Arabella of Mars

Martian Manhunter

Arabella of Mars
by David D. Levine
TOR Books ISBN: 978-0765394750

Long term readers of this site who are more familiar with my fictional reading tastes may recall that one of my favourite book series is of those detailing the Martian tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs, from the early 20th Century… so when I saw this book, Arabella Of Mars, floating by on my Twitter timeline sometime last year, it was one that definitely lit up my radar. I quite enjoy female focussed fiction and the cover showed an old style sea ship sailing through the skies, presumably in the atmosphere of either Earth or Mars… so this was definitely something I was going to have to look into at some point. I was, therefore, delighted to receive a copy of this for Christmas and it was a regular companion for my first week of my latest shift of jury service a short time ago.

And, I have to say… it’s absolutely great.

Now, the various reviews located on the back and inside cover of the book are quite keen to let the potential reader know that the story within these nicely illustrated covers is a mixture of the aforementioned Mr. Burroughs, Jules Verne, Jane Austen and Patrick O’Brian. Well, despite the consistency of these different review quotes... I wouldn’t say that’s entirely accurate, although it’s close.

Now I’d have to take these people at their word on the O’Brian references because I’ve never read them or seen anything based on them. I can vouch for the fact that there’s a strong nautical feel to the book however and I would personally invoke the spirit of C. S. Forester’s Hornblower books in this context because, well, I’m getting on a bit in years (although, to be sure, I haven’t read any of those books either but, I realise the similarity of the content to say that this is probably an appropriate call).

Similarly, I’ve not read anything by Jane Austen but my understanding of the subject matter of her books and the concerns and expectations of marital status on behalf of the title character in this very tome do lead me to expect that this is also a good conclusion to draw.

Ditto for Mr. Burroughs and it would be impossible for me to not discern a certain heavy influence when it comes to his martian tales on this book. Although they only have the same number of limbs as human folk in this novel, from what I can tell, the Martian creatures do tend to bear a certain descriptive resemblance to the Tharks in Burrough’s yarns, for sure. Also, mention is made of the effect on the human body in the transition, between Earth and Mars and vice versa, in terms of the side effects of the gravitational pull. More precisely, where Burroughs highlights the superhuman prowess by his heroes such as John Carter and Ulysses Paxton due to the lighter forces of gravity found on Mars, Levine flips it on its head and talks about the devastating effect of humans in terms of gravitationally challenged prowess when returning, or indeed first setting foot, on Earth. Arabella Ashby, the lead heroine of this book, was born on Mars and doesn’t visit England until a number of years have passed.

As far as Jules Verne is concerned; as an admiriing reader of his work I was less convinced that he could be called a direct stylistic influence on this book. Despite being set in Victorian times and having some interesting passages during the narrative concerning the minutia of navigational calculations, the language in which the book is couched is perhaps less Verne and more something another period writer might attempt, in all honesty.

None of this stuff devalues this novel in any way whatsoever, though... so while some of these comparisons may at least serve as a guide to give potential readers a taste of the content of the book, it in no way hamstrings the pace of the narrative or takes away from the fact that Arabella Of Mars is a damned good modern take on the Victorian science fiction pulp novel and fans of all or any of the above listed writers (yeah, alright, even Verne to an extent) should love this sprawling adventure which starts off with a brief section highlighting the spirit and nature of Arabella’s relationship with her family of settlers on Mars - her father, mother, sisters and, most importantly in this case, her brother - and also her knowledge and friendship with the Martians who now share their planet, to an extent, with the English settlers. The novel then, after Arabella, her mother and two sisters find themselves in circumstances where they return to England, jumps from 1812 to 1823 as we find ourselves embroiled in the family politics with distant cousins after the death of one of Arabella’s close family.

During these specifically Austen like passages, the adventure that drives Arabella and the novel gets underway as stakes are raised and it is incumbent on her to find safe passage back to Mars in the most dire of circumstances. Which she does by disguising herself as a male and gaining passage, through her prowess with her hobby of maintaining automatons, on a sailing ship which is to fly to Mars when Earth and that distant red planet are at their most convenient... entering the shipping lanes between these worlds at a time when the journey should only take two months as opposed to the year it could take in less ideal positions. Taking the job of Cabin Boy to a Captain who has invented and uses an automaton to navigate his ship, the Diana, out of danger and on a true course, we are subjected to all the kinds of exciting adventures that one might find on a normal sailing voyage of this period... with the added element of space travel and the navigational aids to progress the course of their ship towards the planet that Miss Ashby must reach in a race to be reunited with a specific family member on the plantation of Mars before the nefarious devices of the main villain of the book can be successfully executed. This of course contains details of rigging and ship’s politics, not to mention pirates, privateers, space storms and, when she finally reaches her destination, a less than welcome reception due to events that have recently taken place on Mars in her absence.

And it’s a truly exciting read and, as I mentioned before, quite definitely infused with at least some of the spirit of Edgar Rice Burroughs' adventures on Barsoom (aka Mars).

Of course, me being me, I had a few minor criticisms. The first of which being the reference to one of the moons of Mars as being Phobos. Now I know the events of the book obviously take place in a fictional universe far different from our own reality, where sailing ships in the Victorian era can fly to Mars and back through specific atmospheric routes between the worlds but I can’t shake the fact that Phobos wasn’t discovered, in reality, until the year 1877. The majority of this book, however, is set in 1823 and, while I’m quite happy to take on board the fact that things in an alternative reality could be called identical names more than 50 years before they were really discovered, I wondered why the author did this. Burrroughs, of course, retitled the planet  Mars as Barsoom, in sympathy with the languages of the inhabitants and it’s a neat trick to name specific things as something 'other worldy' to avoid certain clashes with other realities, should they arise. Alas, the position of the author here is that it’s Phobos and that’s that? But, like I said, a minor point and who am I to say the inhabitants of this alternate reality weren’t taking the same inspirations as the real discoverer of Phobos did in 1877?

Something which really did get on my nerves a few times, however, in an adventure novel which seems to me is not intended solely for children, is the lack of swearing in the book. Or to be more precise, not the actual lack of swearing as there are a fair few times when characters let rip with their vocabulary... but with the refusal to spell the entire word out in the text and use only the first and last letter of the word (thus implying the knowledge of the content of the word in the reader’s vocabulary anyway). So you will have words like f______g turning up or even, bizarrely, g_______d. Now it could be that this is a very specific stylistic flourish which the writer has employed to maintain a certain aesthetic continuity which has somehow flown under my radar but... it does certainly raise the question as to why you would want to use this kind of dialogue but then be unwilling to actually show it.

That being said, these were genuinely the only two, very small, concerns I had with the book and I have to say I absolutely loved this maiden voyage of Miss Arabella Ashby of Mars and I already have the next tome in this series on the way to me here in the UK at some point soon. It’s a shame that a Kindle version of this truly marvellous novel has not been issued in the United kingdom because I’m absolutely sure my father, who is not able to hold books open and turn the pages for any great lengths of time anymore, would absolutely love this book too. Alas, so far the Kindle variant seems to only be available in America so... that’s a bit of a shame as far as I’m concerned.

However, if you are a fan of science fiction pulp adventure and are looking for a new sequence of books to start, you could certainly do a lot worse than entertaining the notion of giving Arabella Of Mars a spin. A truly wonderful novel with a story which I hope to continue with in the next volume, fairly soon. Seriously give this one a go... it’s truly excellent story telling.