16 February 2015

Meet the Martians

Iris Wildthyme of Mars
In the event, only one reader entered the competition to identify the types of fictional Martian mentioned in my short story "Green Mars Blues", and that was in fact another of the contributors to Iris Wildthyme of Mars.

I said that I thought there were nineteen types of Martian in the story. I have to admit it depends heavily on how you count.

From the beginning...

1. The Green Man (first appearance p227): A Green Martian from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom sequence.
2. Jenah Pharis (p229): A Red Martian from Barsoom.
3. The Tripods (p232): Obviously, the war machines from H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds.
4. The Coy Stripper and Her "Snake" (p234): An adult and juvenile of the species described in Philip José Farmer's short story "My Sister's Brother".
5 & 6. The Fake Charlatan and the Incompetent Ghost  (p234): One of the telepathic Martians, and one of the slightly different shapeshifting telepathic Martians, from Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles.
7. The Locusts (p236): The evil insectile Martians from Quatermass and the Pit, with accompanying aerial psychic projection.
8. The Angels of Pavonis Mons (p238): The Eldila from C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet.
9, 10 & 11. The Spindly Men, the Otters and the Froggy Things (p238): The Sorns, Hrossa and Pfifltriggi from Out of the Silent Planet.
12. The Blue (or Possibly Green) Giants (p240): Either the Argzoon from Michael Moorcock's Kane of Old Mars sequence, or the Ice Warriors from Doctor Who.
13. Great Octopus Things (p240): From Men, Martians and Machines by Eric Frank Russell (though other answers would probably have been acceptable).
14. Merpeople (p240): From Doctor Omega by Arnould Galopin.
15. The Blue Lightning (p240): A Fire Balloon from The Martian Chronicles.
16. The Christmas Visitor (p240): Either Dropo from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, or the Alien Super-Being from Christmas on Mars.
17. The Flashing Eyes in the Dark (p241): The Man from Mars in the Blondie song "Rapture". (The biggest clue's in what he eats.)
18. The Laughers at Potatoes (p241): The robotic Martians from the 1970s Smash adverts. (I wouldn't have thought of including these Martians in the story without the input of Andrew Hickey, to whom thanks.)
19. The Armoured Reptile (p250): Definitely an Ice Warrior.

For bonus points, the title of Marcie's proposed talk "Grokking Vulthoom: The Role of Indigene Legends in Modern Cult Formation" (p242) references Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land and "Vulthoom" by Clark Ashton Smith.

To his credit, our entrant Simon Bucher-Jones identified twelve of those (fourteen including the bonuses). He also pointed out several texts that identify Jesus (mentioned on p226) as a Martian, and made a valiant effort to name eighteen works which include Martian tripods (on the basis that Marcie has encountered eighteen variants of the story). Simon wins the signed copy of The Pendragon Protocol by default, but it's certainly deserved.

05 February 2015

Here's the thing

Today I was sent a link to a forum post where someone speaks enthusiastically about how much they've enjoyed some books of mine (among a number of others), and offers to share the ebook versions with other forum users for free.

I don't know how certain people so consistently fail to understand this, but here it is. Books (including ebooks) are as good as they are, and cost the amounts they do, because a lot of people's time -- authors', editors', illustrators', publishers' -- goes into creating them. You're not paying for the paper and ink that make up the book, or the server space the ebook is held on, you're paying for the time -- sometimes months or years -- that people have spent lovingly working on this thing you've enjoyed reading. To then distribute that work for free -- thus ensuring that the publisher's sales and income remain low and that the money they have to compensate their authors, editors and illustrators remains limited -- shows a degree of thoughtlessness and contempt for those people and their work that's simply staggering.

Other people's work is worth your money. If you won't pay, you don't deserve the benefit of the work. It's that simple.