Men, Martians, and Machines

This slender 1950s sf volume (my copy is from 1965) contains an introductory short story regarding the "emergency pilot" Jay Score, and then a series of three novellas about the extrasolar voyages of the spaceship Marathon. All are told in the voice of Sarge, a sergeant-at-arms for space-going vessels. Even in the opening pages, there's some suspect attention given to racial difference, implying that the "Negro" humans who are given medical duties are as different from "white Terrestrials" as are the many-tentacled and alien-brained Martians who are another part of the crew.

Each novella introduces a new exoplanet, and the encounters with indigenous intelligences are all ultimately hostile. Captain McNulty's perennial caution about show more harming natives gets mild scorn from Sarge. The whole thing has a sort of "boys' adventure" feel to it, with lots of "thrilling" violence and "good-natured" grumbling banter.

These tales offer nothing like sexual impulse or even identity for their characters. The "mixed" crew doesn't include women. Everyone of whatever species on the Marathon uses masculine pronouns, and the details of Martian sexuality aren't given even the consideration of a passing enigma. Nor does any notion of gender or sexuality arise in considering the newly-encountered creatures of distant worlds.

The Martians are notable for being near-delirious chess enthusiasts, to the extent that they are never not thinking about the game--while their peculiar mental constitutions allow them to direct their attentions simultaneously for other tasks. I wonder if Russell was cued by Edgar Rice Burroughs to make chess an essential part of the Martian culture.

It almost goes without saying that there's no technological speculation of current interest in this book, and there are a few mild clunkers--most notably the primitive approach to photography. It was not a read I'd counsel anyone to seek out for pleasure or enlightenment, although it was hardly a heavy lift. show less

Men, Martians and Machines is a collection of four inter-connected stories of the adventures of the crew of the Marathon, a new-fangled super-spaceship that thanks to some hastily explained science is able to explore further out than ever before. Our unnamed narrator is the Sergeant at Arms for the ship, and the crew is made up of a fun mix of Earthlings and a handful of Martians (very large octopus-like beings who are obsessed with space chess, like low gravity, and need very little air -- making them perfect for external ship repairs. They also love making jokes about how bad humans smell.)

Our narrator guides us through the ship's near collision with the sun, a trip to a planet of killer machines (well they mostly just want to dissect show more you to figure out what makes your individualistic mind run, but that tends to involve killing), a world filled with surprisingly defensive plants, and a planet of hypnotic beings that can make you see whatever they want, but when threatened actually look like a bundle of writhing snakes.

These stories are light on science and heavy on adventure, with a playful almost pulpy-detective-story edge to the narrator's voice.

There are some fun anachronisms (like a set of on-going gags between our narrator and the ship photographer who is constantly worried about his boxes of heavy and fragile photographic plates breaking). And some unsurprising but cringe-worthy anachronisms like the fact that the alien life forms are almost always compared to Asians (it seriously seems like half of all old sci-fi books do this), a lot of talk about how black the black doctor is, and no women are mentioned at all.

Still, anachronisms aside, this really is a fun book. The aliens are interesting and surprising and and the other planets are creative and nicely described. Add to that some very good action sequences and the occasional bit of snappy dialogue and you have a nice little read on your hands.

[full review here: http://spacebeer.blogspot.com/2008/06/men-martians-and-machines-1955.html ] show less

Told through the voice of the sergeant-of-arms, this book tells the story of a crew of astronauts who voyage to different planets that the powers-that-be decide may hold native life and be a possible home to human life. Naturally, there's not a single woman present throughout the whole book. Still and all, Eric Frank Russell is an author I hold dear to my heart for his short story "Dear Devil." Entertaining and a funny read.

Four SF short stories about an exploration group seeking out new planets. The primary focus of the stories is adventure. Each story is action packed with a brand new danger from an unknown planet. The stories can be fun for an adventure fix, but that's about it. Each story goes straight to the action so the characters don't really matter and the stakes are unimportant. It is a little outdated, as some of the descriptions are a bit convoluted, it stresses race a lot, and there are absolutely no female characters.

One of my all time favourite books

paperback

My favourite E>F>R