2023 was the 60th anniversary of the publication of “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” by Roger Zelazny. When “Rose” was published, it rocked the world of Science Fiction and won a Hugo award. I read the story as a young man and it had a profound impact on me.

1963 was a very bad year for Science Fiction. In fact the years 1960 to 1963 were all very bad years for SF. NASA space probes had shown that Mars was a dead desert world, without breathable atmosphere and without life. To cap it all, in 1962 the Mariner space probe had proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Venus was an incandescent furnace of a world, boiling and baking in clouds of super-heated gas.

Though Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein were being interviewed on TV, the writing was on the wall. There were no tharks, no princesses, no lost cities of super-science. No dinosaurs roared on Venus, no lizard-men rampaged through its steamy jungles hunting primitive humans. Though no-one knew it yet, Leigh Brackett would never pen another story set on her beautiful, spectral Mars.

Leigh Brackett was now writing Hollywood screenplays (the money was better) and most of the other pulp great writers had died or retired. Poul Anderson had effortlessly shifted gears and was writing some of the best Astrophysics-plotted hard SF stories, while still sneaking in swashbuckling heroes. Brian Aldiss, the British SF writer, attacked the problem in a spirited way. He edited the anthology Farewell Fantastic Venus which collected some of the best pulp SF stories of Venus.

It was against this background that “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” was published. Roger Zelazny was a new writer, barely known outside of the inner circle of writers and editors. 1963 was the age of what some call “Engineer SF”, stories that centred around hard science and clever solutions to real-world (real future?) problems.

Zelazny however, was a fan of old-school pulp and an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan. He also loved stories of myth and religion. Out of this was born “Rose”.

“Rose” opens in the field HQ of the second Mars expedition. Mars is a rose-sand desert, has breathable (if thin) air and Martians are real. The Martians are ruled by a matriarchal society about which very little is known. The first expedition had learnt a very basic version of the Martian language. Martian society is a shadow of a once-great civilisation; the Earthers have no idea why this is.

Gallinger is our protagonist. A mid-twenties New Yorker, Earth’s most celebrated poet, famous, with many awards. He’s also a superb linguist. He’s fearless, brilliant and self-idolizing. But his treatment of most other members of the expedition is thoughtless and deliberately rude.

Gallinger gets the approval of M’cwyie, the matriarch of the Martians, to study their ancient texts, their history and religion. His journey to the Martian city is a picture-perfect adventure through Barsoom. A red desert, metallic oxide sands thrown up by his jeep’s types. Playful winds, zephyrs, create momentary veils of pink and cerise against the desert sky. The city is incredibly old, built into the side of a red-pink mountain. Zelazny’s rich colourful descriptions bring Barsoom to (new) life.

In a frescoed room modelled on a nomad’s tent, we meet M’cwyie. She has bronzed skin, her pupils are entirely black. She is old, her hair is white, Gallinger guesses her age as fifty-ish. If not quite a Burroughs Martian then certainly a Leigh Brackett Martian. M’cwyie is secretive and doesn’t share much, apart from instructing Gallinger in Martian religious observances.

To Gallinger’s surprise, M’cwyie offers to take him into their Temple, which no Earthman has ever seen. Gallinger is absolutely amazed at what he sees. The temple is elegant and shockingly beautiful, an architecture so sophisticated that no Earthman (with the possible exception of ERB) could imagine it. Zelazny describes the Temple in sensuous detail, leaving no doubt that this is the work of an advanced culture. M’cwyie tells Gallinger there is an entire city like this, inside the mountain.

Hannes Bok’s original cover illo for “A Rose for Ecclesiastes”.

Gallinger gets a second shock. All of Martian science and history is bound up in religious texts, written in a complex, richly verbose High Tongue. In order to understand Mars, he must learn to speak and read a very sophisticated language in a short time. The Earth expedition will leave in three months.

Gallinger gets permission to move into the temple. He studies night and day, and returns to the Earth camp infrequently to shower and gather supplies. He learns about Malaan, the god of the Martian religion. But Gallinger’s own relationship with religion and spirituality is a troubled one. His studies are stirring something in him that is not entirely within his control. But, arrogant and cocksure, he presses on.

