“The Film-makers of Mars” is a 2008 science fiction short story by Geoff Ryman. It is about a film journalist who views an outstanding 1911 silent movie and learns the amazing secret of where it came from.
Non-Spoiler Summary in a Nutshell
Recently a bevy of early 1900′s movie reels have been turning up in Southern California. When a film restoration company cleans up the films and shows two of them at the L.A. film festival the audience is blown away by the amazing special effects in them – especially Edgar Rice Burroughs A Princess of Mars. One of the skeptical journalists in the audience tells us exactly what he sees and how he is determined to prove that they are hoaxes. But what he ends up discovering is even more amazing than the movies!
Things I Liked:
- Santa’s Nosferatu elves
- Jahde Isthor
- All the weird inconsistencies between the old film and Burroughs book
Interesting Tidbits About This Story:
- Page Count: 7
- Word Count: 3,781
- My Rating: 4.0 out of 5
- Read Geoff Ryman’s bio at Tor.com
Where You Can Find “The Film-makers of Mars”:
- This short story first appeared in December 2008 on Tor.com, where you can still read it online for free.
Craving More Stories?
If you liked this story then you’ll probably also enjoy “Impossible Dreams” by Tim Pratt.
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2 users responded in this post
I’ve gotta say it–this story is awesome!
I hartily recommend it, especially the audio version(you can find it on the sidebar next to the text). A real modern classic.
Hey Scatterbrain,
Glad you liked it – it was a pretty cool story! Oh, and nice to see that you are blogging now too!