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The Vampires of Mars #2
La Guerre Des Vampires
Voici la suite du «Prisonnier de la planète Mars». Ralph Pitcher et Miss Alberte ont acquis la certitude que leur ami Robert Darvel se trouve sur la planète Mars. Aidés du capitaine Wad, de l'astronome Bolenski et de Georges Darvel (le frère cadet de Robert), ils installent en Tunisie un laboratoire pour suivre les messages venant de Mars et essayer de trouver le moyen de ramener leur ami sur Terre. Or un soir, lors d'un violent et curieux orage, une boule de feu s'abat sur le laboratoire...
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1909
About the author
Gustave Le Rouge
268 books5 followersGustave Henri Joseph Le Rouge (22 July 1867 - 24 February 1938) was a French writer who embodied the evolution of modern science fiction at the beginning of the 20th century, by moving it away from the juvenile adventures of Jules Verne and incorporating real people into his stories, thus bridging the gap between Vernian and Wellsian science fiction.
Le Rouge was born at Valognes, Manche.
He burst onto the literary scene with La Conspiration des Milliardaires [The Billionaires' Conspiracy] (1899-1900), co-written with Gustave Guitton, in which American billionaire William Boltyn uses Thomas Edison's "Metal Men" (Karel Čapek coined the term "robot" only in 1920) and the power of mediums to try to become master of the world. Le Rouge and Guitton went on to produce two more novels in the same vein, La princesse des airs [The Princess of the Skies] (1902) and Le sous-marin Jules Verne [The Submarine Jules Verne] (1903).
After they quarreled and went their separate ways, Le Rouge continued to produce solo fiction such as L'Espionne du Grand Lama (1906), which introduced a Lost World inhabited by prehistoric creatures and La Reine des Éléphants [The Queen of Elephants] (1906), which featured a society of intelligent elephants.
Sandwiched between Arnould Galopin's Doctor Omega (1906) and Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars (1912), Le Rouge's masterpiece was Le Prisonnier de la Planète Mars (1908) and its sequel, La Guerre des Vampires (1909), a Martian Odyssey in which French engineer Robert Darvel is dispatched to Mars by the psychic powers of Hindu Brahmins. On the Red Planet, Darvel runs afoul of hostile, bat-winged, blood-sucking natives, a once-powerful civilization now ruled by the Great Brain. The entity eventually sends Darvel back to Earth, unfortunately with some of the vampires. The second volume deals with the war of the vampires back on Earth. Le Rouge's Mars is elaborately described, with its fauna, flora and various races of inhabitants, à la C. S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet (1938). Planetary romance blends with "cosmic horror" as the characters switch from swashbuckling he-men to helpless bundles of gibbering terror.
In 1907, Le Rouge first made the acquaintance of the Swiss poet Blaise Cendrars, who later painted an affectionately colorful portrait of him in his memoir L’homme foudroyé (1945).
Le Rouge's classic mad scientist / conspiracy saga is Le Mystérieux Docteur Cornelius (1912–13). Cornelius Kramm and his brother, Fritz, rule an international criminal empire called the Red Hand. Cornelius is a brilliant cosmetic surgeon nicknamed the "Sculptor of Human Flesh" for his ability to alter people's likenesses. The Red Hand's growing, global, evil influence eventually causes the creation of an alliance of heroes, led by Dr. Prosper Bondonnat, billionaire William Dorgan and Lord Burydan, who band together to fight and, ultimately, defeat them.
During World War I, Le Rouge became a war correspondent for various magazines, eventually settling into a long-term position with Le Petit Parisien. He continued to produce books of various sorts, including some pioneering exercises in spy fiction and some detective fiction throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, but none of his later works made any considerable impact.
Le Rouge was born at Valognes, Manche.
He burst onto the literary scene with La Conspiration des Milliardaires [The Billionaires' Conspiracy] (1899-1900), co-written with Gustave Guitton, in which American billionaire William Boltyn uses Thomas Edison's "Metal Men" (Karel Čapek coined the term "robot" only in 1920) and the power of mediums to try to become master of the world. Le Rouge and Guitton went on to produce two more novels in the same vein, La princesse des airs [The Princess of the Skies] (1902) and Le sous-marin Jules Verne [The Submarine Jules Verne] (1903).
After they quarreled and went their separate ways, Le Rouge continued to produce solo fiction such as L'Espionne du Grand Lama (1906), which introduced a Lost World inhabited by prehistoric creatures and La Reine des Éléphants [The Queen of Elephants] (1906), which featured a society of intelligent elephants.
