Martian Adventure - Robert Moore Williams

This blandly titled short novel is the other half of the Armchair Fiction edition of Edmond Hamilton's THE LAKE OF LIFE, which I read and reviewed a couple of weeks ago. I figured that while I had the book out, I might as well read MARTIAN ADVENTURE, although I've never been a big fan of its author, Robert Moore Williams. It originally appeared in the October 1944 issue of the pulp FANTASTIC ADVENTURES, when the magazine was playing up the fact that many of its writers were serving in the armed forces during World War II. So the by-line in the pulp is "Pvt. Robert Moore Williams".

In this story, quite a few people from Earth live on Mars, but they haven't conquered the planet, by any means. The native Martians still run things, and their entire criminal justice system consists of a forbidden zone known as Serenity. (Williams never explains the name.) Anybody found guilty of a crime, any crime, is dropped into Serenity and condemned to stay there for the rest of his or her life. It's a lawless land where only the tough and strong survive.

Unfortunately for the first Earth expedition to Mars, that's where their ship crash-landed, so by Martian law the Earthlings are doomed to stay behind Serenity's walls forever. Later expeditions establish an Earthling colony on Mars, and the settlers petition for the release of the ones stuck behind the walls, but the Willies won't budge from their custom. (The Willies are what the Earthlings call the Martians. Williams never explains why.)

That's all back-story from a couple of generations earlier. Our protagonist, two-fisted Bruce Harden, is the only Earthling ever to escape from Serenity, and he wants to break back in to rescue the girl he loves. In order to do so, he gets mixed up with an Earth gangster and a beautiful redheaded grad student studying Martian culture. Oh, and there's actually a lost temple in the middle of the forbidden zone where a fortune in loot is hidden. Williams mixes all this up into a fast-moving yarn with plenty of action.

There are some nice concepts and a few atmospheric, well-written scenes, but the problem is that Williams just isn't a consistent enough writer to really pull this off. A very nice scene can be followed by a really clumsy one. Some plot elements are never developed, and the coincidences strain credibility, even for 1940s pulp SF. In the hands of an Edmond Hamilton, a Leigh Brackett, or a Henry Kuttner, this could have been a great story.

But with that said . . . damn, some scenes, like the ones in the lost temple, are really good, and the pace moves along quite nicely. Those things make MARTIAN ADVENTURE worth reading, I think. That title, though . . . I mean, Williams even uses the phrase "Devil's Island of Mars". That's what I would have called this one.