people didn’t really do that all fit together well. The book just oozed camp and charm and deserves a bad Saturday morning cartoon in its honor, or a film like Flash Gordon.
It’s not without it’s flaws. OAK just didn’t get romance in the way that ERB did, as much as OAK wants to be Burroughs. The colloquial racism towards Asians is pretty cringe but he does portray some positively. The end is super rushed, albeit it very fun.
If you can turn your brain off and just want some good old fashioned proto-sci fi adventure I can’t recommend this book enough.
I liked it far more than OAK Mars books. I have yet to read the Venus books.
Also President Whitmore, I can’t help but wonder if Independence Day is making subtle nod to this classic work.
Final note: great Frazetta art.
It’s not without it’s flaws. OAK just didn’t get romance in the way that ERB did, as much as OAK wants to be Burroughs. The colloquial racism towards Asians is pretty cringe but he does portray some positively. The end is super rushed, albeit it very fun.
If you can turn your brain off and just want some good old fashioned proto-sci fi adventure I can’t recommend this book enough.
I liked it far more than OAK Mars books. I have yet to read the Venus books.
Also President Whitmore, I can’t help but wonder if Independence Day is making subtle nod to this classic work.
Final note: great Frazetta art.
June 25, 2022
It all starts when young inventor Theodore Dustin tries to win a reward to be the first man to touch the Moon with an object launched from Earth. He succeeds in this, but inadvertently begins an all-out war breaks out between the Earth and the Moon (whoops). Theodore, now responsible, will try to right the wrong by personally travelling to the Moon, but will he have any success? There are all kinds of adventures between him and the Lunites when he gets there, and he meets the beautiful Maza.
So, at first, I was thinking this book was quite silly and goofy, but after a while I ended up being invested in the outcome and enjoying it. Sure, there is quite a bit of cheese here, and I am not talking about the moon, either, but Maza of the Moon is a fun science fiction in the pulp variety.
I’m thinking that if you were making a salad and had such ingredients as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Princess of Mars, Flash Gordan, Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon, and threw in a dash of Wells’ War of the Worlds and maybe even a pinch of Star Wars in the mix you might get a little of what Maza of Moon is. Light sabers, pistol degravitators, journeys to the Moon, beautiful otherworldly heroines, protagonists in perilous situations and against all odds, cheesy dialogue, and diabolical villains who laugh maniacally all the while planning nefarious schemes.
It’s fairly ridiculous at points, and the dialogue is quite corny, but some of the action and adventure were quite engaging, especially on the craft and on the Moon. Maza of the Moon definitely plays out a bit like a science fiction B-movie. Part of the action plays out on the Earth (with the Earth being the subject of destructive forces being sent their way) and part of the action takes place on the Moon.
Overall, Maza of the Moon is a fun addition to the science fiction pulp genre.
So, at first, I was thinking this book was quite silly and goofy, but after a while I ended up being invested in the outcome and enjoying it. Sure, there is quite a bit of cheese here, and I am not talking about the moon, either, but Maza of the Moon is a fun science fiction in the pulp variety.
I’m thinking that if you were making a salad and had such ingredients as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Princess of Mars, Flash Gordan, Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon, and threw in a dash of Wells’ War of the Worlds and maybe even a pinch of Star Wars in the mix you might get a little of what Maza of Moon is. Light sabers, pistol degravitators, journeys to the Moon, beautiful otherworldly heroines, protagonists in perilous situations and against all odds, cheesy dialogue, and diabolical villains who laugh maniacally all the while planning nefarious schemes.
It’s fairly ridiculous at points, and the dialogue is quite corny, but some of the action and adventure were quite engaging, especially on the craft and on the Moon. Maza of the Moon definitely plays out a bit like a science fiction B-movie. Part of the action plays out on the Earth (with the Earth being the subject of destructive forces being sent their way) and part of the action takes place on the Moon.
Overall, Maza of the Moon is a fun addition to the science fiction pulp genre.
July 14, 2024
Well this was a gleefully bonkers little romp. Space opera from the 1930's. Disposable, but also a ton of fun, and a good bit ahead of its time, perhaps? Yet totally regressive, at the same time. Here are some fun things I noticed. Stop reading if you don't want minor spoilers, because number 4 is one.
