Warrior-Maid of Mars – Planet Stories No.3 UK Edition, 1950
A dark-haired warrior woman dominates the frame, sword raised overhead with fierce determination, her midriff-baring outfit a hallmark of pulp excess. She clutches a round shield bearing an atomic-motif design and a holstered ray gun, poised above a fallen red-skinned foe. Behind her, demonic alien warriors on mounts surge forward amid an amber Martian sky. This explosive Fiction House cover perfectly distills planetary romance: swords, science, and a lethal heroine torn between Imperial Terra and dying Mars.
This cover cranks every planetary romance dial to maximum: a sword-wielding space heroine, ray guns, skull-badged alien berserkers, and a fallen red Martian enemy, all compressed into a single explosive tableau. The ambition to fuse Burroughs-style sword-and-planet adventure with atomic-age iconography on one cover is gloriously unrestrained.
“ANC. PLANET stories No. 3 TRADE MARK REG. DEATH-BY-RAIN by RAY BRADBURY Fiction House Magazines British Edition 1/- What world claimed her sword— Imperial Terra or dying Mars? WARRIOR-MAID of MARS A Novel of Barbarian Worlds by ALFRED COPPEL”
