Black Amazon of Mars — Story, Setting & Ideas

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In Category - Space Future

Authors: Brackett, Leigh, 1915-1978 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2010 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Science fiction; Mars (Planet) -- Fiction; Stark, Eric John (Fictitious character) -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 27,171

Reading time 119 min

Text sections 3

The catalog record for Black Amazon of Mars — Story, Setting & Ideas provides practical reading context through 27,171 words, 1 hr 59 min estimated reading time, and 3 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 13.3 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Science fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #32664

Leigh Brackett's pulp adventure follows Eric John Stark as he carries a dying friend's stolen talisman toward the forbidden city of Kushat, while the warrior-queen Ciara pursues him with her horde. The opening, middle, and later excerpts reveal a narrative built on stark landscapes, terse dialogue, and a protagonist caught between loyalty and a cursed artifact.

Editorial Edition Score 4.5/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg32664

Read the Text

That was why Stark had brought Camar into the bleak north country, trying to reach the city of his birth. The Martian was driven by some secret demon. He was afraid to die before he reached Kushat.

And now he had no choice.

"I have sinned, Stark. I have stolen a holy thing. You're an outlander, you would not know of Ban Cruach, and the talisman that he left when he went away forever beyond the Gates of Death."

Camar flung aside the blankets and sat up, his voice gaining a febrile strength.

"I was born and bred in the Thieves' Quarter under the Wall. I was proud of my skill. And the talisman was a challenge. It was a treasured thing--so treasured that hardly a man has touched it since the days of Ban Cruach who made it. And that was in the days when men still had the lustre on them, before they forgot that they were gods.

"'Guard well the Gates of Death,' he said, 'that is the city's trust. And keep the talisman always, for the day may come when you will need its strength. Who holds Kushat holds Mars--and the talisman will keep the city safe.'

"I was a thief, and proud. And I stole the talisman."

His hands went to his girdle, a belt of worn leather with a boss of battered steel. But his fingers were already numb.

"Take it, Stark. Open the boss--there, on the side, where the beast's head is carved...."

Stark took the belt from Camar and found the hidden spring. The rounded top of the boss came free. Inside it was something wrapped in a scrap of silk.

"I had to leave Kushat," Camar whispered. "I could never go back. But it was enough--to have taken that."

He watched, shaken between awe and pride and remorse, as Stark unwrapped the bit of silk.

Stark had discounted most of Camar's talk as superstition, but even so he had expected something more spectacular than the object he held in his palm.

It was a lens, some four inches across--man-made, and made with great skill, but still only a bit of crystal. Turning it about, Stark saw that it was not a simple lens, but an intricate interlocking of many facets. Incredibly complicated, hypnotic if one looked at it too long.

"What is its use?" he asked of Camar.

"We are as children. We have forgotten. But there is a legend, a belief--that Ban Cruach himself made the talisman as a sign that he would not forget us, and would come back when Kushat is threatened. Back through the Gates of Death, to teach us again the power that was his!"

"I do not understand," said Stark. "What are the Gates of Death?"

Camar answered, "It is a pass that opens into the black mountains beyond Kushat. The city stands guard before it--why, no man remembers, except that it is a great trust."

His gaze feasted on the talisman.

Stark said, "You wish me to take this to Kushat?"

"Yes. Yes! And yet...." Camar looked at Stark, his eyes filling suddenly with tears. "No. The North is not used to strangers. With me, you might have been safe. But alone.... No, Stark. You have risked too much already. Go back, out of the Norlands, while you can."

He lay back on the blankets. Stark saw that a bluish pallor had come into the hollows of his cheeks.

"Camar," he said. And again, "Camar!"

"Go in peace, Camar. I will take the talisman to Kushat."

The Martian sighed, and smiled, and Stark was glad that he had made the promise.

"The riders of Mekh are wolves," said Camar suddenly. "They hunt these gorges. Look out for them."

Stark's knowledge of the geography of this part of Mars was vague indeed, but he knew that the mountain valleys of Mekh lay ahead and to the north, between him and Kushat. Camar had told him of these upland warriors. He was willing to heed the warning.

Camar had done with talking. Stark knew that he had not long to wait. The wind spoke with the voice of a great organ. The moons had set and it was very dark outside the tower, except for the white glimmering of the snow. Stark looked up at the brooding walls, and shivered. There was a smell of death already in the air.

