Customer Reviews

Down to a Sunless Sea (Daw UE1937)

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This book is one of the 4 (that I know of) books in a series sharing backgrounds, but not characters set in a futuristic Mars where the native civilization is in decline and earthlings prospect for native Martian artifacts. "The Man Who Loved Mars" is probably my favorite, "a rose red city half as old as time..."
a recurring theme. This one is set in the same setting and is a short novel, but an engrossing story. Bad guy with heart of gold, rescued women, outlaws chasing through the desert. It's all there with some twists.

Carter presents another exciting swashbuckler. This time, it takes place on the arid surface of a dying Mars, where human colonists live in uneasy truce with the dwindling bands of natives. After falling out with human society, at least temporarily, and falling in with company cast out of normal Martian society, Brant and the little band run for their lives from unseen followers. Then, when cornered, they discover a long-lost doorway guarding forgotten stairway ...

Carter's amusing escapist stories approach Burroughs's classic Barsoom tales in adventure and scope. Just a little too often, though, they seem to fall back on cliches: giant bugs, mushroom forests, and other familiar props. Then there's the pair of women, left to die in the sand because their pairing was a bit too intimate for their straitlaced peers. Of course, Real Men show them the error of their ways, their difference of species notwithstanding.

A cliche here and there never hurt a good swashbuckler, though. The familiar bits make it that much easier for the reader to suspend disbelief and go along for the ride - and it's a great ride!

-- wiredweird

I liked it enough ten years ago, and then I lost the copy. Picked it up, Still love it. The plots are great, the detail behind the charectors are great. (The idea of humanoid martiens is no longer one ppl think of-thanks star trek of the 60's but your realm is over!)But the world that is uncovered in the book is one of dreamy imagination, and the 60's peace and love theme is shown at the beginging. Its like a really good scifi love story LOL