Old Mars

Locus Award nominee 2014.

Edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois.

Fifteen all-new stories by science fiction’s top talents, collected by bestselling author George R. R. Martin and multiple-award winning editor Gardner Dozois

Burroughs’s A Princess of Mars. Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. Heinlein’s Red Planet. These and so many more inspired generations of readers with a sense that science fiction’s greatest wonders did not necessarily lie far in the future or light-years across the galaxy but were to be found right now on a nearby world tantalizingly similar to our own — a red planet that burned like an ember in our night sky... and in our imaginations.

This new anthology of fifteen all-original science fiction stories, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, celebrates the Golden Age of Science Fiction, an era filled with tales of interplanetary colonization and derring-do. Before the advent of powerful telescopes and space probes, our solar system could be imagined as teeming with strange life-forms and ancient civilizations — by no means always friendly to the dominant species of Earth. And of all the planets orbiting that G-class star we call the Sun, none was so steeped in an aura of romantic decadence, thrilling mystery, and gung-ho adventure as Mars.

Join such seminal contributors as Michael Moorcock, Mike Resnick, Joe R. Lansdale, S. M. Stirling, Mary Rosenblum, Ian McDonald, Liz Williams, James S. A. Corey, and others in this brilliant retro anthology that turns its back on the cold, all-but-airless Mars of the Mariner probes and instead embraces an older, more welcoming, more exotic Mars: a planet of ancient canals cutting through red deserts studded with the ruined cities of dying races.

FEATURING ALL-NEW STORIES BY

James S. A. Corey • Phyllis Eisenstein • Matthew Hughes • Joe R. Lansdale • David D. Levine • Ian McDonald • Michael Moorcock • Mike Resnick • Chris Roberson • Mary Rosenblum • Melinda Snodgrass • Allen M. Steele • S. M. Stirling • Howard Waldrop • Liz Williams

And an Introduction by George R. R. Martin!

Contents:

• RED PLANET BLUES (Introduction) by George R.R. Martin
• MARTIAN BLOOD, by Allen M. Steele
• THE UGLY DUCKLING, by Matthew Hughes
• THE WRECK OF THE MARS ADVENTURE, by David D. Levine
• SWORDS OF ZAR-TU-KAN, by S.M. Stirling
• SHOALS, by Mary Rosenblum
• IN THE TOMBS OF THE MARTIAN KINGS, by Mike Resnick
• OUT OF SCARLIGHT, by Liz Williams
• THE DEAD SEA-BOTTOM SCROLLS, by Howard Waldrop
• A MAN WITHOUT HONOR, by James S.A. Corey
• WRITTEN IN DUST, by Melinda Snodgrass
• THE LOST CANAL, by Michael Moorcock
• THE SUNSTONE, by Phyllis Eisenstein
• KING OF THE CHEAP ROMANCE, by Joe R. Lansdale
• MARINER, by Chris Roberson
• THE QUEEN OF NIGHT’S ARIA, by Ian McDonald