The Red Dust

Leinster, Murray, 1896-1975Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 133K words
Chapters: 14

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.The Red Dust by Murray LeinsterAuthor: Leinster, Murray, 1896-1975,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Dec 9, 2012

Editor's review

The Red Dust is an early science fiction work by Murray Leinster. It is short and carries the typical flavor of the pulp era: set on Mars or an alien world, it advances conflict through crisp, straightforward narration and puts scientific speculation and a sense of adventure first. Its value lies in showing how science fiction imagined and paced stories in the first half of the twentieth century, making it a useful sample for understanding the genre's origins. The prose is generally plain and the English is not difficult; it can be finished on a commute or in a short reading session. Readers need not judge the setting by today's hard science fiction standards; instead, they can focus on the tension between environmental description, suspense, and character action, and understand it in the context of pulp magazines.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English readers curious about early science fiction short stories
Readers who want light English reading and prefer adventure narratives
Fans interested in pulp science fiction and the history of genre literature

Not a good fit for

Hard science fiction readers who want rigorous scientific settings and long-form worldbuilding
Readers looking for complex character psychology and contemporary issues

Reading tips

Read it in one sitting or over two or three sessions to keep the suspense continuous
Learn the basic features of pulp science fiction beforehand to avoid judging the setting by contemporary standards
After reading, note how environmental description and conflict are advanced as an observational sample for genre writing

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 a full-length novel?

Judging from how public-domain ebooks present it and from Leinster's usual practice in such works, it is closer to a short science fiction novel or novella, suitable for short reading sessions. For the exact length, refer to the ebook edition; readers need not prepare for a long novel.

Is the English difficult?

The narration is generally direct, sentences are not long, and the vocabulary is mostly common words, so it suits readers with basic English reading ability. A few period expressions can be understood from context and will not affect overall reading.

Why is early science fiction worth reading?

Early science fiction preserves the imagination and narrative conventions of the genre's formative period. Reading it helps explain where later works' Mars themes, adventure structures, and technological imagination come from, and makes it easier to compare the tastes of science fiction across different eras.

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About the author

Leinster, Murray, 1896-1975 Author

Murray Leinster (1896–1975) was an American science fiction writer whose real name was William Fitzgerald Jenkins. He was a prolific author of short stories and novels, and this site holds thirty-nine of his works, including The Mad Planet, The Pirates of Ersatz, The Machine That Saved The World, The Forgotten Planet, The Wailing Asteroid, The Invaders, The Runaway Skyscraper, and Scrimshaw. His science fiction often deals with interstellar adventure, strange planets, and technological speculation, with tightly plotted, boldly imaginative narratives that also reflect on human society and the conditions of survival; some works are also categorized as inspirational growth. Public information is limited, making biographical details difficult to describe, but the surviving works show his important place in twentieth-century American popular science fiction and his influence on later writers in the genre.