Mars Confidential

Howard BrowneProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.7

Word count: 34K words
Chapters: 4

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Mars Confidential by Howard BrowneAuthor: Browne, Howard, 1907-1999,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Feb 15, 2010

Editor's review

Howard Browne was a mid-twentieth-century American genre-fiction writer, and Mars Confidential belongs to his output for the pulp-magazine readership, now made available as a free eBook by Project Gutenberg. Its value lies chiefly at the level of genre-literary history: it preserves the look of a moment when science fiction and detective narrative converged, and it is useful for studying pulp-magazine prose style and early ways of imagining Mars. The text is short, the language direct, and the plot moves quickly, making it a sample for understanding the popular-fiction tradition rather than a work to be read for rigorous scientific world-building or deep literary structure. The electronic edition is easy to obtain, and the book can serve for comparative reading or as light introductory material in English genre fiction. While reading, it is worth noting the period features of narrative pacing and character setup and understanding them within the context of mid-twentieth-century American mass publishing; that yields more than reading it simply as an adventure story.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in twentieth-century American pulp-magazine fiction
Researchers studying early Mars-themed science fiction and detective narrative
English learners who want short original English texts for extensive reading
Readers who enjoy retro-style adventure stories and do not demand scientific rigor

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting hard science fiction settings and contemporary scientific detail
Those who prefer complex literary structure and deep character development
Readers who need a Chinese translation or annotated edition for easy reading
Those sensitive to the gender and racial attitudes in older narratives

Reading tips

Read the first few chapters to see whether the narrative pace suits your reading habits before deciding to finish it.
Keep a brief timeline of the period at hand and mark passages that belong to the pulp-magazine style as you read.
Read it alongside Mars-themed works from the same period to observe changes in how Mars was imagined.
English learners can read one short section a day, going through it once and then looking up unfamiliar words.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a short work?

According to the Project Gutenberg catalog information, it is a short work of popular fiction, not a thick novel. For the exact chapters and word count, consult the main text of the electronic edition; before reading, you can skim the table of contents or the opening to judge how much time you need.

Do I need to know about Howard Browne first?

Not necessarily. The available information gives only his birth and death years and the attribution of the work, without a detailed biography. You can go straight to the text; if you want to dig deeper, consult reliable sources about the author, but do not treat outside rumors as a prerequisite for understanding the text.

How difficult is the English?

As an old-style genre novel written for a mass readership, it uses fairly direct sentences and a good deal of dialogue, so the overall difficulty is moderate. You may encounter a few outdated usages and slang, which a dictionary can resolve; it suits readers with basic English reading ability.

Why recommend it rather than contemporary science fiction?

The recommendation rests not on literary merit but on its value as historical material and as part of a genre tradition. It shows what early Mars narratives and pulp-magazine writing looked like and is best read as a point of reference; if you only want the pleasure of contemporary science fiction, you need not choose it.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Howard Browne Author · American · 1908–1999

Howard Browne (1908–1999) was an American science fiction editor and mystery writer, born in Omaha, Nebraska. Public information about his early education and private life is limited; his reputation rests chiefly on his achievements as an editor and a writer. In the 1940s and 1950s he edited magazines such as Amazing Stories, helping to shift the publication from pulp format to digest size and bringing the Shaver Mystery serial to an end, leaving his mark on the history of genre magazine publishing. He later moved into television, writing for series such as Maverick while continuing to write fiction. His work spans science fiction and mystery; representative titles include Twelve Times Zero and Warrior of the Dawn. His plots are tight and suspenseful, combining the popular readability of the pulp era with the imaginative energy of genre fiction.