Frederic Arnold Kummer 28 min read

In all the solar system there is no city like Mercis, capital of Mars, outwardly a tourists' mecca of white towers and whispering canals, inwardly a place of ancient, inscrutable, hidden ways.

Frederic Arnold Kummer's 1942 story is an atmospheric psi-and-space-opera tale of Martian mystery and menace. Vivid, moody golden-age pulp. Read it for a rousing story steeped in the dark undercurrents of a decadent Mars, where old rituals defy all Earthly logic.

In its time

Published in 1942, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

28 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Alexander Leydenfrost