
THE MARTIANS (1931)
SOURCE: "An Adventure in Futurity" by Clark Ashton Smith (Wonder Stories, April 1931)
DESCRIPTION: "The reddish-yellow body of the Martian was attired only in a black loin-cloth. His squat, toad-like features, under the high, bulging, knobby head, were impossible to read; and I was chilled by the sense of an unbridgeable evolutionary gulf as I looked into his icy green eyes."
NOTES: The Martians of Smith's story are very old and intelligent. They are highly secretive, infgact, they are leading the Venusians against the humans in secret.
HISTORY: This story from Wonder Stories has all the ear-marks of a classic: a time traveller, a world in distress, even a Burroughsian rescue when the Venusian cavemen try to roast the narrator.