W. Elwyn Backus 3 hr 57 min read

A scholarly feud over whether life could exist on distant Mars, the celebrated Palmer-Margard controversy, becomes the gateway to an astounding vision of a dying alien world.

W. Elwyn Backus's 1932 story is a thoughtful hard-SF space opera. Vivid, imaginative golden-age pulp. Read it for a colorful early yarn that turns an academic debate about Martian life into a sweeping adventure among the canals of a waning red world, in the speculative, wonder-filled style of the classic Gernsback-era pulps.

In its time

Published in 1932, during the 1930s, space opera soars.

Reading it

3 hr 57 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).

Illustrated by

Andrew Brosnatch