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.