Black Amazon of Mars
The last of the Earth-blooded men walked the Martian ice alone, and the talisman at his belt screamed for blood. Eric John Stark has survived the dark corners of a hundred worlds, but the Norlands of Mars may finally break him. Cursed with the stolen jewel called Ban Cruach - a thing of ancient and terrible power - he must cross a thousand miles of frozen wasteland to return it to the city of Kushat before it consumes him entirely. Behind him ride the blood-maddened hordes of Ciaran, hungry to reclaim what was stolen. Ahead lies the domain of the Ice Creatures, beings that exist in the space between life and death. And within the gem itself, Ban Cruach whispers secrets that could drive a man mad. This is pulp science fiction at its rawest: a story of one man's impossible trek through a dying world, where every step brings him closer to either salvation or the Gates of Death. Brackett writes with the same hard-boiled intensity she brought to later film noir scripts, turning the Martian wilderness into a landscape of mythic dread.
