A review by singlecrow
Lost Mars: The Golden Age of the Red Planet by Mike Ashley

2.0

A couple of interesting stories in this -- particularly "Crucifixus Etiam", by Walter Miller of Canticle For Leibowitz fame, but they're mostly forgettable Golden Age stuff, save the Miller and HG Wells story. What bothers me about these British Library collections is that they're meant to present the Golden Age stories to a new audience, but the extensive new introductions don't engage with the incredible racism and misogyny of the works, not even to merely acknowledge their existence. The only story that gets a pass on its treatment of women is "The Great Sacrifice", which is amazingly non-sexist given it's about 50 years older than some of the others in the collection; the worst on this account is "Ylla", the Bradbury story that employs the Martian landscape as window dressing on what's really an uncritical, pedestrian story about male violence against women. The only story that has any non-white characters is "Crucifixus", presenting us with some noble-savage Tibetans and Peruvians. Again, the introductions don't even mention it. Not impressed.