“Kane of Old Mars”, by Michael Moorcock

 

 

450 pages, White Wolf Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1565041844

 

Over the course of the mid-to-late 90s, White Wolf Publishing produced this massive omnibus collection of Michael Moorcock’s “Eternal Champion” stories, a recurrent aspect in many of his tales. Kane of Old Mars was the ninth in this series featuring the character Michael Kane, and includes the tales City of the Beast, Lord of the Spiders and Masters of the Pit. The Kane of these tales is a man from Earth, circa 1965, who is accidentally transported to a pre-historic, post-apocalyptic Mars during an experiment in teleportation; a Mars in which the original Martian races have all been wiped out. What’s left of their civilization, however, remains, especially their technology, and Kane ends up founding the Kane Dynasty. These stories take place millions of years later, in which Kane is remembered by the current races of Mars, the Hither People, as a man from their shrouded past. This is some vast mythos that Moorcock has created for this latest iteration of his Eternal Champion.

 

All of the books are unapologetic homages to the John Carter tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and so we find in the first book, City of the Beast, originally published in 1965 as Warriors of Mars under the nom-de-plume Edward Powys Bradbury, to whom Michael Kane supposedly told his tale. It is a story with everything that Burroughs could have wanted: battles galore, devious traps, daring escapes, an underground city, a dark pit with a wicked creature within, chases hither and yon the Red Planet and a Martian Princess, to boot…its all the pulpiest pulp a pulp fiction fan could ever want. And as with all pulp fiction, Moorcock wastes precious little time on deep plots or character development – it’s all about the action and the world building. Moorcock was well suited for just this sort of work, seeing as his admiration for the Sci-Fi stories of his youth was the driving inspiration for his own Earthling-cum-Martian protagonist. And as for productivity, there are few who can top Moorcock; the entire trilogy, according to the author, was written in no more than a week. This means, however, that the book suffers in the Scientific Credibility department, along with the other aforementioned problems from above…but that’s not the damn point: Moorcock’s Mars is the Old West of Outer Space, with action set in an alien world that the author can – and does – do with as he pleases in terms of technology and whatnot. Brain Candy at its finest.

 

The second book, Lord of the Spiders (originally published in 1965 as Blades of Mars by the fictional Edward Powys Bradbury), picks up where City of the Beast left off, which should come as no surprise seeing as how Moorcock churned all three books out one after another. Edward Powys Bradbury, the “writer” of these books, supplies him with the finances to construct another matter transmitter which transports Kane back to Mars…but not the Mars that he battled for; instead, Kane is confronted with man-sized spiders, ancient mutated races and a brutal civil war between the planet’s familiar Blue Giants. Can it be that he’s arrived thousands of years too late to find his beloved Shizala? There is precious little difference between the first two books of the Michael Kane trilogy as we once again plunge into an action-packed pulpfest of fantastic Sci-Fi (fantastic as in unrealistic but fun as hell). Whereas in the first book Kane was taken to Mars quite against his will, in the second he returns voluntarily, only to find everything is a mess and that he may not even be in the same time as whence he was – and there’s precious little more to distinguish Spiders from Beast (or Warriors from Blades, if you prefer). But again, that’s the point: these books are not deep meditations on philosophy or humanity or technology or whatever; they are classic yarns meant to entertain and to distract, so take it for what it is and enjoy yourself.

 

Last we come to Masters of the Pit (originally published in 1965 as Barbarians of Mars by dear old Bradbury again), which finds a comfortable Michael Kane having gown into his new role as a prince of ancient Mars…until a new peril threatens his adopted planet, and so we find Kane and his blue giant companion, Hool Haji, traveling to the far reaches of the Red Planet in order to halt the hideous Green Death. This unstoppable disease, spread by zealots who are more machines than men, rots the mind as well as the body; in order to find a cure, our heroes must cross oceans, battle hideous mutants, fight savage barbarians and, perhaps, even sacrifice his adopted kingdom. From gorgeous Karnala, City of Green Mists, to the empty streets of tainted Cend-Amrid to the forgotten weird-science laboratories of the lost, highly advanced Yaksha culture, Masters of the Pit promises stunning locales, disgusting Martian creatures and relentless action. Well, then, what else can I say that I didn’t say about the other two books in this volume? Lots of action, outrageous locales, impossible technology…and a whole lotta fun. Escapist fiction at its finest, written years before we knew anything concrete about the Red Planet and before any woke bullshit intruded into every nook and cranny of our lives.