Appendix N Review: The Warlord of Mars

Edgar Rice Burroughs returned to Barsoom in 1913 to write The Warlord of Mars. Continuing from the cliffhanger ending of Gods of Mars, the story was serialized in the pages of the All-Story Magazine incarnation of Argosy, and later published as a novel in 1919.

Dejah Thoris and Thuvia of Ptarth are still imprisoned in a strange prison within the bowels of the Temple of the Sun with the treacherous Princess of the Holy Therns, Phaidor.

Not one to simply sit and wait out the year before the door opens again, John tries in vain to find a way in, and comes across a conspiracy between Thurid, a Black Martian of the First Born who bears a deep grudge against Carter since an embarrassing defeat in Gods of Mars and Maitai Sheng, leader of the White Martians and high priest of the cannibalistic Holy Therns.

The conspirators open the prison and spirit the women away, with John Carter and his trusty calot Woola giving chase, first to the equatorial jungle on the other side of the planet where the Red Martian city of Kaol holds sway, and then to the frozen north, where an entire race of Yellow Martians has been locked away from the rest of Barsoom by natural fortifications, and the cruel Salensus Oll rules as Jeddak of Jeddaks.

This feels like a shorter story than the previous two, but that could be the rocket-fast pace of the chase that takes up the bulk of the book, culminating in a titanic battle for the city at the North Pole of Mars, where every ally that John Carter has ever made comes to his aid. Mighty Tars Tarkas of the Greens, Thuvia the Princess of Ptarth who can sooth wild animals with her voice, Thuvan Dihn, Lord of Ptarth who has been searching for his daughter, Xodar the new chief of the Black Martians, Carthoris the son of John Carter and Dejah Thoris, Kantos Kan of Helium, Tardos Mors and Mors Kajak, the lost lords of Helium (and Dejah's father and grandfather), and Talu of the Yellow Martians. There are even some Therns who have allied with the forces of Helium who show up.

Much of the second half of the book is wrapping up story threads and giving satisfying conclusions, but the most satisfying development comes in how Phaidor grows as a character by the end in a touching scene.

Then the final chapter is a victory lap as John Carter makes his way back to Helium with Dejah Thoris where he is then put on trial for his heresy in the Valley Dor. Its a fake out, of course, and the statute of limitations on spoilers is long gone on a story from a century ago, so I'll tell you that John Carter is crowned Jeddak of Jeddaks by a unanimous vote of all the people he's forged together into his alliance over the past three books and it ends with John taking Dejah into his arms and kissing her.

Its about as FLAWLESS VICTORY as you can get in fiction, and it is completely and truly earned. John Carter has gone through hell and back across an entire planet, fighting anything and anyone who would stand in his way. He's been captured, tortured, thrown off of multiple buildings, thrown off of Mars entirely, and always kept coming back. Not for conquest, though he does that and ends centuries of racial hatred along the way, but for love.

Its a deeply satisfying conclusion to the initial trilogy and it hints at future adventures among the next generation of heroes, with Carthoris and Thuvia drawing close to each other. Indeed, there would be 8 more books in the Barsoom series.

Absolutely recommended. If you want to raise good boys, give them Harry Potter. If you want to raise good men, give them John Carter.

Appendix N Review: The Gods of Mars

After the events of A Princess of Mars, John Carter returned to Earth and spent ten long years trying to find a way back. In our world, Edgar Rice Burroughs produced the sequel, The Gods of Mars, in 1913, a year after Under the Moons of Mars was serialized. Like its predecessor (and Tarzan of the Apes, which he published in 1912 also), The Gods of Mars was serialized in the All-Story Magazine incarnation of Argosy. It would be published in novel form in 1918.

John Carter returns to Mars in a way similar to how he first got there: by astral projection/wishing really hard. Again, the “How” he gets there isn't important, its just a means to an end. He arrives on Barsoom the same way as the first time: bare-ass naked.

Only this time, he's in a scenic forest in a river valley.

Populated by white apes and carnivorous tree-men that want to kill and eat anyone who arrives.

Welcome to Martian Heaven: The Valley Dor, endpoint of the sacred River Iss. Leaving the valley is considered blasphemy and cause for execution. 

Martian Heaven sucks.

On arriving, John sees some Green Martians attacked and killed by the local fauna, and rushes to the aid of the lone survivor, who happens to be Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark and Carter's best friend on Mars not named Woola.

The two fight their way out of the forest and into the cliffs of the valley, where they find the Holy Therns, white skinned Martians who claim to be the gods of Mars and control the creatures of the valley, enslaving anyone who survives them. They also wear cute little blonde Prince Valiant wigs because they're bald and vain.

John kills one of their priests, takes his wig and costume as a disguise, rescues a Red Martian woman named Thuvia, and the three rampage their way through the Thern fortress, reaching the top only to find it attacked by sky pirates. John sends Thuvia and Tars Tarkas off and boards one of their airships, killing the crew save one, Xodar, a prince of the Black Martians, the self-proclaimed First Born of Mars, and incidentally, a people also claiming to be gods. He also rescues a White Martian girl, Phaidor, who falls in love with John, but John is faithful to his wife Dejah Thoris, and is also disturbed by Phaidor's casual cruelty.

