You'll Like It on Mars — Background and Themes

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In Category - Space Future

Authors: Harris, Tom W., Berry, D. Bruce, 1924-1998 [Illustrator] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2021 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Science fiction; Short stories; Mars (Planet) -- Fiction; Motion picture industry -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 6,957

Reading time 31 min

Text sections 1

The catalog record for You'll Like It on Mars — Background and Themes provides practical reading context through 6,957 words, 31 min estimated reading time, and 1 detected text section.

The text analysis averages about 14.3 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Science fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #65122

Tom W. Harris's 1958 story uses a Hollywood insider's voice to reveal how a film crew's regenerative Martian medicine traps them on the red planet. The narrative's diction, dialogue, and descriptive choices build a cynical, visceral tale of ambition and transformation.

Editorial Edition Score 4.4/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg65122

Read the Text

There was a closeup of Vance's face, scrambled with terror, about the best acting I have ever seen from Vance. And, the tawny got those yellow choppers going and minced him into little hunks.

It was all close to the camera, and about the most real thing I ever saw outside of a newsreel. Superb realism.

If I hadn't seen so many murder films and pirate films and space-monster films I suppose I couldn't have kept watching. But me and John Q. Public were just alike--calloused. Calloused or not, I still felt a cold chill or two. If the public wanted horror, this film delivered it.

There were some more hair-raising shots as the crew tried to beat off the tawnies. There was a guy who got in the way of a blaster. I wanted to think he was a rubber dummy or some kind of robot, but I couldn't convince myself. Anyway, the tawnies cleaned up. The only one who made it back to the ship was Arden Montgomery, and her legs were ripped and slashed like ragged cloth.

Then the clips were over. I sat and thought a moment. Maybe Myron had a point, watching the steals again. I had picked up an idea. It was crazy, but I needed any idea I could get hold of.

Maybe those scenes were just as real as they looked. Maybe Renn was using doubles here on Earth, and the real cast was scattered in hunks around the bleak sands of the red planet. Renn was unscrupulous enough for something like that. But could he patch up convincing doubles?

I was pretty sure doubles hadn't been used in the film, though. I knew Vance and Arden. It was them.

I kept worrying at it all the way to Renn's house party. I came up with one more idea--one I liked. Arden Montgomery was the only one in the film that escaped. If those scenes were real, she'd have scars on her legs the rest of her life. They'd be too severe to disguise completely. Arden and I had once been what they call "good friends," and tonight I would find a chance to give her legs a good, thorough lookover.

Renn met me at the door in person. On the front of his phony grin, and in the back of his mind was the possibility he might get me away from Myron. The grin didn't change the fact that Kettering has eyes like dry ice, and that the true lines of his face are about as jovial as a shock trooper's.

"Greetings, Gabe!" I chortled.

I was about to shake hands when I yelled and jumped back about ten feet. Just behind Renn was a snarling tawny.

Renn laughed. "Little watchdog I brought back. He's a runt, you'll notice. Only about five feet high. Weighs about fifteen hundred pounds. He keeps prowlers off the grounds at night--so many people are curious these days. But don't worry, he can't get at you."

The runt was tied with steel cables about two inches thick. He was giving the cables a hard time.

"Come on in," laughed Kettering. "Those cables would hold an elephant."

"I don't see what that has to do with holding a tawny," I wheezed, "but if the rest of your guests got through, I guess I can make it."

Kettering took my arm and sort of guided me down the hall, and when we passed the tawny all those eyes or whatever they are, all over its body, glared through the fur and it leaped at me. The big choppers clacked a half inch from my ear and I felt a mandible graze my coat.

Renn guffawed. "I measured his exact reach," he said chummily. "Sorry if he scared you. A good watchdog--so many people curious these days."

That made the second time he'd said that.

I gulped a drink before I began to talk to anybody. Practically all the Important Crowd was present.... Dick Lutz, the critic; Sally Flours; Johnny Lambeck of Lambeck & Bowe, and what looked like the whole cast of "Mars Hazard." I was in luck--Arden Montgomery was there with them. I noticed she didn't have a drink, so I brought her one. "Greetings, Gabe," I smirked charmingly, and she gave me the big hello. So far, so good--she was glad to see me.

"Nothing," I said, "Except I'm in love with you."

"Wonderful," she said. "I love having people in love with me."

I slid my eyes up her legs, which were exhibited considerably. No sign of scars.

