Red Men of Mars

by John Russell Fearn

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

Mars' Earth-born Emperor battles for survival! Mars is at peace for the first time in generations but its old warlord is still alive and a hidden race of Martians makes itself known, adding to the complexity of the situation threatening that peace. In the grand tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Red Men of Mars is the third installment in the Clayton Drew quartet.

Release date: June 30, 2015

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 98

Sample

For more than seven decades, successive generations of American readers—and indeed readers all over the world—have thrilled to the adventure novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In the cold light of science and astronomical discoveries, we now know that there are no wild banths and beautiful princesses on Mars. No teeming jungles on Venus. But Edgar Rice Burroughs remains in print, touching the hearts and minds of each new generation of fantasy fans. The answer to this contradiction is that what was once read as science fiction can now be enjoyed as fantasy … always provided that the original author had imagination and talent.

Back in 1949, the British publisher W.H. Allen struck gold when he began reissuing Edgar Rice Burroughs novels in paperback. Their appearance paved the way for the British science fiction boom which took off in 1950, fuelled by the launch of the “Vargo Statten” paperback science fiction novels written by John Russell Fearn. Fearn was an English author who had learned his craft in the American pulp magazines, many of his stories appearing alongside the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs in the pages of Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures.

These two strands came together in the Fall of 1950, when U.K. publishers Hamilton & Co. (Stafford) Ltd. hit upon the idea of commissioning Fearn to write a series of books inspired by the success of ERB’s John Carter of Mars sf novels. Fearn’s brief was to create an up-to-date modern series: EMPEROR OF MARS, WARRIOR OF MARS, RED MEN OF MARS, and GODDESS OF MARS. Other Burroughsian elements included both green Martians, and a ‘superior’ race of red Martians, underground cities, lost races, monstrous life forms, a beautiful princess, and plot intrigues involving brain and body transplants. But the Fearn novels were not merely pastiches of ERB: Fearn brought to them his own canon of classic science fiction themes and plots which he himself had pioneered in the American pulp magazines.

The result of this combination of influences was a dynamic series that became a best-seller in the U.K. But the series was cut short when Hamilton’s main publishing rival, Scion Ltd., offered Fearn a 5 year contract to write for them exclusively as Vargo Statten. Thus the Clay Drew of Mars series came to a premature end after four novels, and was never reprinted. Now rare, these books have become legendary collectors’ items.

It is against this background that Gryphon Publications and myself are making them available to a new generation of ERB and fantasy adventure fans, with the added bonus of specially commissioned new artwork by Ron Turner. Turner was the original cover artist for most of the dozens of Fearn ‘Vargo Statten’ novels in the 1950s, and has long been recognized as the greatest sf paperback artist of that exciting period. For more details of these works and other contemporary British science fiction, interested readers are referred to my two books (with Stephen Holland) VULTURES OF THE VOID and BRITISH SF PAPERBACKS AND MAGAZINES, currently in print from Borgo Press in the U.S.A. and also available from Gryphon Publications. Just as J. Allen St. John captured the magic of ERB, so Ron Turner brilliantly portrays the sense of wonder and sf vision underlying Fearn’s stories.

Fearn, like Edgar Rice Burroughs, was a born storyteller, with talent and imagination. Like John Carter, Clay Drew’s adventures can now be enjoyed as fantasy adventure. This new Gryphon Books series is sure to become a collector’s item, and is one no ERB and fantasy fan will want to miss!

Philip Harbottle, Wallsend, England, Jan. 1995

For the first time in generations Mars was at peace. The long, bitter struggle between the intelligentsia of Mars, represented by the descendants of Earth’s own Atlantis, and the green skinned, bald-headed Martians themselves, was over. Lexas, the power-crazy ruler who had believed he could lead his people to victory, had disappeared into space, a fugitive from both the Atlanteans and the people of Earth.

He had left behind him many thousands of his race who were content, now they had escaped the whip of an autocrat, to live under the control of the Atlanteans. Their science and tolerance was, after all, to be preferred to the power-lusting of their vanished ruler. True, in their hearts, they could not altogether accept the “usurpers” who had come from another world and conquered Mars by superior science – but since their own science was of a low order they were making the best of a bad job.

At the head of Atlantis was Clayton Drew, Earthman of Atlantean descent, singled out by the dignitaries of the race as the only possible partner for Princess Thalia. He had fulfilled his mission and was now reaping the benefit. Married to Thalia by Atlantean law he was the dominant power of Mars, and master too of the intricacies of Atlantean science.

Some six months had passed since the last battle with Lexas, and nothing had been seen or heard of him since. In that time the Atlantis of the Martian underworld which he had sought to destroy had been rebuilt. On the surface of the planet the ravages caused by metal-eating bacteria had also been repaired and from pole to pole the arid world was clear of alien life …

But, just the same, Mars was still a dying world, and though the Atlanteans had everything they could wish for in their underground city they could never really accustom themselves to living away from the surface of their planet. It was a matter which absorbed Clay Drew’s attention more and more as time passed—until at last he came to a decision.