1- The American space armada uses a superweapon called a degravitator, which breaks the strong force in atoms, and causes things to just disintegrate. The Magnetar-class battleships in the Expanse novel Persepolis Rising (which came out in 2018 maybe?) use an identical superweapon. Coincidence? Maybe, but it would be super-fun if that was actually an homage. (IDK, the Expanse guys don't seem all that well-read, honestly.)
2- The American president during the alien invasion is President Whitmore. Like in Independence Day. Coincidence? Man, I hope not. That would account for a single shred of intellect that went into the writing of that ridiculous, overblown clunker, and I'm all about redemption arcs.
3- One of the moon cities is called Ur, which is the name of one of the moon invaders in Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Coincidence? IDK, this one could really go either way.
4- Absolutely HILARIOUS that the alien invaders are the ancient ancestors of the Chinese. Yellow peril space opera!!! I can't get enough of this hilarious, racist nonsense. It's like if H.G. Wells teamed up with Edgar Rice Boroughs to write an Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu story.
Worth a read, if you like fun. Don't think about it too hard.
1- The American space armada uses a superweapon called a degravitator, which breaks the strong force in atoms, and causes things to just disintegrate. The Magnetar-class battleships in the Expanse novel Persepolis Rising (which came out in 2018 maybe?) use an identical superweapon. Coincidence? Maybe, but it would be super-fun if that was actually an homage. (IDK, the Expanse guys don't seem all that well-read, honestly.)
2- The American president during the alien invasion is President Whitmore. Like in Independence Day. Coincidence? Man, I hope not. That would account for a single shred of intellect that went into the writing of that ridiculous, overblown clunker, and I'm all about redemption arcs.
3- One of the moon cities is called Ur, which is the name of one of the moon invaders in Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Coincidence? IDK, this one could really go either way.
4- Absolutely HILARIOUS that the alien invaders are the ancient ancestors of the Chinese. Yellow peril space opera!!! I can't get enough of this hilarious, racist nonsense. It's like if H.G. Wells teamed up with Edgar Rice Boroughs to write an Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu story.
Worth a read, if you like fun. Don't think about it too hard.
March 17, 2011
Here I finally found the other half of The Swordsman of Mars: it takes place (or at least makes reference to) the same post-apocalyptic solar system setting that I thought was the standout feature of that other book.
Here it focuses on the Earth's Moon, a ruined captured planet whose atmosphere was boiled away in a catastrophic war with the inhabitants of Mars. The Ma Gong now skulk in domed structures or underground cities, trying to rebuild the technology of their ancestors and harboring dreams of conquest over their "white Lunarian" rivals and over Earth, who inadvertantly becomes involved.
Kline mixes up the genre a bit, to great advantage to the story. It starts as a sort of E. E. "Doc" Smith tale--eager brilliant scientist/engineer/businessman and space opera trappings--then segues into a more conventional sword-and-planet. With an unfortunate taste of Sax Rohmer's yellow peril in the form of the characterizations of the obviously Asian-inspired bad guys (which is justified in the story but still not pleasant to read). This formula works, and Kline adds some complexity to the narrative by describing events out of order between the battles on Earth and the adventures of the various Earthmen on the Moon.
It's a pure joy to read the future-science of Earth in this far-off year of 1954: "radiovisiphones", "electroplanes", "degravitor pistols", "atomotors", and "aerial battleships".
Here it focuses on the Earth's Moon, a ruined captured planet whose atmosphere was boiled away in a catastrophic war with the inhabitants of Mars. The Ma Gong now skulk in domed structures or underground cities, trying to rebuild the technology of their ancestors and harboring dreams of conquest over their "white Lunarian" rivals and over Earth, who inadvertantly becomes involved.
Kline mixes up the genre a bit, to great advantage to the story. It starts as a sort of E. E. "Doc" Smith tale--eager brilliant scientist/engineer/businessman and space opera trappings--then segues into a more conventional sword-and-planet. With an unfortunate taste of Sax Rohmer's yellow peril in the form of the characterizations of the obviously Asian-inspired bad guys (which is justified in the story but still not pleasant to read). This formula works, and Kline adds some complexity to the narrative by describing events out of order between the battles on Earth and the adventures of the various Earthmen on the Moon.
It's a pure joy to read the future-science of Earth in this far-off year of 1954: "radiovisiphones", "electroplanes", "degravitor pistols", "atomotors", and "aerial battleships".
May 31, 2016
Another decent pulp story. A Tony Stark-like protagonist accidentally starts a war with the Moon-Chinese (this section is a twist on Verne's story 'Earth to the Moon'). Yes in this all Chinese and presumably all other asians, are descended from moonmen.
