Gilbert and Edgar on Mars, by Eric Brown
PS Publishing
October 2009
Reviewed by Steve Fahnestalk
Although I had not been aware of PS Publishing until given this review assignment by ye olde editor, I guess you could say I’m now a fan. PS Publishing is a specialty (genre) publisher which has quite a catalog (he said, after browsing their website at http://store.pspublishing.co.uk/); they publish original works (such as this novella), reprints of classic SF and fantasy (like Ray Bradbury’s classic collection The Machineries of Joy [1964]), and the highly regarded print magazine Postscripts.
So what’s Eric Brown’s Gilbert and Edgar on Mars about? The cover, by J.K. Potter, should give you a clue; it shows two men, one of whom is definitely G. K. Chesterton, and the other of whom could be Edgar Rice Burroughs, in front of an unearthly high-spired building with Mars looming in the background. Gee, could it be the eponymous Gilbert and Edgar on Mars? Hmmm.
Kidding aside, it’s a fun little book comprising one novella about the aforementioned writers and their adventures on a Mars that owes more than a little to the second author. I’m not giving anything at all away when I say you’ll get that within a couple of pages of beginning the story; in most cases, SF readers are way ahead of the writers anyhow.
Seems that there are some Philosophers on Mars who are kidnapping Earthly writers and reading their minds; not harming them in any way, but copying their dreams out of their heads in order to have what in Star Trek would be holodeck adventures—making their books into a 500-mile radius zone of what would be called “virtual reality”—except that it’s not virtual, it’s real.
GK, as his friends call him, was kidnapped by mistake—the Philosophers, or Jabbak Kathro, wanted H.G. Wells instead, but their machine servants (in the form of little, not-green, men) made a mistake; coming out of a lecture together, Chesterton, Shaw and Wells had all gone their separate ways and the little guys had only a description to go on. (May I say here that they probably wouldn’t have liked Wells’s Mars half as much as they were enjoying the Burroughs one. On the other hand, they had done Poe at some time and weren’t apparently put off by his world.)
The story is written in a sort of pseudo early Twentieth-Century prose, and seems to work quite well as such. Along the way from GK’s kidnapping to his eventual return to Earth, he and Edgar have adventures involving more than one reality, meet John Carter and Dejah Thoris, and even bump into Professor Challenger! All in all, a satisfying little romp. I can heartily recommend it as a light, quick read.
I do, however (in my role as resident grammar maven and quibbler) have a couple of things to point out to author Brown; things that are what we in the “Moscow Moffia” used to call “poppers”—things that “pop” you out of the story: Edgar and Gilbert are described as having an altercation soon after they meet, when they aren’t. An altercation is a disagreement (usually violent or emphatic). Writers should use the correct word as much as possible, and there are several very questionable choices, like “encomium” for compliment. An encomium is usually fulsome or effusive praise (usually in somewhat tangible form, like an award), not just a compliment. Chesterton’s throat is at one point constricted by a bolus—which might constrict his airway, because it’s a lump—but it wouldn’t constrict his throat. And why would his wife be excited about a haberdashery? It’s a men’s clothing store or drygoods store… not a women’s. And lastly, the spelling of “gunnel” is inappropriate for the authors and the period—Chesterton would use the common spelling of “gunwale.”
‘Nuff said, as Stan Lee used to say. It’s a good story. I liked it.