Xodar has some tricks up his sleeve, and John & Phaidor are captured by reinforcements, and taken to Omean, an underground sea where the Black Martians make their home. The First Born are ruled by the cruel (self-proclaimed again) goddess Issus, and like the Therns, they enslave the other Martian races to serve them and fight in their arenas.

Hmm: long-lived, beautifully-featured, ebony-skinned, underground raiders who worship a cruel goddess and love to party at the expense of others.

It really activates the almonds.

Anyway, Phaidor is taken to be a handmaiden of Issus. John is sent to the arena. Xodar is sent as well, since he lost in combat to John, and must serve him. Naturally, the two become best buds working to escape from their virtual death sentence. In prison, they find a pale young Red Martian youth who is obviously John Carter's son Carthoris, but the book plays coy with it for a while until the two are able to have a moment's rest.

There's already so much going on that going through the plot would take pages and pages. John Carter escapes. We get back to Helium and Red Martian intrigue. A reunion with cool dude Kantos Kan. Dejah Thoris went to the Valley Dor to look for her husband and son. John Carter wants to go after her. More intrigue. A titanic air battle between the fleets of three navies, and John Carter cutting down any bastard that stands between him and Dejah Thoris.

And then it ends on a massive cliffhanger because by this point Burroughs knew he had his audience hooked.

While some of the twists are blatantly telegraphed and a lot of convenient coincidences take place that stretch belief, the book hits the ground running and never lets up on the adventure.

The section that stands out the most to me is where John is taken to the arena and sees a group of female slaves inspected by the hideous Issus and a few are selected and taken away. John learns that the ones taken away were to be eaten by Issus and her court, while the rest would be torn apart by animals in the arena.

In a modern story, John would feel bad as he watched the innocent women get slaughtered for the entertainment of the First Born, then do some arena fighting, then plot his escape, then try and fail to escape, then mope a lot, then try again, then maybe succeed and that would take up half of the book and whoever was helping him escape would die and he'd feel extra bad about it.

Not here. This is Pulp! As soon as John learns that the women are going to be killed, the red mist descends over his eyes and he punches his way out of his cage (because Earthmen have super strength on Barsoom, remember?) and begins butchering everything between him and the throne of Issus. Not only does Carthoris join him in this, but every single slave in the arena, man and woman, join his uprising and John Carter nearly succeeds in reaching Issus, if not for the ancient hag queen's trickery. And this is only about halfway into the book!

Burroughs is awesome. John Carter is awesome. The Gods of Mars is awesome. Read the Barsoom books. That's an order.

Appendix N Review: A Princess of Mars

Barsoom.

A dying world with bizarre life forms, advanced technologies, and people eking out a living as savage tribes.

Into this crazy vision of Mars steps one John Carter; Virginian, Fortune Seeker, Civil War Veteran. After things go bad in Arizona, the method by which he arrives on Mars is vague, but once there, he learns that coming from Earth's higher gravity gives him greater physical strength and agility, putting him on even footing with the native giant Tharks. Earning an uneasy place among the tribe of four-armed giant Green Martians, he soon meets Dejah Thoris, the headstrong princess of Helium, strongest city-state of the dominant Red Martians.

What follows is a love story that conquers worlds.

Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote this in 1912 (under the pen name “Norman Bean”) and first serialized it as Under the Moons of Mars in The All-Story (one of Argosy's many name changes over its lifetime). It was an immediate success and that same year he wrote the first Tarzan story. In 1917, the story was published in hardcover as A Princess of Mars.

That this is a debut novel/story is staggering. While the prose may be frequently utilitarian and more than a few plot moments happen because Carter is in the right place at the right time (and the means by which he travels to Mars is flimsy as hell), Burroughs' world building is some of the best I've ever read. Barsoom is lovingly described as a beautiful and deadly world. Every chapter has some kind of action or tension or discovery. Martian blood flows freely, whether its Carter beating a white ape to death with a rock or one Green Warhoon gutting another with his tusks.

And yet despite all this savagery, Carter is able to bring the best out of people by helping them and holding true to his own personal code of honor. Thanks to the compassionate Sola and the noble Tars Tarkas, he teaches the Tharks the value of friendship. He throws an arena fight to help a Red Martian named Kantos Kan earn his freedom, who repays that kindness later on. Even Woola, a big ugly dog-like calot, becomes his first and most loyal companion. Yes, I suppose if you step back a bit it seems a little silly, but its so earnest and heartfelt that you can't help but root for Carter to succeed.

Because John Carter is a Hero, and wherever he goes, he makes the world a better place, because that's what Heroes do.

Reading it now, I can't help but notice that this is essentially ground zero for 20^th Century Science Fiction/Fantasy. 26 years before Superman, John Carter was jumping over tall buildings. D&D's Dark Sun setting is a love letter to Barsoom, right down to every living thing being telepathic at some level. Robert E. Howard's tough heroes with rigid codes of honor and loyalty have kinship with Burroughs. A. Merrit's epic love stories and wild world building seek the same lofty heights. Even Carl Sagan loved the series so much growing up that he apparently had a map of Barsoom hanging outside his office at Cornell.

This is a book of wild imagination, larger-than-life heroism, and unbridled adventure.

This isn't simply recommended reading for understanding the history of Science Fiction and Fantasy. It is essential, and a damn fun read.