Mars Is My Destination (Vintage Pyramid Books F-742 (1962)

By Frank Belknap Long and Drank Belknap Long

Book Overview

Mars is My Destination, has been regarded as significant work throughout human history, and in order to ensure that this work is never lost, we have taken steps to ensure its preservation by... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B000HB1862
• Release Date: June 1962
• Publisher: Pyramid Books
• Length: 158 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Way Out West

Frank Belknap Long's _Mars is My Destination_ (1962) is a paperback original, with a good cover by John Schoenherr. Its weakness may be quickly stated. It is a space opera with a plot much like that of a Western. The scenario of the agent sent to Mars to tame the shenanigans of two rival energy corporations is a bit like the Marshal sent to Dodge City to settle a feud between the cattlemen and the sheepherders. It might be pertinent to raise the question: What is wrong with this? Is science fiction a genre that is so pure that it cannot stand to be blended with the Western? Or the detective story? Or the romance? Or the spy story? Of course not. Pure science fiction (like Daniel DeFoe's "pure-blooded Englishman") is a myth. The problem comes when a _stock_ plot from one genre is transplanted to another genre, with only a few cosmetic changes. If you could tell the story just as well as a Western, why disguise it as sf? But Long doesn't acquit himself too badly. Granted that he is working with a stock plot and stock characters. He nevertheless creates a sympathetic hero, he keeps the action moving briskly, and there are some futuristic scenes-- an underground transit center in Chicago, a robot room in a spaceship, a Martian spaceport with "spider-web tracery" (65), and the Martian desert seen through the windows of a speeding ambulance-- that are well-handled. Nothing classic here, but passable fun.