"How was Mars? I hear it's dry and full of itchy green sand and the sky is a pink that'd turn your stomach. And--horrors--no bars!"

"I kinda liked the damned place. Wouldn't mind staying there."

Continue Reading →

Tom W. Harris opens You'll Like It on Mars with a narrator who remembers events “so clearly,” a phrase that recurs to frame the tale. The story’s first line of dialogue—Myron Ferdinand’s threat, “Get the information and you can have anything you want”—immediately establishes a world of Hollywood power plays. The narrator, Manny, speaks in a sardonic, self-aware voice: “Movie magnates always have great ideas.” This cynical tone, paired with vivid physical details like Myron’s “heavy pipe with five-dollar-an-ounce tobacco,” grounds the fantastic premise in a recognizable, gritty industry.

Diction and the Hollywood Vernacular

Harris peppers the narration with period slang and industry jargon. Phrases like “every hipster” and “terrif idea” (with the deliberate misspelling) place the reader firmly in 1950s Hollywood. The narrator’s internal commentary—“Modest guy, Myron Ferdinand”—adds a layer of ironic distance. This vernacular is not mere decoration; it shapes the reader’s perception of Manny as a savvy, slightly jaded operator. The dialogue between Manny and Myron is clipped and transactional, full of threats and feigned enthusiasm. Myron’s line, “I’ll wash you out of the whole industry,” carries the weight of absolute power. Harris uses this language to create a world where words are weapons and loyalty is a commodity.

Dialogue as Exposition and Characterization

The story’s central revelation comes through dialogue, not description. Renn Kettering explains the Martian regenerative process in a conversational, almost offhand manner: “Well, it’s really because of the Martians.” His explanation uses simple analogies—lizards growing tails, lobsters regrowing claws—to make the fantastic plausible. The narrator’s responses (“Yah,” “I love to hear you talk”) keep the exchange grounded. Harris avoids lengthy info-dumps; instead, the secret unfolds through a back-and-forth that feels natural to the characters. The dialogue also reveals the psychological shift: Renn’s casual “Welcome to Mars” contrasts with Manny’s initial horror, but by the end, Manny’s own voice has softened, accepting the planet’s appeal.

Descriptive Choices and the Sensation of Violence

Harris describes violence with clinical precision and dark humor. The tawny’s attack is rendered in visceral detail: “the beast was on me and I felt the choppers starting.” The narrator’s aside—“I don’t suppose many people these days are familiar with the sensation of being chopped up fine. It isn’t pleasant.”—adds a macabre, matter-of-fact tone. Later, the description of the iron bar “sticking through” the tawny and the puncture “sealed by something like scar tissue” emphasizes the alien biology. These details are not gratuitous; they serve to make the threat tangible and to underscore the cost of the film’s realism. The setting, glimpsed through “green sand desert, pink sky and yellow clouds,” is sketched sparingly, leaving the reader to fill in the alien landscape.

Structure and the Unreliable Frame

The story is framed by the narrator’s repeated assertion, “I remember it all so clearly.” This phrase appears at the beginning and near the end, creating a circular structure. Yet the final paragraphs reveal a shift: “I don’t feel now the way I did when Renn gave me the word. Not at all.” The narrator has become a Martian, and his perspective has changed. This framing device invites the reader to question the reliability of the earlier account. Is the memory truly clear, or has it been altered by the transformation? Harris leaves this ambiguity unresolved, allowing the story’s conclusion to resonate as both a happy ending and a loss of self. The structure mirrors the theme: the past is recalled, but the narrator’s present identity colors every detail.

Harris’s story rewards attention to its narrative voice and the way it shifts over the course of the tale. The opening cynicism gives way to a strange contentment, and the reader is left to decide whether Manny’s transformation is a victory or a surrender. The story’s brevity—under 7,000 words—makes it a quick read, but the layers of diction, dialogue, and framing invite rereading. Pay particular attention to how the narrator’s attitude toward Mars changes, and how Harris signals that change through subtle shifts in language.

That rainy afternoon, Harris’s crew kept mutating under my fingers, their ambition curdling into something inhuman. I closed the book and sat with the damp light, thinking how transformation never stays merciful. Then my hand drifted, almost on its own, to another stack. The title caught me — Three Spacemen Left to Die! — Context and Discussion — and I wondered what mercy looked like when nobody was watching.