{"id":2126,"date":"2021-12-26T17:48:23","date_gmt":"2021-12-26T17:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=2126"},"modified":"2021-12-26T17:48:26","modified_gmt":"2021-12-26T17:48:26","slug":"christmas-on-mars-by-william-morrison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=2126","title":{"rendered":"Christmas on Mars by William Morrison"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Christmas on Mars<\/em><\/strong> by William Morrison (Thrilling Wonder Stories<\/em>, December 1941) is an early piece1<\/sup> by the author of the reasonably well-known Country Doctor<\/em> (Star Science Fiction Stories<\/em>, 1953).2<\/sup> This one perhaps gets off to a more realistic and gritty start than other works of the period with Kel, the leader of a group of four ragged youths, sharpening his knife for an impending robbery:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI ain\u2019t gonna cut nobody up,\u201d Kel grunted. \u201cNot if they come across, I ain\u2019t. But if they\u2019re wise guys\u201d\u2014his arm flashed out suddenly and the jovite blade glittered in the air\u2014\u201cI\u2019ll slash \u2019em to pieces. That\u2019s what I\u2019ll do. That\u2019s what my old man would have done.\u201d
They were silent, impressed by the mention of Kel\u2019s father. Buck Henry was the first to recover.
\u201cHey, fellows,\u201d he piped, \u201cyou know what night this is? Just before Christmas. It\u2019s a holiday.\u201d
Monk, proud of his changing voice, growled: \u201cYou\u2019re nuts. Christmas comes in winter. This is right in the middle of summer.\u201d
\u201cAre you a dope!\u201d Skinny put in. \u201cEverybody knows the seasons on Earth ain\u2019t the same as here. It\u2019s winter on Earth, or at least on one hemisphere\u2014eastern or western, I forget which. That\u2019s what counts.\u201d
\u201cThey say a big, fat guy called Santa Claus,\u201d Buck Henry offered uncertainly, \u201cgets all dressed up in a red suit and comes around handing out presents.\u201d\u00a0 p. 84<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

After Kel ridicules Buck for offering up this children\u2019s tale, the group prepare to rob the next passerby\u2014but that turns out to be the local cop, who suggests they go to the Martin Rescue Home for a free meal, but that they should move along in any event. Later, they hear the sound of whistling, and the four leap out to rob the man they have heard\u2014who quickly disarms and restrains them, and reveals himself to be Michael Diston of the Interplanetary Police. He tells them that he sees no point in handing them over to the local police, but that he can\u2019t set them free to rob someone else\u2014so he asks the group if they would like to go for a meal and to see Santa Claus:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSave that stuff,\u201d Kel growled. \u201cWe ain\u2019t babies.\u201d
\u201cYeah,\u201d said Skinny. \u201cA guy gets dressed up in red, puts a pillow next to his stomach and makes believe he came down a chimbley. You can\u2019t kid us.\u201d
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t dream of trying,\u201d the man drawled, \u201cbut it\u2019ll be some swell dinner.\u201d
He couldn\u2019t lose them after that.\u00a0 p. 87<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Dilston takes them back to his mother\u2019s house where, after they get cleaned up, they wolf down Christmas dinner. During the meal we learn about the kids\u2019 troubled domestic situations\u2014mostly parental sickness, addiction or absence, but we also get confirmation of earlier comments that Kel\u2019s father is the Black Pirate. Afterwards, the kids are invited to go through to the living room, where they find a Xmas tree that wasn\u2019t there previously. Then they see it is snowing outside (impossible on Mars) and someone starts coming down the chimney. Santa appears, and gives each of the four kids a present that particularly suits them. Then, exhausted, they go to bed.
Afterwards (spoiler) Dilston tells his mother that Santa was really the unused robot butler he got for her some time previously, the snow was from a machine on the roof that he installed last year and, finally, the presents were originally intended for the neighbourhood kids, but he discovered what would suit each of the four as he listened to them over dinner. Dilston then asks his mother to sort out the kids and their dysfunctional families (Dilston has to return to work the next day).
The story finishes with Dilston listening to a news report where he is mentioned as the one who has just finished hunting down the remanants of the Black Pirate\u2019s gang, and who also killed the Black Pirate\u2014Kel\u2019s father\u2014in hand-to-hand combat several years earlier.
This is better than a lot of stories from the period\u2014gritty start, sentimental Xmas section, and a bittersweet ending which offsets what has come before. I thought it much better than the recent Asimov Christmas story I recently read.
*** (Good). 6,200 words. Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. This was the author\u2019s seventh SF story from his first year of publishing.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. I reviewed Country Doctor<\/em> here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christmas on Mars by William Morrison (Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1941) is an early piece1 by the author of the reasonably well-known Country Doctor (Star Science Fiction Stories, 1953).2 This one perhaps gets off to a more realistic and gritty start than other works of the period with Kel, the leader of a group of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[583],"tags":[241,24,586,444,12,587,585,584],"class_list":["post-2126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-william-morrison","tag-241","tag-3-2","tag-mars","tag-santa-claus","tag-short-story","tag-space-pirates","tag-thrilling-wonder-stories","tag-william-morrison"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2126"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2143,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126\/revisions\/2143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}