LOVERS IN MARS. [Los Angeles: Sargent House Publishers, 1954.]. Octavo, pp. [i] ii-vii [viii] 1-123 [124: blank], original pictorial cream wrappers printed in blue, side stapled. First edition. The inscription on p. iv ("Yours for / out of this world / entertainment / Lucile Palmer --") is a printed facsimile of the author's handwriting. "Short, amateurish self-published work combining earnest utopian entreaties, interplanetary adventure and a wish-fulfillment love story. Craig and Joyce are in love but Craig is skittish about marriage. After he gets laid off from his advertising agency (because he's single) he has a cozy seaside dinner with Joyce, who's decided to chuck her annoying teaching job. They're at their wits' end until they see in the newspaper that Professor Riccard has perfected his rocket plane for a trip to Mars. They'll go with him! They convince him with no trouble and within a few days are en route. The book is charmingly ludicrous in terms of scientific (or literary) credibility. The ship is "powered with a dilute solution of monatomic hydrogen made in molecular hydrogen ..." They blast off, soon see a meteor coming at them and bail out, watching the meteor smash into the ship as their parachutes open and they discuss their situation in the refreshingly cool atmosphere while they float down to a flower-carpeted paradise -- Mars. They are instantly greeted by Martian skinny-dippers who speak perfect English and take them back as their guests to a banquet served by robot waiters. Their hotel room uses a sort of biometric device ("personal vibrations") to open and close the door. After the couple wake up (in the same bed) the next day they begin to learn about their new world. People live far apart from each other, each with his own castle and estate. Economic activity is stimulated by Spend Day: anyone holding cash afterwards is heavily taxed. Then a new annual supply of cash is issued. There has been no warfare for many centuries and the Martians make no preparations for defense from aliens. Were they to be threatened by aliens, 'we would simply tap the ether which contains all and cause a continuous deluge on whatever area was threatened. Nothing could withstand the attack of unremitting ceaseless rain.' Personal travel at 100 miles-per-minute is enabled by an 'ether balloon traveller's jacket,' filled with fuel extracted from the ether by a 'power pencil.' Eugenics ensures perfect laboratory-produced Martian bodies, which are ensouled (by means of the same power pencil) in the Soularium. Souls, eternal and transmigratory, are visible through the etherscope: '... small floating spheres about the size of an orange. They were clear and transparent and about the edges were well defined rings or bands of shining colors circling about inside their spherical shapes. In the center of each was tiny face.' The proper matching of souls and bodies is guided by astrological and esoteric Buddhist principles (auras). At the Transmigration Station, carved from pure onyx, Martians can watch scenes of sudden unconsciousness on other planets and arrange a temporary 'visit' to that person's body (with a reciprocal visit by that person's soul to the Martian's body). Industrial plants turn out the 'x-ray camera, Cellulose Pottery, Ray Stoves and Atomic Burners ... Picnic Pellets, Television-Radio Wrist Watches, Phantom Hosiery Cabinets wherein legs receive a silky gloss of any desired shade through momentary application of heat rays.' In a mass wedding ceremony, 20 men are married to 4 women. (Do the math -- if you're good at calculus.) Children, produced by the state, are raised on a voluntary but state-subsidized basis by couples. Almost all income is tax-exempt. The guides who have been escorting Craig and Joyce around (identical twins Ramon and Ramona, Anton and Antonia) suggest a group marriage between the six of them. But the Earthlings have been watching interplanetary transmigration television and have found a beautiful, happy, rich couple back on Earth and finally decide to reincarnate their souls back into these new Earth bodies. An unusually detailed and bizarre utopian vision, interesting for its collisions of ruthless materialism and woolly transcendentalism, sentimental romance and sexual hedonism." - Robert Eldridge. Reginald 11154. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, Additions. A nearly fine copy. A rather scarce book, unlike the author's other fantasy, the murder mystery CAT-EYE. (#151234).
Price: $250.00
No statement of printing.