The Gods of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs

This is the second book in Burroughs' series about John Carter. Recently, his book has been pirated by Hollywood and made into a movie which probably does not resemble the books. I say this because in the preview for the movie, there's mention of a threat on Mars that may reach to earth if unchecked. However, this kind of dilemma never presents itself to Burroughs' John Carter. I don't know about the rest of the movie, as it's only the preview ads on TV that I've seen. The first books in this series are freely available at Gutenberg.org.

I'm not really sure what keeps bringing me back to Burroughs. These last few years I've spent much time reading his fast action semi-super hero books. At least with the Tarzan books, the narration is in third person. However, in the case of the Barsoom series, the narrations are all in first person. It makes it a little more difficult to swallow the ego which the hero of this series has.

You see, John Carter of Mars, is stronger than those who live on Mars because of his background on earth. Those on Mars require far less strength to support their weight, and therefore they grow much bigger, but not stronger. Thus, he is able to match his strength against man and beast alike and overpower them. Though he is a warrior on earth as well, he is likely not so noteworthy on that account. On Mars, where the races all love the violence of war, his ability to slaughter makes him the darling of all the races.

In any case, John has gone to earth and has come back to Mars after a ten year break. He is plopped into a field where he is attacked by plant men. Later it is revealed that the plant men had evolved from trees, and that all the men and people of the planet Mars were evolved versions of the plant men. Though the description of the plant men is quite funny: imagine that they run about with their young growing out of their armpits.

In any case, he escapes alongside his old friend, Tars Tarkas (he's the green guy with six arms in the picture of the cover at the top right of this post) who had decided to take the road to paradise. Well, it's not a road to paradise. It's a road to a kind of hell. There are people who are holy who feed off the flesh of those who come through this valley, when they're not leaving those people to the plant men.

John and Tars get separated in their fight for survival with the Therns, a holy race on Mars. John gets involved in a raid of black men on the Therns. They have great ships which float in the air. One of them he manages to acquire, and he nearly manages his escape before being captured. He is captured and taken down to the black city which is actually under water. There he manages to fight his way to the brink of killing the great goddess, Issus. On that journey, he comes into his son's company (though for some time he does not know who he is other than some boy of nearly the great strength of his father). The fact that his son has his superhuman strength follows along a similar path that Tarzan's son did: somehow, genetically, he gains his father's great strength. This is despite the fact that it is explained that it is the life on earth and the strengthening of the muscles straining against the greater gravitation of the earth that gave him his superhuman power on Mars. His son, Cathoris, being a boy, is almost as powerful, as fast, etc., as his father despite not having had his physique developed on earth.

On we go: so John and his son and all of his new friends escape the craziness that is the holy city and the goddess who is really just a thousand year old crone. When he gets back to his people, it is only to find out that his wife, the Dejah Thoris, has gone on to look for her son in the very place where John had begun his journey. So, back he goes to rescue her. After some additional trials and tribulations, he manages to very nearly rescue her, except that she's stolen from him on a rotating disc which takes a year (two years on earth) to complete its rotation. So, she is virtually lost. Not only is she lost, but the last moment that John saw her, a woman who loved him was trying to kill Dejah. That's where we leave this volume of Barsoomian lore.

Again, I have a bit of a hard time with the super hero super ego characters that Edgar creates. But, the imagination that he applies to many of the characters is really something to be admired. Today, such descriptions are not common, but they're not new either. In his day, there was not a lot of this sort of thing. He is something of a godfather to this type of surreal landscape and biological description of six armed men. On the other hand, the six armed Tars Tarkas could be said to have some resemblance to Indian mythology. So, perhaps it was not that original for man kind, but it was original for western writers. I also liked the idea of having the religious and mythological ideas of the Martians being overturned as fictitious stories used to control the people.

I enjoyed the story despite my problems with the aspects I listed already. But the strengths, I believe, outweigh the weaknesses. And, it doesn't hurt that it's free!