Review: Jules Verne meets The Sting.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 7, 2012
The Martian Emperor is the second instalment of Andrew Mayne's "The Chronological Man" series. I think readers who start with The Martian Emperor, rather than the first book in the series,The Monster in the Mist (A Chronological Man Adventure) (The Chronological Man), are going to feel lost because Mayne does not spend any time in introducing the characters - the thoroughly modern April Malone and Smith - or explaining the central conceit by which Smith seems to travel through time. Those subjects are covered in "The Monster in the Mist."  In this book, all the reader can do is barely get his seatbelt fastened before being taken for a high-paced joy-ride of an adventure.It seems that it is 1894 and New York is besieged by Martians.  A flying saucer of all things has appeared in New York's Central Park and the Martian Emperor wants Earthlings to lay down their arms and give him a million dollars in gold. This odd news results in Smith being decanted and Smith and his side-kick, April Malone, head off in Smith's private train to New York.  Smith meets Teddy Roosevelt, who knows him of old, and seems to know more about Smith's background than he lets on, and Smith, Roosevelt and Malone set out to unravel the mystery. During the course of their adventure, they meet a young carnival performer named Harry Houdini who lends a hand. Even Nellie Bly gets a cameo.Is it a hoax?  Smith smells a rat because the "Martian" artifacts are too boilerplate cliche, and, yet, it also seems that the Martians are doing things that are in advance of the technology available in the closing days of the Nineteenth Century, kind of like Smith's own technology, which involves private automated trains, lighter than air flying vehicles and automated telegraph interception devices.All in all, The Martian Emperor is a rollicking good yarn. Smith, Malone and Teddy make for engaging characters. There are some improbable scenes and good humor (e.g., "I'm commandeering your rhinoceros.")  We get hints about Smith's backstory: his sick sister is making the slow journey to the future, he had conversations with "Tom" about what a just society should look like, and Smith may have a technologically advanced rival in a secret society called "the White Apothecarians."The Martian Emperor is well worth the investment of time and money.