Mists of Mars

The Martian frontier is a place where justice wears a six-shooter and law answers to whoever commands the biggest ship. In this reimagined Wild West, the Red Planet's original inhabitants stand in for the displaced peoples of American history, and the old violence plays out again under alien skies. When Barry Williams, a special investigator with the Terrestrial Bureau of Martian Affairs, arrives on Mars, he discovers a territory ruled by brute force and corporate interest. The Martians suffer under terrestrial exploitation. Small settlements live in fear of well-armed bandits and the mysterious powers that control the planet's resources. Williams isn't a typical Western hero riding in to save the day; he's an agent of an imperfect system trying to do right in a place where the very concept of law has been reduced to who can shoot the fastest. This is science fiction with a conscious, using the frontier mythos to examine colonization, power, and whether justice can ever truly exist outside the barrel of a gun.