Continue Reading →

The novel opens with Eric John Stark slogging through the Norland night, burdened by a talisman he does not want and a dying friend he cannot save. The prose is lean and immediate: Camar speaks only after hours of silence, and Stark's responses are monosyllabic. The ruined tower, the howling wind, and the "taint of forgotten evil" in the stone walls establish a world where physical hardship and supernatural dread are inseparable. Brackett wastes no words on exposition; instead, she lets the landscape and the characters' clipped exchanges convey the stakes.

By the time Camar confesses he stole a holy thing from Ban Cruach, the reader understands that Stark's journey is not merely a trek across ice but a descent into a legacy of power and guilt. The talisman "flames" in his belt, a detail that hints at its active, dangerous nature.

A Pact Sealed in Silence

The opening excerpt establishes a distinctive rhythm of restraint. Camar and Stark speak in short, almost ritualistic phrases: "I am dying." "Yes." This economy of dialogue is not coldness but a form of respect between warriors. Stark's use of "courtly High Martian" and his offer to take Camar's burden—despite not wanting it—reveal a code of honor that drives the plot forward. The talisman of Ban Cruach is introduced not through description but through its effect: it "flamed" in Stark's belt, and Camar's fear of dying before reaching Kushat gives the object an immediate, ominous weight. Brackett trusts the reader to infer the talisman's importance from the characters' reactions rather than from authorial explanation.

The Queen's Unyielding Gaze

In the middle excerpt, Ciara is introduced through Stark's careful observation. He notes her "long thighs, the narrow loins and magnificent shoulders" and the way she moves "as a man moves, without coquetry." The description is physical but not objectifying; it conveys her strength and directness. Her dialogue is equally blunt: "I could have slain you in the square, but now I think you did me a service." She laughs at the loyalty of her followers and declares she would go "beyond the Gates of Death" if necessary. Brackett uses the setting—a vaulted corridor with carved beasts, a fire-lit bedchamber—to frame Ciara as both a ruler and a figure of mythic ambition. Her challenge to Stark, "Are you content? Have you ever been content?," shifts the conflict from external pursuit to an internal mirror.

Architecture of the Forbidden

Brackett's descriptions of Kushat and its surroundings are more than backdrop; they are active elements of the narrative. The ruined tower where Camar dies is "brooding, gigantic, roofless" with walls like "cliffs of ebon stone." Later, Stark navigates a narrow hall, a tapestry, a vaulted corridor paneled in wood "much split and blackened by time" but still showing "wonderful carvings of beasts and men, larger than life and overlaid with gold and bright enamel." This layering of decay and splendor mirrors the story's central tension: a glorious past that has become dangerous and obscure. The physical layout—the little door, the darkness, the curtain Stark draws back "a careful inch"—creates a sense of stealth and hidden knowledge, preparing the reader for revelations that are earned through movement and observation.

The Weight of a Name

Ban Cruach is mentioned repeatedly but never appears; he is a presence defined by absence. Camar speaks of him as a king who "went away forever beyond the Gates of Death," and Ciara wonders where he got his power "if not from beyond the Gates of Death." The talisman is his legacy, and the city of Kushat was built to guard the pass that leads to his secret. Brackett uses this offstage figure to create a mythology that feels both ancient and immediate. The characters' motivations—Stark's reluctant duty, Ciara's ambition, Camar's guilt—all orbit Ban Cruach's shadow. By never explaining exactly what Ban Cruach was or what the talisman does, the author keeps the focus on the living characters' choices and the harsh world they inhabit.

Readers should pay close attention to how Brackett uses physical details—a talisman that flames, a tapestry that stirs, a sword left in a sleeping guard's hand—to advance both plot and character. The story rewards careful reading of its silences and its landscapes. The excerpts suggest a narrative that moves from a personal pact to a broader confrontation with legacy and ambition, but the full arc of Stark's journey and the fate of the talisman remain to be discovered in the complete text.

I finished Black Amazon of Mars feeling that strange weight of carrying someone else’s errand, and couldn’t help but recall the quiet unease of The Secret Martians — Key Ideas to Explore—both books share that lonely atmosphere of a planet that doesn’t care about your promises. Brackett’s dust and stubborn ruins lingered somewhere behind its more hidden corridors.