To paraphrase Mario Bros “Thank you John Carter! But our Princess is in another castle!”
That line pretty much sums up the plot for this final installment in
the opening trilogy of the Barsoom series. Our hero runs from one pole
of Mars to the next trying to recover his stolen princess, all while
carving a path of death and destruction before him, but with his
princess constantly just out of his reach. First published in All-Story Magazine as a four-part serial between December 1913 and March 1914 The Warlord of Mars does wrap everything up rather nicely, it just seemed to take forever to get there.
When
we had last left John Carter he had overthrown Black Pirates of Barsoom
(aka The First Born), who live beneath the Omean Sea, placed his new
friend Xodar to the throne as the new Jeddak of the Black Martians, but
after exposing their goddess Issus as the vile pretender she was you’d
think it would all be smooth sailing, you’d of course be wrong. Prior to
Carter tossing Issus to her people, where she was to be torn asunder by
the angry mob, she had ordered Dejah Thoris, Thuvia of Ptarth, and the
Thern princess Phaidor to be locked in the Temple of the Sun, a
room that rotates so slowly that the entrance is only accessible once a
year. Worse is the fact that just as the door rotated away John Carter
saw the jealous Phaidor lunge at Dejah Thoris with a dagger. Would John
Carter have to wait a whole year to find out if his beloved was alive or
dead?
While waiting for the door to become accessible again the
throne of Helium is offered to Carter, he refuses it because the throne
belongs to Tardos Mors, who along with his son Mors Kajak (father of
Dejah Thoris) went missing while looking for Carthoris, who if you
remember went missing while looking for his mother Dejah Thoris. I’m not
saying the powers that be who rule Helium are irresponsible idiots, but
they do spent much of their time getting lost or kidnapped. So John
Carter sits his son on the throne as temporary Jeddak until his great
grandfather can be found, he then returns to Kamtol, the capital city of
the First Born, to await the day that will release his wife from the Temple of the Sun.
While kicking back and waiting he spots suspicious activity from a
First Born named Thurid, the man leaves the city in the middle of the
night, not something any honest sane person would do, and because this a
man that Carter had previously disgraced he decides to follow him.
After a long trek through underground passageways he discovers the man
is meeting Matai Shang, the Holy Thern whose religion Carter had exposed
as well. Carter overhears Thurid explain to Matai Shang that there is a
secret entrance into the Temple of the Sun, and that they can
rescue Princess Phaidor, who is Matai Shang’s daughter, and also get
their hands on Dejah Thoris, their enemy’s one true love.
Thus
begins a long series of events that will constantly put Dejah Thoris
just out of John Carter’s reach. The minute our hero thinks he will be
reunited with his beloved princess defeat will be snatched from the jaws
of victory, over and over again. Cater and his ever faithful
hound Woola will track them into Matai Shang’s temple, which will
quickly be revealed to be a trap, they will escape and Carter will
perform several acts of daring do, but alas he will always be delayed
enough to let the villains escape with his bride.
Matai Shang,
Thurid and Phaidor will then escape with Dejah Thoris and Thuvia as
their prisoners, with John Cater again hot on their heels in a stolen
flyer, which will then get shot down into the jungles of the equatorial
Land of Kaol. The Jeddak of this land is one Kulan Tith who still
follows the old religion propagated by the Therns, but when Matai Shang
seeks asylum here he keeps the fact that he has in possession two stolen
princesses, and that they are being pursued by a man who has killed
thousands for far less valid reasons then stealing his wife. When John
Carter arrives, after disguising himself as a blonde Thern, he saves a
group of visiting dignitaries from an ambush (saving random people that
will turn out to monumentally helpful is kind of his thing), but John
Carter has a bit of trouble understanding how disguises work. When
Carter is presented to Kulan Tith, and his heroic deeds are described,
it doesn’t take Thurid or Matai Shang long to figure out that a Thern
who can leap hundreds of yards through the air to lop the heads off his
enemies is probably not a Thern. Twice in this book he has a disguise
pierced by his trademarked skills that are known across the planet.