If that sounds a bit racist then you would be right, the descriptions of the moon-chinese are particularly stereotypical. However overall the chinese people on earth are fairly dealt with.
There is of course the requisite princess (a caucassian, needless to say), there are also space-ships, deathrays, spacedragons, etc.
This is at least as pulp as 'Princess of Mars' but i liked it far more. One great thing was the background material about a war between Mars and the Moon. That really helped give the story-world a bit of depth.
If that sounds a bit racist then you would be right, the descriptions of the moon-chinese are particularly stereotypical. However overall the chinese people on earth are fairly dealt with.
There is of course the requisite princess (a caucassian, needless to say), there are also space-ships, deathrays, spacedragons, etc.
This is at least as pulp as 'Princess of Mars' but i liked it far more. One great thing was the background material about a war between Mars and the Moon. That really helped give the story-world a bit of depth.
May 30, 2022
Fun silly scifi of an early age but casual racism and sexism muddy the enjoyment that could be a fun scifi romp with crazy aliens that may be the original humans.
July 2, 2024
_Maza of the Moon_ is definitely the oldest mass market paperback I have ever read, published 1930! My copy has cover and interior art by the famed illustrator Frank Franzetta. It is a Raygun Gothic or Raypunk story that is highly reminiscent of Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, with lot of touches of John Carter of Barsoom. It is written by Otis Adelbert Kline (1891-1946), an American author of the pulp area, who mostly wrote for the magazine _Weird Tales_ where his novels appeared in serialized form, and I read had a literary feud with Edgar Rice Burroughs over planetary romance stories set on Venus and Mars, a feud that I also read was more of a fan and magazine creation than a real thing. He also largely abandoned writing to become a literary agent in the mid-1930s, famously representing Robert E. Howard, author of the Conan stories.
The main character is Ted Dustin, inventor, adventurer, scientist, and CEO who is everything Elon Musk wishes he was. Set forty years after what we could call World War One, it is a very optimistic late 1950s as imagined by someone who likely wrote this in 1929, with smokeless cities run on solar power, a largely peaceful world governed by the Associated Governments of the Earth, people basically do Zoom calls all the time with their radiovisiphones, flight is commonplace with electroplanes and aerial ships, but the world is not enough. Ted leads the way to reach for the stars and as part of that process, uses a gigantic artillery piece in the Galapagos Islands to fire a shell at the Moon as proof of concept of reaching the heavens.
Only the shell destroyed an underground city on an apparently inhabited Moon and precipitated a planetary war between the already aggressive P’an-ku empire and the peoples of the Earth, with a number of Earth cities devastated. It is up to Ted to basically quickly invent and manufacture not only ray gun disintegrators (degravitors) but a space battleship to take the fight to the Moon. But first, Ted invents a smaller basically one-man craft and goes to the Moon himself to do what he can to stop further Lunar bombardment of Earth. While there he meets and instantly falls in love (and the love is returned) by the leader of the other Lunar civilization, a woman named Maza an Ma Gong, with Maza and Ted variously rescuing one another and allying to defeat the evil empire.
It's got a breathless pace, a wonderfully exotic Moon with underground mushroom forests filled with dinosaurs, (non-fire-breathing) dragons, and pterodactyls (no one can live on the airless, hot surface), and lots and lots of combat, with Ted basically blasting everything in sight with his ray gun, though a few times melee weapons see use. There are aerial battles on Earth, battles over the Moon’s surface, prison escapes, fighting local wildlife (usually just disintegrating them), villains promising torture, ultimatums to the Earth, and so many ray guns, as the Moon people have them too. Got a few maybe problematic elements, as the bad guys are Asian and briefly ally with the Chinese, though if you read the book the Asian characters at least on Earth aren’t monolithic.
Maza is a bit of a cypher. While she has some agency and is a leader, you really don’t learn much at all about her other than she takes an instant liking to Ted and is really pretty. Ted, for his part, is the Brilliant Inventor, Quick Master of Foreign Languages, Accomplished Scientist, Daredevil Pilot, and Intrepid Hero who Saves the World and Gets the Girl.
