Book series where Martians dip themselves in a sticky brown goo to protect against a beam weapon

Question

I don't remember much from this one, I think some professor type character builds a spaceship and takes a group to (I think) Mars where they possibly meet another civilisation. They may do some flying on Mars with gliders or something.

One scene I remember clearly is that they're heading out in a spaceship, and there are some enemies who can affect them with a beam weapon that causes confusion or telepathic powers or something. The Martian guys dip themselves in some brown liquid resin stuff that will provide some protection against this, but one of the Earth guys refuses as it's sticky. This proves to be a blessing as he starts acting weird before the others as he's not protected and they realise they're being targeted. They're not sure what to do, then one of the Earth people who did coat themselves grabs a machine gun, jumps in the airlock and fires it at the other spacecraft. This does the trick.

That's all I can remember, other than really enjoying it but it seeming dated when I read it in the 1980s in the school library. The writing style felt like early Asimov, the Lensman series or CS Lewis's Space Trilogy. It was probably from the 1940s or 50s or 60s and contained between 3 and 5 books but that's just a guess.

Answer 1

This could be The Edge of Beyond - the fifth novel in Captain W. E. Johns' (yes, that Captain W. E. Johns) Professor Brane series.

The theme of the series as a whole matches your description of a professor building a spaceship and taking a group to Mars. This plot summary describes a scene that sounds close to the one you remember about Martians using a liquid resin to protect themselves from a telepathic attack:

Continuing the journey, Rex is affected by strange thoughts and it is soon realised that it is the effects of the rays from the planet Ardilla. Vargo and Gator are able to change course before they start feeling the same effects due to their protective varnish.