This is an especially unusual book that I've been meaning to read for a long time. It's presented as "out of this world entertainment" in the printed signature before the contents, which means a form of science fiction that's so far adrift from actual science that it makes 'Buck Rogers' look believable. It's an oddly-shaped book with a paperback cover about five inches by seven that's a little larger than the pages bound within. There's nothing on the spine or back cover, just a blue transfer on the front cover that tears very easily, to the degree that I had to create a composite from my copy and an online image to share.

It was published by Sargent House, which appears to be Palmer's own private imprint, though I can't find any information about it beyond that. I haven't found much more about Palmer, but I do know that she was born in Iowa in 1892 and wrote between the thirties and fifties. Much of her output was poetry, including a thirty-two card set of postcards called 'Palmer Penny Poem Postal' that led to Sargent House collections. In 1949, she published her best known work, 'Cat Eye', which is a murder mystery romance, then drifted into sci-fi with 'Lovers in Mars' in 1954. I only know of this one edition.

If that doesn't make it unusual enough, my copy has a provenance. I bought it from a bookseller who handled the sale of books from the estate of the actor and dancer Donald O'Connor. I can't prove that Palmer gave it to him or when, but given that it's a highly obscure book and she was also an actress, albeit an amateur one, who "wrote songs, speeches and lyrics for at least three film scores (one of which received an Oscar nomination)", it seems pretty likely. I have no idea which films, by the way, as I'm not finding her on IMDb under either her stagename or either of the married names I know.

What's more, while this book was still in his personal library when he died in 2003, I don't think O'Connor ever read it, because I had to separate a couple of pages here and there, having been poorly cut by the printer. I'm presumably therefore the very first person to read this copy of an obscure self-published book from 1954 that's gathered precisely one rating and zero reviews on Goodreads in the seventy years since. Even though it was owned by a Golden Globe winner.

It's utterly awful, of course, but in a fascinating way, because it's a counter from the fifties of a commonly held misconception about that decade, one currently being pushed hard by a major political party. Nobody in the "Make America Great Again" movement has ever officially said the timeframe at which it was previously great that they want to go back to, but it's commonly seen as the fifties, which gels with many of their policies. Everybody was happy, they say, and everybody was free.

Well, the starting point suggests otherwise. Craig and Joyce are a young couple who are very much in love, so much so that Joyce wants to get married. Craig loves her as much as she loves him but he doesn't want to marry her, because "it changes people and kills love". Joyce would be absolutely OK with merely living their life together without a ring on her finger, if only that would be acceptable to society. Which, of course, it isn't, because it's the fifties. In fact, Palmer plays up the pressure so much that both of them promptly lose their jobs for no other reason than that they're single. Let that sink in for a moment.

The economy is so strong that Craig's boss calls him in to explain that his advertising company, like every other advertising company in town, is being forced to downsize and so they can only continue to employ married men, preferably those with dependents. Why, we have no idea, as Palmer doesn't explain that, but it seems counter to how things work today. Single men with no dependents cost less to employ because of how medical benefits work? Meanwhile, Joyce finds herself replaced as a teacher because of the mere perception that, as a young lady going out with a young man, she's obviously about to be married and obviously wouldn't keep working as a married woman. It just wouldn't be proper!

So, they go to Mars. And yes, the decision is that ridiculously simple! They love each other, they want to be together forever, Craig doesn't want to get married and society doesn't want them to be single, but the paper says that Prof. Riccard has built a rocket plane that he's planning to aim at Mars, so why don't they just be on board when it sets off? Now, I realise that they didn't have space tourism in 1954, but this boggled my mind. So did the fact that, just outside Earth's atmosphere, they're hit by a meteor that destroys the rocket plane but manage to parachute out into space and float safely down to Mars. While I surely don't have the best understanding of planetary dynamics, I'm pretty sure that's Not How It Works.

Fortunately, we're now on Mars, so things work; however Palmer wants things to work Mars and we can't prove her wrong. Craig and Joyce are quickly met by beautiful naked Martians who've been bathing outside in a large group and these new friends soon guide them through Martian society as the first Earth tourists to ever pop over to visit. They're nothing if not friendly and it turns out that that's because Mars is a utopian society that's one part wish-fulfilment fantasy and two parts 'Jetsons'-esque extrapolation of technology that's still somehow built on fifties America. This is a utopian Martian society but our tourists still smoke.

