The Lost Cities of Mars

If you missed the last one…

I am currently reading Lin Carter’s The Man Who Loved Mars (1973). It features Ilionis, “…the long-lost and extremely legended Treasure City of Old Mars”. The novel is the first of four Carter wrote in the Leigh Brackett style. (With Lin you have to ask yourself who is he pastiching?) The theme he uses in this book and its later sequels is as old as Pulp. Borrowed from adventure fiction as old as Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines (1885), the lost city is transplanted to a distant planet.

One of the grand-daddies of this theme is Edgar Rice Burroughs and his Barsoom series. As early as 1912, John Carter roamed the dead sea bottoms of Mars, encountering the fierce Thark warrior or white apes of that planet in ruined cities. I’ve included only later Llana of Gathol stories by Burroughs, keeping with the idea that these are Pulp era stories. Fortunately he wrote these for Ray A. Palmer in 1941. Burroughs inspired many who came after him, each writing a number of tales in their own version of the Red Planet.

ERB inspired  the Big Four, of course: C. L. Moore, Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton and, of course, Leigh Brackett. He also inspired others such as Ray Bradbury. Others like Stanley G. Weinbaum inspired still other writers to look at the red planet with less romance and more science. Clark Ashton Smith comes works in a more Lovecraftian direction.

I should clarify my criteria in this post, for there are far too many Martian cities to mention. I am looking for “lost” city, meaning in ruins or hidden away from the mainstream. I am also looking for ones that have names and a good description. Most of the author here have more than one entry but I chose their best based on these features.

1930s

“The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis” (Weird Tales, May 1932) by Clark Ashton Smith features the ruined city of Yoh-Vombis built by the vanished raced called the Anakim. Smith isn’t too interested in the ancient ruins but the terrible vampiric terror lurking there.

Our coming to Yoh-Vombis was sudden and spectacular. Climbing the low slope of a league-long elevation of bare and deeply eroded stone, we saw before us the shattered walls of our destination, whose highest tower was notching the small, remote sun that glared in stifled crimson through the floating haze of fine sand. For a little, we thought that the domeless, three-angled towers and broken-down monoliths were those of some unlegended city, other than the one we sought. But the disposition of the ruins, which lay in a sort of arc for almost the entire extent of the low and gneissic elevation, together with the type of architecture, soon convinced us that we had found our goal. No other ancient city on Mars had been laid out in that manner; and the strange, many-terraced buttresses of the thick walls, like the stairways of forgotten Anakim, were peculiar to the prehistoric race that had built Yoh-Vombis. Moreover, Yoh-Vombis was the one remaining example of this architecture, aside from a few fragments in the neighborhood of Ignarh, which we had previously examined.

“Lost City of Mars” (Astounding Stories, February 1934) by Harl Vincent features Scarta, a lost city that has been revived by rogue scientists. These mad scientists have only one goal, of course, to take over the planet!

Scarta! City of power and of wealth ten thousand years before; citadel of the mad emperor, Zaraf, and scourge of a civilization which had died and was well-nigh forgotten; and in no way connected within the later, though still ancient, tales of the lost city of the drylands.

“The Tree of Life” (Weird Tales, October 1936) by C. L. Moore features Illar, a ruin in which Northwest Smith is hiding out from the Patrol. He stumbles upon a strange secret about life on Mars.

Over time-ruined Illar the searching planes swooped and circled. Northwest Smith, peering up at them with a steelpale stare from the shelter of a halfcollapsed temple, thought of vultures wheeling above carrion. All day long now they had been raking these ruins for him. Presently, he knew, thirst would begin to parch his throat and hunger to gnaw at him. There was neither food nor water in these ancient Martian ruins, and he knew that it could be only a matter of time before the urgencies of his own body would drive him out to signal those wheeling Patrol ships and trade his hard-won liberty for food and drink. He crouched lower under the shadow of the temple arch and cursed the accuracy of the Patrol gunner whose flame-blast had caught his dodging ship just at the edge of Illar’s ruins.

“Locked City” (Amazing Stories, October 1938) by Thornton Ayre (John Russell Fearn) has three convicts from Earth exiled to Mars. There they find a Martian city filled only with child-like beings:

The nearer they came to the city, the more they were puzzled. The jungle led directly down onto one of the main entrance streets, thence into the city center, yet as they progressed slowly along they saw no signs of anybody. Not a thing moved: the giant metropolis loomed around and above them, the very quintessence of power— with nobody to look after it! There were not even any more children, apparently. The seven who danced and giggled with amusement, watched with wide-eyed innocence, were the only guardians.

