Madmen of Mars

"Madmen of Mars" by Erik Fennel is an early science fiction story about a trip to Mars where humans encounter strangely altered Martians. The Martians, once uninteresting and slow, have started acting oddly like people from Earth due to the strange influence of a man named Terence Michael Burke and his poetry. Burke and his team journey through space to Mars and finds that the Martians are changed -- behaving unpredictably and, at times, bizarrely. Tension grows within the group as Burke becomes fixated on Earth's future, fueled by worries of a Martian invasion. As they figure out their problems and understand the Martian mind, they realize the Martians now mirror Burke's own wild personality, creating a funny but serious look at the startling results when societies influence each other.