He called a meeting of the ruling clique in the immense conference room attached to the palace. The clique consisted of three Atlantean dignitaries, all aged males, Empress Thalia, and Axion, a young Atlantean scientist for whose services to the cause had been given the reward of Vice-Controller.

“The position,” Clay Drew said, from the head of the gleaming council table, “is this … To have mastered this planet and defeated Lexas means nothing if we continue with our present enforced imprisonment in this underworld. Up on the surface the Martians are living in cities badly served because of thin air and everlasting sunshine: they feel, and rightly, that as rulers we should do something to improve their lot. And that improvement does not mean that they should come into the underworld. That would merely exchange one unpleasant existence for another.”

The group was silent. The men glanced at one another. The Empress Thalia sat musing—a girl of rare loveliness with her delicately bronzed skin, sea-green eyes, and tumbling masses of golden hair. Thalia, once a timid pretender to the throne, was now a near-goddess in stature and poise. Slavery under the rule of Lexas had toughened her, given her a full and delectable maturity.

“I think,” Clay said, after a pause, “that it is one of those occasions when we can learn something from the enemy. In other words, Lexas had the right idea when he thought of stealing oceans and air from Earth and bringing them here to Mars.”

The assembly looked at him in surprise. He was smiling rather tautly, a young, rugged-looking man with keen blue eyes and untidy black hair.

“You don’t suggest, Highness, that we should do the very thing at which we stopped Lexas?” Axion asked, amazed.

“I do,” Clay answered. “In case I need to refresh your memories let me tell you that Lexas conceived the quite ingenious notion of stealing water and air from Earth by means of a gigantic de-gravitator beam acting through a tunnel of force, by which water and air degravitated over a thousand-mile area of Earth, would automatically have been sucked to Mars here. The idea was brilliant, and had he gone through with it he could have brought much-needed oceans and clouds to this arid, dying planet. We stopped him—but we did not destroy the tower with which he intended to perform his immense scientific feat. All we did was move away the projector and turn the tower into an outlook-post.”

“Isn’t this rather a waste of time, Clay?” Thalia asked, shrugging. “Obviously we can’t do that. Earth people are our closest friends. Now we have space travel established they are our biggest traders. To steal air and water from Earth would cause war, besides half-destroying Earth itself … Much though I wish to see this planet have its surface revived I’ll never consent to a plan like that.”

Clay smiled a little. “It happens that Earth is not the only world within reach of the tower which has dense air and oceans. There is also Venus.”

The assembly began to take interest. It was plain they had never given a thought to the second world from the sun.

“I have not, as yet, made a detailed study of Venus,” Clay continued. “But I intend to. If we find that it will not cause trouble to whatever inhabitants there might be we will take oceans and air from there, and nobody will suffer. Lexas may have been our enemy, but he had one magnificent idea there which is too good to waste.”

“Venus,” Thalia repeated slowly, her green eyes bright. “Why, of course! Why didn’t we think of it before?”

“I did,” Clay answered shrugging. “Then I was worried as to what such a plan might do to the inhabitants of that world. If there are flourishing civilizations on Venus, which I very much doubt, then the scheme is off. We of Mars are establishing ourselves as a just and scientific people—and eventually we hope to bring Venus into our orbit of colonized planets. We’ll never do it if we act as barbarians and kill thousands of Venusians just to satisfy our own climatic needs.”

“You suggest a space flight to Venus to explore, Highness?” Axion questioned; but Clay shook his head.

“I see no reason for that. It would take a great deal of time, and might expose us to numberless hazards No; the better way is to study it telescopically. Our X-ray equipment is capable of both piercing the overhead rock which separates us from the surface of this planet, and it will also penetrate the eternal cloudbanks of Venus.”

“We have records of the planet from past observations,” Thalia remarked.

“I’ve examined them,” Clay said. “They are not particularly conclusive, Thalia. The reflectors used for the purpose were not powerful enough. I have in mind a new reflector incorporating an eight-hundred-inch lens. With that we can bring Venus within a mile of us and study it in detail.”

“Excellent suggestion, Highness,” one of the dignitaries agreed. “Restoration of this planet of ours to the conditions it once enjoyed—on the surface—will quell the final misgivings of the few Martians left on the surface. And it also will mean we can return at last to fresh winds, the ocean, and an atmosphere which is not synthetic.”

Clay nodded. “I still have enough memory of Earth left in my mind to want just those conditions,” he said “That being so I take it I have your unanimous consent to the immediate construction of a super-projector-reflector?”

The hands around the table were raised in assent; so Clay immediately went into action and gave his instructions to the scientific laboratories, passing on to them the sketches he himself ha. . .