1940s

“The Treasure of Ptakuth” (Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1940) by Leigh Brackett has lost Ptakuth that Terry Shane seeks for its legendary treasure. Archaeologist and bandit seek the same in these stories.

He found the place he was looking for: a gap where the mouth of a dry river joined the dry sea. Somewhere up the course of that dry river lay the cliff city of Ptakuth, cursed and lost for centuries that made Shane’s head reel with the thinking of them. There were legends of Ptakuth on Mars as there were legends of Atlantis on Earth, and the gray-bearded men of the Martian Archeological Foundation had paid adventurer Terry Shane a goodly sum to find it for them.

“Red Death of Mars” (Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1940) by Robert Moore Williams was reprinted in Famous American Science Fiction, June 1952. Williams’ city is called Torms and we learn from the reports sent back to Earth:

“You recall the eagerness with which the first exploratory efforts were carried out, the hurried, frantic search for intelligent life on Mars. There was never any question that life had existed here. Dust had almost filled the canals, dust covered the sites, but the canals and the sites proved that a race of remarkable scientific achievement had developed on this planet. You recall how our eagerness faded into wonder as the reports of the exploring parties came in. They found cities—with sand drifting down the streets. The condition of the cities indicated that they had been abandoned in a manner which suggested that the inhabitants had slowly fled before an advancing enemy. We found tools scattered everywhere, ornaments, the strange scroll books covered with indecipherable hieroglyphics. But we never found the race that had created these things. We found their bones, dry in the sand. But we never found them. Nor did we find the enemy before which they had fled…”

“Lost Treasure of Mars” (Amazing Stories, August 1940) by Edmond Hamilton gives us Rylik. We get more archaeologists and more fantastic treasure.

For this was the legended jewel hoard of Kau-ta-lah, last of the great Martian kings of Rylik— those rulers of long ago whose mighty civilization had risen and waned at a time when Earth was still steaming jungle. The vague black ruins here in the desert had once been the magnificent capital of Rylik. Here for millenniums the hoard of the great kings had lain hidden, and here Gareth Crane had found it.

“The City of Mummies” (Amazing Stories, March 1941) by Edgar Rice Burroughs offers up Horz with its terrible pits. Of course, John Carter and Pan Dan Chee end up there, fighting giant rats and other terrors. For more on this story, go here.

The oldest part of the city lies upon the edge of a vast plateau; the newer portions, and they are countless thousands of years old, are terraced downward into a great gulf, marking the hopeless pursuit of the receding sea upon the shores of which this rich and powerful city once stood. The last poor, mean structures of a dying race have either disappeared or are only mouldering ruins now; but the splendid structures of her prime remain at the edge of the plateau, mute but eloquent reminders of her vanished grandeurenduring monuments to the whiteskinned, fair-haired race which has vanished forever.

“Black Pirates of Barsoom” (Amazing Stories, June 1941) by Edgar Rice Burroughs also gives us Kamtol, the hidden city filled with blood-lusting warriors and mad scientists. For more on this story, go here.

Kamtol did not belie its promise. It was as beautiful on closer inspection as it had been at a distance. Its pure white outer wall is elaborately carved, as are the facades on many of its buildings. Graceful towers rise above its broad avenues, which, when we entered the city, were filled with people. Among the blacks, we saw a number of red men performing menial tasks. It was evident that they were slaves, and their presence suggested the fate which might await us.

“City of Lost Souls” (Fantastic Adventures, July 1941) by Ralph Milne Farley and Al P. Nelson offer us Daloss the Holy City. Unlike some of the others here, Daloss is not empty, just hard to find. Like earthly Mecca, it is a holy place to the Martians. The Legionnaires of Mars must take the city to rescue its lost comrades. Farley and Nelson wrote a sequel to this one called “Holy City of Mars” (Fantastic Adventures, May 1942).

Daloss. In spite of my horror at the fate of companions, I could not restrain a thrill at the magical spell of that name. Daloss, hidden deep in the fertile valleys between the ranges of the mighty Forbian Mountains, was the age-old mystic city of the Mauros, a stronghold which bristled with guns and superstitions.

