Pale Mars

A DEAD WORLD. OR IS IT? After a bloodbath beneath the surface of Ceres, an urgent message sends Cosmonaut Nadezhda Gura and her crew on a mission to Mars. Something's menacing the American colony there, snatching up citizens one by one from the shadows, but nobody seems to know who—or what—is responsible. Is it political dissidents? The last survivor of a long dead race? Or, as some whisper, a tall figure with burning eyes, preying vampire-like among the domes and air ducts of the colony? Nadezhda's quest for answers takes her through the ruins of the Red Planet, as secret agendas are revealed, and a final showdown with a monstrous force, threatening communists and capitalists alike, ensues. PALE MARS is the sequel to Red Venus, part Raygun Gothic, part Space Opera, set in an alternate universe where atomic-powered rockets take the Cold War into space much earlier. It's retro sci-fi with a twist, seen through the eyes of the East.