What happens when you mix golden-age sci-fi with a title that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual story? You get this delightfully weird 1931 space romp that kept me awake on my 6:47 AM train when I really should've been napping.
So here's the thing - there's no Amazon in this book. Black or otherwise. The description up there about Gregg Haljan and the Planetara? That's actually from a different Cummings story called "Brigands of the Moon." The actual "Black Amazon of Mars" by Leigh Brackett (not Ray Cummings, by the way - someone's metadata is a mess) is about a mercenary named Eric John Stark. But the audiobook I got was... neither? Look, I listened to what I listened to, and it was some kind of pulp space adventure with pirates and moon ore and a lot of period-appropriate melodrama.
When Vintage Sci-Fi Hits Different
I have a soft spot for this stuff. That same pulpy energy shows up in Ship of Magic, though Hobb at least bothers with internal consistency. Objectively, the science is hilariously wrong. The physics of space travel reads like someone explaining the internet in 1985. But there's an earnestness to it that modern hard sci-fi sometimes lacks. The stakes feel personal. The villains are VILLAINS - no tragic backstories, no moral complexity, just straight-up Martian brigands doing brigand things.
The pacing is actually pretty tight for something from this era. At 2.5 hours, it doesn't overstay its welcome. I knocked it out in one round-trip commute plus a lunch break. Perfect length for what it is - basically a pulp magazine serial that got the audiobook treatment.
The "Various" Narrator Situation
Couldn't find any actual information about who narrated this thing. "Various" is doing a lot of heavy lifting as a credit. From what I heard, it's pretty clearly a public domain production - maybe LibriVox or something similar. The quality is... fine? It's not Ray Porter, I'll tell you that much. (Nothing is Ray Porter except Ray Porter.)
The narration is serviceable. Clear enough to follow while half-conscious on Caltrain, which is my baseline metric. No weird audio artifacts or background noise that I noticed. But also no standout character voices or dramatic moments that made me sit up and pay attention. It's the audiobook equivalent of a decent podcast - gets the job done without being memorable.
The ROI Calculation
Here's where I land: if you're into vintage sci-fi as a genre - like, you appreciate the historical context and the charming retrofuturism - this is a fun little time capsule. The prose has that breathless 1930s energy where everything is an ADVENTURE and every woman is either a damsel or a dangerous beauty (ugh, but also, period piece, so).
If you're looking for something that holds up by modern standards? Skip it. The characterization is paper-thin. The plot is predictable. The science is nonsense. But honestly, I knew all that going in.
I rate this a 3.0 - it's exactly what it promises to be, which is pulpy space adventure from almost a century ago. The narration doesn't add much, but it doesn't detract either. Perfect for when you want something light and you've already burned through your TBR queue of actually good stuff.
Perfect for: Your commute when you're too tired to focus on anything complex. Skip if: You're expecting modern sci-fi quality or, you know, an actual Amazon.
(Also, someone please fix the metadata on this thing. The title/author/description mismatch is giving me the same energy as a production bug that's been in the backlog for three years.)