Sandwiched between Arnould Galopin's Doctor Omega (1906) and Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars (1912), Le Rouge's masterpiece was Le Prisonnier de la Planète Mars (1908) and its sequel, La Guerre des Vampires (1909), a Martian Odyssey in which French engineer Robert Darvel is dispatched to Mars by the psychic powers of Hindu Brahmins. On the Red Planet, Darvel runs afoul of hostile, bat-winged, blood-sucking natives, a once-powerful civilization now ruled by the Great Brain. The entity eventually sends Darvel back to Earth, unfortunately with some of the vampires. The second volume deals with the war of the vampires back on Earth. Le Rouge's Mars is elaborately described, with its fauna, flora and various races of inhabitants, à la C. S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet (1938). Planetary romance blends with "cosmic horror" as the characters switch from swashbuckling he-men to helpless bundles of gibbering terror.
In 1907, Le Rouge first made the acquaintance of the Swiss poet Blaise Cendrars, who later painted an affectionately colorful portrait of him in his memoir L’homme foudroyé (1945).
Le Rouge's classic mad scientist / conspiracy saga is Le Mystérieux Docteur Cornelius (1912–13). Cornelius Kramm and his brother, Fritz, rule an international criminal empire called the Red Hand. Cornelius is a brilliant cosmetic surgeon nicknamed the "Sculptor of Human Flesh" for his ability to alter people's likenesses. The Red Hand's growing, global, evil influence eventually causes the creation of an alliance of heroes, led by Dr. Prosper Bondonnat, billionaire William Dorgan and Lord Burydan, who band together to fight and, ultimately, defeat them.
During World War I, Le Rouge became a war correspondent for various magazines, eventually settling into a long-term position with Le Petit Parisien. He continued to produce books of various sorts, including some pioneering exercises in spy fiction and some detective fiction throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, but none of his later works made any considerable impact.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 2, 2023
Happy New Year! I'm starting things off right with my favorite genres--vintage science fiction and horror--with the 1909 French opus "War of the Vampires" by Gustave Le Rouge. The only English version I know is in the Black Coat Press edition of "Vampires of Mars," which also includes the first story "Prisoner of the Vampires of Mars," which I also reviewed for Goodreads. If you like Radium-Age science fiction, then I do recommend this collection.
And you certainly get your fill of early 20th Century scientific romance in the opening pages of this story. On the exotic Mediterranean coast of Tunisia, three are gathered in a sumptuous villa where a laboratory is set up to monitor signals from the Red Planet. Glass tubes rise to the ceiling connected to elaborate crackling batteries and all forms of apparatus, glass vials and tubes filled with all colors of bubbling liquid, concave mirrors and sensitive microphones watching and listening to the skies.
They are looking for Robert Darvel, a man who was shot into space against his will by an unscrupulous business partner in the previous book, landing on the planet Mars. The trio include Robert's brother Georges, his fiance Alberte, and his best friend Ralph. Helping them are Captain Wad, engineer Bolinsky, and the prerequisite crew of ethnic servants typical of 20th Century colonial empire adventures.
The signals that Darvel had been sending from Mars have suddenly stopped, and the lab crew are preparing all the technology necessary for a search and rescue mission. However, they only get as far as dinner. The villa is beseiged by violent atmospheric phenomena, invisible vampiric octopus creatures, and the return of Darvel himself. It appears that instead of going to Mars, Mars has come to Earth.
There are several elements that make this story stand out from its predecessor. First of all, I found the characters infinitely more interesting. Alberte returns as the no-nonsense business tycoon, and I can't think of many female characters prior to Ayn Rand where we saw a woman in this kind of role. Captain Wad introduces readers to the idea that humans will eventually evolve into pure brains that control avatars, since technology will largely make our organ systems obsolete. There's also an aristocratic chef who not only can do wonders with flamingo tongues and trunk of elephant, but has a sketchy history of preparing dishes of such escalating rarity that it has been rumored he eventually resorted to serving human meat. Particularly notable is Ralph's faithful companion Zarouk, who's blindness makes his other senses more keen to notice danger long before the unsuspecting white geniuses. Unfortunately, the author choses to have him largely be a histrionic mess, fainting every chance he gets, while the other characters alternatively praise and demean him for no good reason. He is constantly being called "fool," when he has proven himself to be smarter than almost anyone. I know some folks will try to justify it by putting it in the context of the times, but any way you slice it, the treatment of the character is just terrible.
Another interesting element is the actual science. The first novel focused mostly on survival skills in the Martian wilderness, with the exception of using a machine that harnesses "will power" to shoot objects into space. The sequel still has those elements of "will as motivational force," but is also loaded with fortuitous speculation that I really enjoyed, such as the development of wireless technology for audio-visual communication that can even be used to charge batteries, much like we have today. Gustave Le Rouge certainly ranks among Hugo Gernsback, John Campbell, H. G. Wells, and Eric Temple Bell as one of the great projectionists of scientific progress in speculative fiction.