One night, exhausted by his studies, M’cwyie comes to him. Much of the teachings of Malaan are told through dance. She offers him the chance to be the audience for one of the dances. He accepts and a dancer and two musicians enter the temple chamber.

Zelazny’s poetic description of Braxa, the dancer, is of a young, beautiful, skilled artist. Gallinger, mesmerised by the dance and by Braxa’s beauty, writes a poem celebrating the event. In it he references the beauty of a rose.

The following night Braxa comes to his chamber, intrigued by the poem. She asks him about roses, as no such flower could grow on arid Mars. Talk turns to touch and they make love. Gallinger falls deeply in love. On his next return to the Earth expedition, he asks his only friend on the expedition, a botanist, to grow him a rose in his hydroponics tank.

Now Gallinger is consumed with two passions. To discover why Martian civilisation has collapsed and to continue his passionate affair with Braxa. Time begins to run short for the expedition. Gallinger is now as much detective as linguist. He uncovers a clue in his studies, about an “evil rain” that fell sometime in the past and destroyed the Martian culture.

Then Braxa disappears. Gallinger goes almost insane with loss. M’cwyie blocks him at every turn, simply telling him she has “gone away”. Gallinger scours the desert, looking for Braxa, his rose in a sealed tube in his pocket.

Gallinger finds Braxa in a hidden valley. What she tells him is so explosive that it almost tears Gallinger’s mind apart. Gallinger’s only recourse, only way to deal with what is happening is to call on Earth’s spiritual traditions. To save Mars and himself he must call on the very teachings he is so ambivalent about. The stage is set for the third act, whether it end in triumph or tragedy, or both.

“Rose” was a new departure for SF and it took the Science Fiction/Fantasy world by storm. The heart-wrenching trials of its protagonists, the transformation of Gallinger from a self-obsessed adventurer to a man who will brave death for an alien culture he has come to love. All of this was told in a new way, with more character development than many older SF stories.

But it was also old.

It was a triumphant re-telling of the great pulp story. Mars as the home of a mysterious alien civilisation, a secret history of triumph and collapse, played out in a past age while Earthmen fought battles with swords and spears. And “Rose” unashamedly brought back the mythic spiritual dimension of the old pulp stores, something that Science Fiction had mostly lost sight of. The sheer love of story-telling in “Rose” was apparent in every sentence.

The Science Fiction community loved “Rose” for its muscular storytelling, its energy, its characters and its epic conclusion. Zelazny went on from “Rose” to huge success. For the next ten years he produced great brawling stories of science, mythology, spacemen and gods, which changed SF irrevocably.

Looking back now, we can see how Zelazny’s embrace of the pulp tradition helped other writers to champion pulp’s glorious past. And it continues to this day. I think S.M. Stirling’s In the Court of the Crimson Kings (2008) and Doc Spears’ Warlord: A Green Beret Conquers Mars (2023) both owe a debt to “Rose”.

Years later, Zelazny was asked about “Rose”. He said he’d followed the Mariner-Venus probe in 1962 and felt at the time that it would spell the end of pulp adventures set in the solar system. He decided he had a year at best, before the world at large realised the old pulp SF solar system was over. He decided to write two old-school Space Opera stories, with the aim of publishing them in 1963. And that is what he did.

For those readers who are interested, the other story was “The Doors of his Face, the Lamps of his Mouth” (1963). That story is set on a classic “Fantastic Venus”.

For me, “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” is one of the finest SF stories ever written. Every time I start to read it, I feel my heart start to beat a little faster. If you haven’t read the story, I unreservedly recommend it to you.

John Gradoville writes adventure stories, with a hearty dose of SF and Fantasy. He also writes historical fiction entwined with supernatural horror. His stories have been published in Cirsova Magazine and his horror stories in the Weird Western anthology A Fistful of Demons.

He is currently writing a historical novella about an Englishman, an Irishman and a Georgian. They don’t go into a bar but they are Victorian adventurers seeking a fabulous lost treasure in lands unmapped, with creatures hideous.