Robert Darvel, a young and penniless French engineer at the turn of the twentieth century, is an amateur astronomer obsessed with the planet Mars. Transported by a combination of science and psychic powers to Mars, Robert must navigate the dangers of the Red Planet while trying to return to his fiancée on Earth. Through his travels, we discover that Mars can not only support life but is also home to three different types of vampires. This riveting combination of science fiction and the adventure story provides a vivid depiction of an imagined Mars and its strange, unearthly creatures who might be closer to earthly humans than we would care to believe.
Originally published in French as two separate volumes, translated as The Prisoner of the Planet Mars (1908) and The War of the Vampires (1909), this vintage work is available to English-language audiences unabridged for the first time and masterfully translated by David Beus and Brian Evenson.
Arvustused
"The best novel of one of the most important SF writers in France at the dawn of the twentieth century. Gustave Le Rouge was one of the first to portray the overlap between scientific technology and psychic phenomena to explore a host of new cognitive, aesthetic, and speculative frontiers. In so doing, he helped to launch a new literary genre."Arthur Evans, author of Jules Verne Rediscovered and managing editor of Science Fiction Studies
Introduction by William Ambler The Prisoner of the Planet Mars Part
One I. A Mysterious Message II. Ralph Pitcher's Home III. Missing IV.
Yarmouth Street V. The Castle of Energy VI. Marvels VII. The Catastrophe
VIII. The Awakening Part Two I. The Wilderness II. Dead from Joy III. The
Conquest of Fire IV. The White Beast V. The Vampire VI. Captain Wad's
Experiment VII. The Martian Village VIII. Public Festivities IX. War with
the Idols X. Nocturnal Battle XI. Explorations XII. Progress XIII. The
Crystal Mountain XIV. The Photographs XV. "RO-BERT DAR-VEL" XVI. Darkness
Translator's Note The War of the Vampires Part One: The Invisibles I.
Zarouk II. The Villa des Lentisques III. A Meal Worthy of Lucullus IV. The
Invisible Being V. The Catastrophe VI. A Strange Meteorite VII. A Potent
Cure Part Two: The Martian Mystery I. Robert Darvel's Tale II. After the
Victory III. The Aerophytes IV. The Glass Tower V. Arsenals and Catacombs
VI. The Opal Helmet VII. The Isle of Death VIII. The Road Home Part Three:
The Last of the Vampires I. Nocturnal Phantasms II. The Pursuit III.
Explanations
Gustave Le Rouge (18671938) was a French writer of early science fiction. His masterpiece vampire novels charted an innovative course for early science fiction. David Beus is an assistant professor of international cultural studies at Brigham Young UniversityHawai'i. He translated, with Brian Evenson, Christian Gailly's novel Red Haze (Nebraska, 2005). Brian Evenson is the Royce Professor of Excellence in Teaching in the Department of Literary Arts at Brown University. He is the author of more than a dozen novels and translations, including Immobility, Windeye, and Altmann's Tongue (Nebraska, 2002). William Ambler lives and writes in Rhode Island. His work can be found at the Huffington Post and Word and Film.
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