So
Carter is unmasked but before his death sentence for heresy can be
carried out Thuvan Dihn of Ptarth, who is Thuvia's father and was
leading the group that Carter saved, stands up for Carter because he had
learned of this Earth man’s heroic deed in saving his daughter’s life.
When Carter informs him that Matai Shang is holding both Dejah Thoris and
Thuvia prisoner Thuvan Dihn demands there release. Matai Shang of
course denies the charges, but Kulan Tith promises their release if it
is true. Because it is late Matai Shang does not want to wake up his
daughter so he promises to hand over the girls in the morning. Everyone
agrees to this. WTF? Why would Cater agree to wait one single second
more to free his wife from the clutches of a mortal enemy? Well if he
demanded her immediate release the book would be over, and that pretty
much sums up the weakness of this novel. The drama surrounding this
action packed adventure is contrived beyond belief.
And come
morning it is of course discovered that Matai Shang and Thurid had snuck
away with the girls in the middle of the night. Gullible thy name is
John Carter. We are then treated to Carter and Thuvan Dihn racing off in
pursuit where they will eventually cross the icy lands of the north and
into the realms of the Yellow Martians, a race that was once a dominant
species on the planet but who were chased into the icy wilds by the
Green Martians. The Yellow Martians eventually reached the Carrion Caves
located in the walls of an icy mountain range, defeated the Green
Martians and left the millions of rotting corpses in the cave entrance
to what would be their new home. These yellow skinned and black bearded
residents of realm of Okar live in hothouse cities that are protected by
invaders by a massive pillar that works as a giant magnet that draws
any ship within reach to its doom. After a ship has been smashed against
this massive device the survivors are quickly enslaved.
Note: John
Carter continues to fail at understanding how disguises work as at one
point while made up with yellow make-up and a fake beard he spots Dejah
Thoris in a garden below where he is locked up. He makes the sign of
love to her and his heart is crushed when she snubs him. It takes him
forever to realize she turned her back on him because to her it looked
like just another lecherous Yellow Martian hitting on her. John Carter
may be the greatest warrior on two worlds but he’s not always the
brightest.
Will John Cater and Thuvan Dihn finally be able to
rescue Dejah Thoris and the beautiful maiden Thuvia? And what of Tardos
Mors and Mors Kajak who have been missing for almost two full books now?
Can our heroes survive the slavering jaws of the Martian Apts, the six
limbed beasts that prowl the arctic wastes? Where is ever faithful Woola
and what of Tars Tarkas and Cathoris? Can they launch a rescue in time,
and if they do will the Helium fleet be dashed pieces by the giant
magnet? All these question and more are answered in the action packed
pages of The Warlord of Mars.
Note:
As the book is written in first person one may find John Carter’s
constant descriptions of his own amazing fighting skills to be a bit
immodest, but there is one passage that kind of explains his attitude, “If
sometimes I take too great pride in my fighting ability, it must be
remembered that fighting is my vocation. If your vocation be shoeing
horses, or painting pictures, and you can do one or the other better
than your fellows, than you are a fool if you are not proud of your
ability. And so I am very proud that on two planets no greater fighter
has ever lived than John Carter, Prince of Helium.” Who can argue with that?
Though
this book does adequately close the trilogy the repetitive nature of
the narrative is a bit tiring, and all the awesome action in the world
can’t hide the fact that the basic story boils down to, “Women, what a headache, am I right fellas?”
Dejah Thoris is depicted as a woman with spirit, and her love for John
Carter is beyond question, but mostly it’s her unparalleled beauty that
is her most dominant characteristic in these books as it’s the cause of
her constant kidnapping, and the only reason she isn’t constantly being
sexually assaulted by her captors every minute of the day is because
they’re all too busy fighting amongst themselves about who gets her.
That all said there is still a lot of fun to be had with this book, John
Carter is still the charismatic action here we’ve grown to love, it’s
just that the previous book was so damn good almost anything was bound
to be a let done, and sadly this book is definitely that.
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