“South to Propontis” (Planet Stories, Fall 1941) by Henry Andrew Ackermann has Don and two space bums dragged to a lost city. The local Martians feed the men to a gigantic flock of Martians birds. The victims are covered in a bird-lure that make the flyers deadly. The Martians also want the men to start an ancient machine, which Don accomplishes. It turns out to be a loud siren. For more on this story and Henry Andrew Ackermann, go here.

“Yellow Men of Mars” (Amazing Stories, August 1941) by Edgar Rice Burroughs has a polar city that can exist because it is a hothouse.  It is called Pankor. Of course, John Carter has to destroy the giant glass dome over the terrarium city before he escapes. For more on this story, go here.

Pankor was much like Kadabra, the capital city of Okar, only much smaller. Though the country around it and up to its walls was clothed in snow and ice, none lay upon the great crystal dome which roofed the entire city; and beneath the dome a pleasant, springlike atmosphere prevailed. Its avenues were covered with the sod of the mosslike ocher vegetation which clothes the dead sea bottoms of the red planet, and bordered by well kept lawns of crimson Barsoomian grass.

“Invisible Men of Mars” (Amazing Stories, October 1941) by Edgar Rice Burroughs gives us a city of invisible people called Invak. The city itself isn’t invisible but the people living there are. For more on this story, go here.

Invak! The city in the Forest of Lost Men. At first only a gate was visible, so thickly set were the trees that hid the city wall-the trees and the vines that covered the wall…The city was spotted with these courtyards which gave ventilation to the city which was, otherwise, entirely
roofed and artificially lighted by the amazing lights which gave complete visibility to its inhabitants. In every courtyard grew spreading trees, and upon the city’s roof vines had been trained to grow; so that, built as it was in the center of the Forest of Lost Men, it was almost as invisible from either the ground or the air as were its people themselves.

“City of the Living Flame” (Planet Stories, Fall 1942) by Henry Hasse gives us M’Tonak, a lost city under Mars’s polar ice cap. Hasse tells of a long journey to find the hidden city and its living flame.

M’Tonak lay in the center of a vast, shallow bowl several miles wide. In the first start of amazement Jim thought they must have somehow emerged again upon the planet’s surface; but this thought was immediately discarded when he gazed across at the opposite horizon. It was concave rather than convex, which meant they were in a cavern of inconceivable dimensions. Far overhead he saw something vague and misty that must have been a roof. That soothing green light was everywhere but he still could not determine its source, it simply  seemed to exist.

“Shadow Over Mars” (Startling Stories, Fall 1944) by Leigh Brackett has the fascinating Low-Canal towns of Sinharat, Jekkara, Valkis
and Arianrhod but the lost city of Caer Hebra is filled with winged people. Brackett is working in a vein of winged men established by George Griffith in 1901 with A Honeymoon in Space.

The city lay in the bed of the dry sea, thrusting its marble spires to the sky in a stricken gesture of prayer. Even while Rick watched it, it flickered like a breaking dream, obscured by drifting veils of dust…

1950s

“City of the Dead” (Amazing Stories, January 1950) by George M. Martin uses the same format as Robert Moore Williams, with a story buried in a report on Launn:

Having recently returned from that barren section of Mars, called the Plains of Parna, I wish to report that the City of Launn actually exists.

“The Last Days of Shandakor” (Startling Stories, April 1952) by Leigh Brackett offers a city before and after its fall. John Ross has come to Mars to find Shandakor, which he does twice. He locates the ruin then travels back in time to see its fall, like the ancient Atlantis of Mars.

In the midst of that desolation stood a fortress city. There were lights in it, soft lights of many colors. The outer walls stood up, black and massive, a barrier against the creeping dust, and within them was an island of life. The high towers were not ruined. The lights burned among them and there was movement in the streets. A living city—and Corin had said that Shandakor was almost dead.

Check out Howard Andrew Jones’ take on this classic and other Brackett stories here.

Conclusion

Of course, the Dead Cities of Mars didn’t stop suddenly in 1960 but they do become less frequent as our knowledge of the real Red Planet made these old stories seem like romances. A couple of anthologies that offer different versions of this theme include Old Mars (2013) edited by George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois that delivers new stories with the old Pulp concept of Mars, and Lost Mars: The Golden Age of the Red Planet (2018) edited by Mike Ashley, with some old tales of interest. Strangely none of Ashley’s picks made my list. He has stayed away from the Pulpier stuff. His loss. You can’t really discuss the Golden Age of Mars without some Burroughsian white-apes or Brackettian ruins.

Next time…Ice Planets!