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 fiancee 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.
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 fiancee 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.
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 (1867–1938) 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 University–Hawai‘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.
“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
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