The People of the Talisman
Leigh Brackett
126 pages
published in 1964

This is the flipside of the same Ace Double that also had The Secret of Sinharat, again starring Leigh Brackett's greatest hero, Eric John Stark. It's the longest of the two novels, a whole 126 pages long and a reworking of an earlier story Brackett wrote for the pulp magazine Planet Stories as Black Amazon of Mars. I found it to be slightly less immediately engaging as The Secret of Sinharat, but that's only a minor quibble.

Interestingly enough, the opening of the story is the same as in the other tale: Eric John Stark is on the run from his enemies, but this time he's with a friend, the thief Camar. They're riding through the northern polar wastes of Mars attempting to reach Camar's home city Kushat before he dies of his wounds. When it becomes clear he isn't going to make it, he tells Stark of his secret shame, having stolen the Talisman that kept his city safe from the barbarian tribes roaming the wastelands and forces Stark to swear to return this talisman, which is hidden in Camar's belt. Holding this belt to his head, Stark hears strange voices coming from it.

Shortly after Camar's death Stark is taken prisoner by the tribesmen, led by a mysterious armoured warrior called Ciaran. Tortured, semi-crucified and left for near death, Stark menages to break his bonds, kill his torturer and escape on one of the tribe's mounts. Managing to stay just ahead of the tribes he reaches Kushat and warns the population of the impeding attack. At first he's not believed, but he manages to convince one aristocrat to at least put the city under arms. Maanwhile he's taken in by Thanis and her brother Balin, two of the inhabitants of the Thieves Quarter, the poor area of the city as well as members of the small underground movement which still remembers the true function of the Talisman and what it can call up from beyond the Gate of Death. While the barbarian hordes led by Ciaran attack the city, Balin and Stark must travel to the Gate and use the Talisman to save it, while staying out of the hands of Ciaran and the city's rulers both. It's only then that Stark realises just what inhuman forces they're calling upon...

The People of the Talisman is not a very original story, as the above barebones synopsis makes clear, but this is partially because so many later writers have written stories like this. Each element of the plot can be found in dozens of other stories, but none of them have the same clarity of style that Brackett has here. Science fantasy often tends towards the purple and melodramatic, but Brackett's tone of voice here is cynical and knowing, the story told in short, clear sentences with more than a hint of hardboiled sensibility. Stark is a tarnished hero in the mold of Raymond Chandler's worldweary detectives; you can see Humphrey Bogart playing him. Brackett describes the Mars she has invented in the same way, with a few well chosen images sketched with a minimum of words. Even in this expanded version there's not an ounce of fat in the story, yet it still manages to be much more than just a plot outline.

The People of the Talisman, like its companion The Secret of Sinharat is a pulp adventure story, but one that's much better than it needs to be. They show how good a pulp writer who has honed her craft for years can be.