The main character is Ted Dustin, inventor, adventurer, scientist, and CEO who is everything Elon Musk wishes he was. Set forty years after what we could call World War One, it is a very optimistic late 1950s as imagined by someone who likely wrote this in 1929, with smokeless cities run on solar power, a largely peaceful world governed by the Associated Governments of the Earth, people basically do Zoom calls all the time with their radiovisiphones, flight is commonplace with electroplanes and aerial ships, but the world is not enough. Ted leads the way to reach for the stars and as part of that process, uses a gigantic artillery piece in the Galapagos Islands to fire a shell at the Moon as proof of concept of reaching the heavens.
Only the shell destroyed an underground city on an apparently inhabited Moon and precipitated a planetary war between the already aggressive P’an-ku empire and the peoples of the Earth, with a number of Earth cities devastated. It is up to Ted to basically quickly invent and manufacture not only ray gun disintegrators (degravitors) but a space battleship to take the fight to the Moon. But first, Ted invents a smaller basically one-man craft and goes to the Moon himself to do what he can to stop further Lunar bombardment of Earth. While there he meets and instantly falls in love (and the love is returned) by the leader of the other Lunar civilization, a woman named Maza an Ma Gong, with Maza and Ted variously rescuing one another and allying to defeat the evil empire.
It's got a breathless pace, a wonderfully exotic Moon with underground mushroom forests filled with dinosaurs, (non-fire-breathing) dragons, and pterodactyls (no one can live on the airless, hot surface), and lots and lots of combat, with Ted basically blasting everything in sight with his ray gun, though a few times melee weapons see use. There are aerial battles on Earth, battles over the Moon’s surface, prison escapes, fighting local wildlife (usually just disintegrating them), villains promising torture, ultimatums to the Earth, and so many ray guns, as the Moon people have them too. Got a few maybe problematic elements, as the bad guys are Asian and briefly ally with the Chinese, though if you read the book the Asian characters at least on Earth aren’t monolithic.
Maza is a bit of a cypher. While she has some agency and is a leader, you really don’t learn much at all about her other than she takes an instant liking to Ted and is really pretty. Ted, for his part, is the Brilliant Inventor, Quick Master of Foreign Languages, Accomplished Scientist, Daredevil Pilot, and Intrepid Hero who Saves the World and Gets the Girl.
April 8, 2026
While it's not a bad bit of classic, pulpy science fiction, it's hard not to see it as just a product of its time with little to offer outside of its own imaginative ideas. Full of starships, alien races, peculiar flora and fauna, and even ray-based sword battles, it certainly feels like an ancestor to the space operas that would later dominate comic books, tv screens, and movie theaters. It's antiquated technological imaginations do give the book a slight retro-futuristic charm, but otherwise, it's relentless need for forward-moving action makes it pretty shallow as a story. Unless you're interested in science fiction history, it's hard to recommend, as it pales in comparison to later works that do more with these kinds of ideas.
February 4, 2016
It is amazing what you find when a bookstore empties out its storage space and gives the books away for free. This is pulpy science fiction at its breezy best, starring Ted Dustin, a young inventor/businessman who has made a fortune devising a usable solar power energy system, but has lost the same fortunate by trying to be the first man to send a rocket to the moon. He succeeds, though, but sets off an interplanetary war that naturally only he can stop. Featuring such futuristic devices as super electroplanes, radiovisiphones, wrist watch radios, and atomotors that can send a ship to the moon in hours (while the inventor sits in the cockpit, smoking his pipe, no less!), degravitors (ray guns that disintegrate matter), not to mention good old fashioned death rays and subterranean lunar societies that use dinosaur like dragons as beasts of burden, this is purely a grown man-boy's fantasy of accidentally starting a war with a power hungry warlord from the moon while winning the heart of the beautiful princess who is the rightful ruler of the moon. Sadly, but not surprisingly, it does have racist and sexist elements common to much pulp fiction. An Asian turncoat features broadly in the plot, the evil lunar society are outlandishly stereotypically Asian (round bodies, round heads, tiny limbs, stringy moustaches) and are the ancestors of at least the Chinese, while the good lunar society are white people, who are oddly enough descended from Martians. On the sexist side, the only female character is the blonde, gorgeous Maza, ruler of the moon, who needs to be rescued at least twice. Refreshingly, she does rescue Ted in their first encounter, and she can hold her own in a ray gun battle.
June 6, 2012
I was expecting a Barsoom knockoff, but this was more like Flash Gordon than like Barsoom. It was a fun, quick read.
May 3, 2016
read some time in 1996
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