**
Compendium of two volumes originally published in French by Le Rouge in 1908 and 1909, translated by David Beus and Brian Evenson, and presented here as part of the University of Nebraska's Bison Frontiers of Imagination series. Note, however, that the provenance of the books is never discussed, with the translators pretending that the story is real, tossing off "sizable" third act gaps in the first volume as holes in the historical record. The conceit, though reprehensible, is, from a literary standpoint, almost justified, as Volume One is an episodic work that doesn't greatly suffer from the loss. Together, the two books tell the story of Robert Darvel, a brilliant French engineer, who is stranded on Mars and of his friends and ladylove, back on Earth, working to bring him home. Stilted and facile, yet not altogether without merit. The detailed manner in which Darvel reaches Mars -- a combination of science and the focused willpower of hundreds of Indian Brahmins -- has the grandiose flair of a mad scientist, a Herbert West, and one or two other ideas point to what could have been an exciting horror story. Ultimately, though, this is science fiction, and that is its undoing. Guided by Le Rouge's idea that there is nothing new under the sun (a strange thought for this type of story), Mars turns out to be another Earth, with much the same flora and fauna, albeit differently colored. Significantly, Le Rouge spends almost as much time rhapsodizing over the wonders of Earth as those of Mars. Meanwhile, the vampires themselves are little more than overgrown vampire bats. With a few lengthy yet irrelevant asides -- including an Allan Quartermain-type adventure of lost treasure and, incomprehensibly, the backstory of a chef -- and a hero who, at one point, dismisses the horrible deaths of his brave but simpleminded saviors as the insignificant loss of a bunch of "savages."
Compendium of two volumes originally published in French by Le Rouge in 1908 and 1909, translated by David Beus and Brian Evenson, and presented here as part of the University of Nebraska's Bison Frontiers of Imagination series. Note, however, that the provenance of the books is never discussed, with the translators pretending that the story is real, tossing off "sizable" third act gaps in the first volume as holes in the historical record. The conceit, though reprehensible, is, from a literary standpoint, almost justified, as Volume One is an episodic work that doesn't greatly suffer from the loss. Together, the two books tell the story of Robert Darvel, a brilliant French engineer, who is stranded on Mars and of his friends and ladylove, back on Earth, working to bring him home. Stilted and facile, yet not altogether without merit. The detailed manner in which Darvel reaches Mars -- a combination of science and the focused willpower of hundreds of Indian Brahmins -- has the grandiose flair of a mad scientist, a Herbert West, and one or two other ideas point to what could have been an exciting horror story. Ultimately, though, this is science fiction, and that is its undoing. Guided by Le Rouge's idea that there is nothing new under the sun (a strange thought for this type of story), Mars turns out to be another Earth, with much the same flora and fauna, albeit differently colored. Significantly, Le Rouge spends almost as much time rhapsodizing over the wonders of Earth as those of Mars. Meanwhile, the vampires themselves are little more than overgrown vampire bats. With a few lengthy yet irrelevant asides -- including an Allan Quartermain-type adventure of lost treasure and, incomprehensibly, the backstory of a chef -- and a hero who, at one point, dismisses the horrible deaths of his brave but simpleminded saviors as the insignificant loss of a bunch of "savages."
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