Notes
The Valley Where Time Stood Still, a Mysteries of Mars novel by Lin Carter.

Part of a loosely connected series of stories set on Mars.

Publisher's Blurb – Front Jacket Flap
This is a mind-bending tale of fantasy and adventure, set on Mars, about an "Earthsider" – M'Cord – who forms an uneasy, fateful alliance with a hostile Martian prince.

M'Cord is prospecting the vast desert stretches of the nearly barren planet, searching for uranium. When he saves the life of the stranded Martian warrior, he learns of Thaklar's own curious search – for a woman who has stolen from him an ancient tribal secret: the loca-tion of the fabled Valley of Life.

Though he does not know it, M'Cord is about to begin a strange journey that will take him, in the end, past the boundaries of time itself . . . into a bizarre twilight world where myth and magic become frighteningly real.

Publisher's Blurb – Rear Jacket Flap
Lin Carter is a prolific and popular writer of fantasy and science fiction, author of sixty novels, anthologies, and non-fiction studies. He is also widely recognized as an authority on fantastic literature, has written scholarly works on J.R.R. Tolkien and H.P. Lovecraft, and has been responsible for reviving many forgotten classics. In 1972 he received the Nova Award for his contributions to fantasy. Lin Carter and his wife live in Hollis, Long Island.

Extract – Lower Cover
"Suddenly, to one side, sand gushed skywards in whirling plumes. An ear-piercing hiss as of escaping steam split the air. . . . By the faint light – for neither of the twin moons of Mars sheds enough reflected light to be more than dimly half visible in the gloom – M'Cord could not at once make out the cause of this inexplicable dust-geyser.

"Then a leaping, snarling thing sprang into view – lithe and supple as a panther, with a panther's lashing, whip-like tail, but clad in dully gleaming scales and with the blunt, wedge-shaped skull of a reptile. He knew it in the first blurred glimpse, for it was a sandcat, one of the most dreaded of the predators of the Martian desert country. . . .

"Huger than, a kodiak bear, faster than a cheetah, the Martian sandcat is terror incarnate. It strikes like lightning and its ferocity is unparalleled.

"And M'Cord had left his gunbelt looped across the saddle horn . . ."