The wish-fulfilment fantasy starts immediately with those naked Martians and goes far beyond the commentary about our nudity taboo which was prevalent in science fiction from the fifties. Of course, they're "unbelievably handsome youths" and "incredibly perfect creatures, tall and shapely". What's more, "the remarkable thing was their exact similarity and the fact that they were entirely naked and unashamed". It's easy to dive into twins fantasies here and what's odd is that we kinda-sorta do that without ever doing that.

We do that through an obviously building relationship between Craig and Joyce and their four Martian guides, who are two pairs of apparent twins: Anton and Antonia, Ramon and Ramona.  The attraction is clearly there on all sides, enough so that when we get to pluralistic marriages that unfold more like graduations, these Martians make their intentions very clear indeed with specific proposals.

It seems that every Martian is born in a test tube and specifically tailored through eugenics. At that point, it's merely a physical shell, to be populated by an available soul in the Soularium, in a Earth-based astrological construct. Why the Martians use the twelve month Earth calendar when Mars circumnavigates the sun in 687 days, I have absolutely no idea, but it's probably not good to ask scientific questions here. Of course, I'd love to see a scientist debunk everything in this book at length on YouTube, but that's just me.

Anyway, so groups of compatible Martians become licensed to be married together, just like an American graduation ceremony. Twenty men don't strictly marry five women, for instance, as happens in the first such ceremony that our Earth tourists witness; they're merely licensed to be married to anyone else who's licensed to be married, should the will arise, acknowledging a compatibility between them. Any one of those men could marry any one of those women today and stay with them for as long as they want but move on to a different one tomorrow. And vice versa.

It shouldn't shock that suddenly Craig wants to get married while Joyce doesn't, but there's an important note to make here: there's no sex in this book. None at all. There are points where a character metaphorically drips with anticipation and Palmer clearly sets up a free love society before the hippies tried to implement one a decade later, but I'm not convinced that Martians can even have sex. It's certainly not needed for procreation because science takes care of that in the laboratory, but Palmer never once mentions it in connection with pleasure. This becomes a rather kinky book that happens to contain no sex whatsoever.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that population is trivial to control when new Martians are created in test tubes, so it's large enough to function but small enough for everybody to live in their own castle on their own estate with every modcon known to man and a bunch more to boot. For some reason, there are hotels, maintained by robots, with radio-controlled tables, doors tuned to personal vibrations and beds that retract into the walls for storage. Whatever you need, just press the right button and it'll happen quickly and effectively.

Of course, it's all as outrageously convenient as the fact Martians all speak perfect English; the very first line of dialogue that we hear a Martian speak, having heard precisely nine words out of Joyce's mouth, is "We are able to understand all languages here, including yours. You must be from the earth planet. We have been watching your approach." Clearly Palmer doesn't know a lot about science, but she knows what she likes in fifties America and she extrapolates wildly to make those things even more cool, without any real understanding of why.

Therefore, she gives us beds that store themselves in the walls, without explaining why anyone would want to do that when they have abundant space, or indeed why they'd do it by pressing a button in the floor that could easily be pressed accidentally. There are great rejuvenating skin treatments and rest cures really work. "Would you like a permanent?" one Martian asks her. It only takes a minute. Do Martians have such an Earth fetish that they've adopted the hairstyles of another planet and the names they use for them, without following suit in their society?

I know this review is getting long, but I found this book endlessly fascinating as a fifties glimpse into the future, rather like the Sunday comic strip 'Closer Than We Think' by Arthur Radebaugh that started its five year syndicated run four years after this book saw print. I could see 'Closer Than We Think' covering a lot of this tech, from the "ether balloon traveller's jacket", that's like a rocketless jetpack, to the "Transmigration Station" that's a technological implementation of Buddhist reincarnation principles. There's a lot here to marvel at, but unfortunately it's largely told as conversation, with entire pages being dedicated to nothing but dialogue.

This isn't a good book, whether we're looking at it as fiction, science or science fiction, but I got a lot out of it, because Palmer's writing style is easy to read and she throws ideas at the wall so fast that we can't pause to see if they stick—most of them don't, of course. It's also ridiculously fast-paced, so it's never boring for a second. I'm rather disappointed that this is her only science fiction work, but I'll have to try to seek out a copy of 'Cat Eye' and learn more about her. I think she might count as a proto-outsider artist and that makes her fascinating to me. ~~ Hal C F Astell