Otis Adelbert Kline (1891–1946)

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.… (mais)

I had known of Otis Adelbert Kline as a rival for the pulp mantle of exotic adventure accorded to Edgar Rice Burroughs, and was for some years interested to read his Martian sword-and-planet contributions. I expected them to seem derivative from ERB. What I discovered instead is that they appear to have been a significant model for the early Flash Gordon stories. There is a non-trivial extraterrestrial "yellow peril" element (although the yellow Ma Gongi aliens are shown in the cover art of my copy as green), and romantic intrigue with the daughter of the evil despot. (The chronology fits, with Swordsman of Mars published throughout 1933 and the earliest Flash Gordon strips appearing in 1934.)

The voyage to Mars is of the esoteric mind-transfer sort, additionally including time travel, so that like the Martian adventures of Leigh Brackett, it is set in the planet's past. Kline surprisingly makes no mention of the lower Martian gravity, which even serves as a plot point for ERB's John Carter. Martian fauna here include a lot of oversized insects, but also some strange vertebrates that I often found difficult to picture. There are giant birds used for mounts, a staple of the sword-and-planet subgenre, here called gawrs.

The book is a fast read, with frequent cliff-hanger chapter endings reflecting its genesis as a pulp serial. The prose is serviceable. I feel I have done my duty by including this book in my readings of Martian tales, and I'd read its sequel to kill some time, but it's not something I'll be in a hurry to seek out. I would recommend it to those who are fond of the old Flash Gordon stories.… (mais)

This short novel was apparently part of a feud between the author and Edgar Rice Burroughs in the 1930's. The story is very obviously a rip-off of Burroughs' John Carter of Mars stories. It even screams it at you on the covers, front and back. Nevertheless I thought it could be a very fun read - these planetary romances were enjoyable adventures to read when I was a teen and the best ones are still fun to read. This story started well but as far as I'm concerned quickly turned into old dishwater. Not terrible for what it is, just not very good and it literally put me to sleep.

I read a 1961 Ace paperback edition. It shows the original publication was 1933.… (mais)