It first appeared serially in "Argosy Magazine" in early 1939, and is one of the most way-out entries in the Carter series. "Synthetic Men of Mars" is the 9th of 11 books in Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series. I've read and re-read these stories over the years, and even recorded them onto DVD for the local radio station for blind and reading-impaired listeners. These stories are not high art, or even good sci-fi/fantasy but they are terrific yarns with exotic Barsoomian locales, fantastic beasts, flamboyant princesses, dastardly villains, and cliff-hanging adventures in which the hero gets the girl and the bad guy meets his (or her) just deserts. Fortunately Helium's airforce is up to the challenge of fire-bombing the repulsive, oozing mass of protoplasm and turning it into a stinking, festering, char-broiled cinder. Meanwhile, back at Ras thavas' laboratory, things have gone horribly wrong with the culture vats, and the resulting immense, multi-headed monstrousity breaks free from confinment and threatens to engulf the entire planet as it grows beyond all constraints to overwhelm Ras thavas' entire island base. All of this in aid of finding and retrieving the Mastermind of Mars, Ras Thavas, whose skills are required to heal John Carter's beloved, 'the incomparable' Deja Thoris, who lies at death's door following an injury. How can you resist a character grown in a culture vat, whose name Tor-Dur-Bar means four-million-eight, and whom the hero first encounters as a severed head which complains it can't see from where it is being carried in a net strapped to the back of a giant man-carrying bird?!?Įspecially, when later on our current hero Vor Daj has his brain transferred into Tor-Dur-Bar's repulsive body in order to rescue princess Janai, the current damsel-in-distress, after first transferring the loyal Tor-Dur-Bar's brain into the well-built and handsome physique of erstwhile opponent, Gantun Gur. (For which I wouldn't blame you - I've certainly read the book many times over the years.)Īlthough not generally well-thought of compared with other ERB stories set on Barsoom, this is a personnal favorite aside from the openning sequence of the first three John Carter books. I wouldn't say it should be avoided, but I wouldn't say it needs to be sought out unless you absolutely, positively have to read more Barsoomian adventures. This isn't so much an actively bad book as it is somewhat tired and occasionally silly. Naturally there's a beautiful woman naturally Our Hero falls for her naturally, the Fates conspire to make things as difficult as possible for them until the end. Ras Thavas, the Master Mind of Mars also returns, so this book again has some science fictional elements - brain transplants and artificial life and the like. Carter plays a fairly minor role in the book, really, and is off-stage for much of it otherwise he'd probably overshadow Vor Daj. This book is again narrated from the perspective of a native Barsoomian, Vor Daj, who accompanies John Carter on one of his adventures. Arguably, this is where the Mars series begins its downhill slide (which means that, percentage-wise, John Carter has less dross than the other major series - Tarzan, Venus and Pellucidar). Edgar Rice Burroughs had this problem in all of his series: After a while, the quality of the books would start to slip - maybe he was getting bored or maybe he'd just start repeating himself.
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