The Aab

Monk O'Hara is a prospector on Mars, and Mars wants him dead. Buried to his neck in red dust under an alien sky, running out of air, he faces the thing he least expected in the emptiness: company. The Aab is vintage 1950s planetary romance, when Mars still held mysteries and the Red Planet was a frontier where a man could strike it rich or die trying. Ludwig writes with the desperate energy of a man who knows his oxygen is ticking down, blending the American western mythos with the new frontier of space. This is pulp SF at its core: alien, hostile, and strangely intimate. It captures the anxiety of an era gazing at the stars and wondering what was out there, and what it might do to the humans who dared venture forth.