We've all read some form of classic interplanetary adventure story along the lines of Burroughs, early Wells, and Ralph Milne Farley, which follows the same formula: an Earthling ends up stranded on another planet, but his superior ubermensch intellect quickly civilizes the primitive indigenous humanoids who have been terrorized for generations by aggressive beasties. Such was the plot of the original story. The sequel has much more variety.
Yes, it does flash back to our hero on Mars encountering a plethora of wonders. We have the return of the Erloor, the previous novel's race of humanoid bats, a popular type of foe in Victoria and Edwardian sci-fi (see my review of "Out of Time's Abyss" for more explanation). We see what life is like in an Erloor cave, encounter a species of aerial plants that drifts in treacherously thick clouds, and explore gorgeous glass towers with a view of a beautiful array of marine life and other fantastic secrets. But this story also brings the action back home with elements of a base-under-seige formula that later became a staple in our favorite 50s monster flicks, classic Doctor Who episodes, Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," and much of John Carpenter's 80s repertoire.
As a result, "War" is truly an accomplishment in ingenuity and fantasy that far outweighs its predecessor. It also throws in unexpected twists in the plot, and goes to some realistically dark places which I found refreshing.
But it is not perfect. In addition to the casual racism, the story is marred by some silly plot choices, particularly revolving around the return of the hero to Earth. And while he is still on Mars, he is rescued from the Erloor by a team of Martians and they all have to travel back to their village. But their journey to safety takes them through unknown territory full of dangers. Wait a minute. How "unknown" is this area? If the region is unexplored, how did the Martians know exactly how to find the Erloor base in order to rescue our hero? And evidently they encountered no resistance all the way out there from all the "unknown" perils in the jungle, so why suddenly is it so hard to get back home? Bottom line, if the trip back is so impossible, how did they make it out there in the first place as if they were making quick stop for some White Castle burgers?
So "War of the Vampires" earns three and a half stars, rounded to four, for its imagination and innovation, despite being somewhat clunky. A worthy addition to your reading list if you like classic sci-fi monster stories.
It's easy to find if you read French, and English readers will get good value from Brian Stableford's translation of the complete duo of Le Rouge's outerspace vampire tales.
And you certainly get your fill of early 20th Century scientific romance in the opening pages of this story. On the exotic Mediterranean coast of Tunisia, three are gathered in a sumptuous villa where a laboratory is set up to monitor signals from the Red Planet. Glass tubes rise to the ceiling connected to elaborate crackling batteries and all forms of apparatus, glass vials and tubes filled with all colors of bubbling liquid, concave mirrors and sensitive microphones watching and listening to the skies.
They are looking for Robert Darvel, a man who was shot into space against his will by an unscrupulous business partner in the previous book, landing on the planet Mars. The trio include Robert's brother Georges, his fiance Alberte, and his best friend Ralph. Helping them are Captain Wad, engineer Bolinsky, and the prerequisite crew of ethnic servants typical of 20th Century colonial empire adventures.
The signals that Darvel had been sending from Mars have suddenly stopped, and the lab crew are preparing all the technology necessary for a search and rescue mission. However, they only get as far as dinner. The villa is beseiged by violent atmospheric phenomena, invisible vampiric octopus creatures, and the return of Darvel himself. It appears that instead of going to Mars, Mars has come to Earth.
There are several elements that make this story stand out from its predecessor. First of all, I found the characters infinitely more interesting. Alberte returns as the no-nonsense business tycoon, and I can't think of many female characters prior to Ayn Rand where we saw a woman in this kind of role. Captain Wad introduces readers to the idea that humans will eventually evolve into pure brains that control avatars, since technology will largely make our organ systems obsolete. There's also an aristocratic chef who not only can do wonders with flamingo tongues and trunk of elephant, but has a sketchy history of preparing dishes of such escalating rarity that it has been rumored he eventually resorted to serving human meat. Particularly notable is Ralph's faithful companion Zarouk, who's blindness makes his other senses more keen to notice danger long before the unsuspecting white geniuses. Unfortunately, the author choses to have him largely be a histrionic mess, fainting every chance he gets, while the other characters alternatively praise and demean him for no good reason. He is constantly being called "fool," when he has proven himself to be smarter than almost anyone. I know some folks will try to justify it by putting it in the context of the times, but any way you slice it, the treatment of the character is just terrible.
Another interesting element is the actual science. The first novel focused mostly on survival skills in the Martian wilderness, with the exception of using a machine that harnesses "will power" to shoot objects into space. The sequel still has those elements of "will as motivational force," but is also loaded with fortuitous speculation that I really enjoyed, such as the development of wireless technology for audio-visual communication that can even be used to charge batteries, much like we have today. Gustave Le Rouge certainly ranks among Hugo Gernsback, John Campbell, H. G. Wells, and Eric Temple Bell as one of the great projectionists of scientific progress in speculative fiction.
We've all read some form of classic interplanetary adventure story along the lines of Burroughs, early Wells, and Ralph Milne Farley, which follows the same formula: an Earthling ends up stranded on another planet, but his superior ubermensch intellect quickly civilizes the primitive indigenous humanoids who have been terrorized for generations by aggressive beasties. Such was the plot of the original story. The sequel has much more variety.
Yes, it does flash back to our hero on Mars encountering a plethora of wonders. We have the return of the Erloor, the previous novel's race of humanoid bats, a popular type of foe in Victoria and Edwardian sci-fi (see my review of "Out of Time's Abyss" for more explanation). We see what life is like in an Erloor cave, encounter a species of aerial plants that drifts in treacherously thick clouds, and explore gorgeous glass towers with a view of a beautiful array of marine life and other fantastic secrets. But this story also brings the action back home with elements of a base-under-seige formula that later became a staple in our favorite 50s monster flicks, classic Doctor Who episodes, Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," and much of John Carpenter's 80s repertoire.
As a result, "War" is truly an accomplishment in ingenuity and fantasy that far outweighs its predecessor. It also throws in unexpected twists in the plot, and goes to some realistically dark places which I found refreshing.
But it is not perfect. In addition to the casual racism, the story is marred by some silly plot choices, particularly revolving around the return of the hero to Earth. And while he is still on Mars, he is rescued from the Erloor by a team of Martians and they all have to travel back to their village. But their journey to safety takes them through unknown territory full of dangers. Wait a minute. How "unknown" is this area? If the region is unexplored, how did the Martians know exactly how to find the Erloor base in order to rescue our hero? And evidently they encountered no resistance all the way out there from all the "unknown" perils in the jungle, so why suddenly is it so hard to get back home? Bottom line, if the trip back is so impossible, how did they make it out there in the first place as if they were making quick stop for some White Castle burgers?
So "War of the Vampires" earns three and a half stars, rounded to four, for its imagination and innovation, despite being somewhat clunky. A worthy addition to your reading list if you like classic sci-fi monster stories.
It's easy to find if you read French, and English readers will get good value from Brian Stableford's translation of the complete duo of Le Rouge's outerspace vampire tales.
May 19, 2019
Weird and sad... a freaky Great Old Ones take one Steam Punk Mars.
April 30, 2025
Much as I enjoyed Le Prisonier De La Planete Mars, this sequel (published in 1909) was disappointing.
It starts off full of vim and vigour with efforts by a crew of eccentrics to rescue the protagonist of the previous novel and it is simply more of the same sort of thing (albeit lacking in sinister fakirs). Then we have more planetary adventures with said protagonist, full of wild imagination, including bat people, invisible vampires that are just flying brains with tentacles, and a giant disembodied brain that is the ruler of planet Mars. These are B movie tropes, all present and correct *decades* before the B movies. All pulp fiction follows in the footsteps of this genius precursor.
So at first, all was going very well indeed (if you disregard the toxic attitudes of the time).
And then it completely falls apart. The protagonist returns to Earth without any cogent explanation (but with deadly consequences for some of his friends), and the ghostly vampires that somehow followed him (or in fact got to Earth before him for early chapter thrills) are hastily defeated by the eccentrics without the slightest effort to make way for a hackneyed happy ending of the cringe inducing boy marries girl variety. The author basically got bored and cut the story short in the most complacent way possible after building up a supposedly invincible foe. Did he argue with his publisher or something?
What happens with the swarms of vampires still on Mars who can evidently make the journey to Earth with ease under the impulsion of their sinister giant brain god? Nothing? There’s no further instalment to my knowledge.
What a miserable disappointment!
It starts off full of vim and vigour with efforts by a crew of eccentrics to rescue the protagonist of the previous novel and it is simply more of the same sort of thing (albeit lacking in sinister fakirs). Then we have more planetary adventures with said protagonist, full of wild imagination, including bat people, invisible vampires that are just flying brains with tentacles, and a giant disembodied brain that is the ruler of planet Mars. These are B movie tropes, all present and correct *decades* before the B movies. All pulp fiction follows in the footsteps of this genius precursor.
So at first, all was going very well indeed (if you disregard the toxic attitudes of the time).
And then it completely falls apart. The protagonist returns to Earth without any cogent explanation (but with deadly consequences for some of his friends), and the ghostly vampires that somehow followed him (or in fact got to Earth before him for early chapter thrills) are hastily defeated by the eccentrics without the slightest effort to make way for a hackneyed happy ending of the cringe inducing boy marries girl variety. The author basically got bored and cut the story short in the most complacent way possible after building up a supposedly invincible foe. Did he argue with his publisher or something?
What happens with the swarms of vampires still on Mars who can evidently make the journey to Earth with ease under the impulsion of their sinister giant brain god? Nothing? There’s no further instalment to my knowledge.
What a miserable disappointment!
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