Welcome back John Carter! With the eighth book in the Barsoom series
the narrative switches back to the character who started it all;
released in 1936, in the pages of Blue Book, this six part serial was the first time we’d had a John Carter centric story since Warlord of Mars. No longer following the adventures of one of his kids, or other random adventurers, Swords of Mars
throws the greatest swordsman to ever live into dangers beyond his kin
and into the hands of a pair of dueling scientists. Be forewarned, Dejah
Thoris is kidnapped in the pages of this book. I know, this totally
shocked me as well.
Dying of old age on Barsoom isn’t something
many people achieve; the average lifespan among the inhabitants of the
Red Planet is about one thousand years, but as warfare is almost a
constant state of affairs across the globe reaching that lofty age is
rarely achieved. Before John Carter exposed the Holy Therns religious
scam (back in Gods of Mars)
one could take the long boat ride down the river Iss and an assumed
paradise, but Carter spoiled all that by revealing that not only was
there no god but that the pilgrims were either being enslaved or eaten.
In Swords of Mars John Carter attempts to put a stop to another method of dying, and that would be assassination.
When John Carter led the Thark horde to sack the city Zodanga (back in A Princess of Mars)
he didn’t make many friends, and as as one who does not let old enemies
fester and plot Carter decided to wage against the resurgent Guild of Assassins,
whose headquarters can be found in Zodanga. For a while he was
satisfied to have his agents track down and kill any assassin that dared
set foot inside his beloved Helium, but soon that wasn’t enough and he
decided to take the war to their capital. Of course the infamous John
Carter wouldn’t have much luck uncovering the Guild if he just walked
around Zodanga looking for clues, he's kind of a notorious celebrity at
this point, but with some nice applied red pigment he could easily pass
as a soldier of fortune seeking employment.
The first half of Sword of Mars
is basically a spy story with John Carter getting caught up in a hot
bed of spies and murders; he meets small-time criminal Rapas the Ulsio
(aka The Rat) who introduces him to Fal Sivas, a brilliant if a little
mad scientist (as most proper scientists are) who is constructing a ship
that can make interplanetary journeys. The reason Fal Sivas is in need
of a strong sword arm working for him is that he has a dangerous rival
in the form of Gar Nal, another scientist working on a spacecraft of his
own. So long before America and Russia started their “Space Race” Mars
was in the midst of their own.
While working for Fal Sivas John Carter is able to investigate the Guild of Assassins
because Gar Nal has employed Ur Jan, the head of the Guild, to kill Fal
Sivas. There is much fun to be had here as Rapas the Rat informs Ur Jan
that Fal Sivas has hired a new bodyguard, and he offers to lead this
poor sap into a trap. Unfortunately for this particular rat the intended
victim over hears this plan and so instead of an assassin taking out
some poor soldier of fortune he find himself dead on the blade of John
Carter, Warlord of Mars. After repeated attempts fail to take out this
“simple” solider the crafty Ur Jan realizes that the only man on Barsoom
capable of killing off his best men is John Carter himself. Also Carter
cuts an “X” into his victims, which was a mark he placed on previous
assassins during his war against the Guild, and kind of a big tip-off as
to who is behind it all. Carter may be a brilliant swordsman but his
spy craft could use a little work.
During
one of John Carter’s better spy moments he overhears that Ur Jan had
put into motion a plan to kidnap a noble of Helium, so as to blackmail
his enemies out of not only gold and jewels but to ensure that they
leave his Guild business alone, and of course the target turns out to be
Dejah Thoris *sigh* and they plan on hiding her on one of the
Martian moons. Carter immediately races home but he's too late, so he
races back to Zodanga to get the only ship with a chance of saving his
true love. Soon John Carter will find himself sailing through the dark
void of space where he will face cyclopean flesh eaters and invisible
armies all in a quest to once again rescue his one true love.
John
Carter’s skill as a swordsman will be put to the ultimate test but it’s
his ability to think quickly on his feet that will be pushed to the
limits here, and Swords of Mars is chock full
of all the stuff that makes the Barsoom stories so great, but it also
has some new and brilliant stuff to dazzle his readers.
What will
thrill fans of science fiction is that in this story Edgar Rice
Burroughs devised one of the early uses of computers in science fiction;
the brilliant Fal Sivas had outfitted his spacecraft with a synthetic
brain, and because he is a “mad scientist” he developed this brain by
doing brain biopsies on living patients, studying how the brain works
and transposing what learned to his ships artificial brain, and if that
isn’t enough to thrill you the synthetic brain is also thought
controlled. Fal Sivas explains to Carter that it isn’t a true brain; it
cannot generate original thoughts of its own, but is reliant on commands
by Fal Sivas himself. Thought controlled element aside this is a pretty
good description of how advanced computers work, it can complete
complicated tasks as long as it has proper directives. Eat your heart
out Isaac Asimov.
A Barsoom story isn’t complete without the introduction of a new race or two; in Swords of Mars
we encounter on the moon known as Thuria two distinct races; first
there is the invisible sun-worshipping Tarids, who capture John Carter
and company upon their arrival on the moon. The Tarids are not actually
invisible, nor do they have some cloaking device that hides them from
their enemies, but instead the Tarids had developed a hypnotic power as a
protective device. They simply will their enemies to neither see nor
hear them. Of course John Carter will be able to eventually break
through this mental illusion, and after getting the Tarid queen to fall
in love with him they escape.
Note: John
Carter does not seduce the Tarid queen so that they can escape, this is
just something that happens, and to be fair by this point it’s kind of
like breathing when it comes to John Carter and women. Now Carter
doesn’t let cop to the fact that Dejah Thoris (also a captive of the
Tarids) is his wife because he is not an idiot, and jealousy has caused
him much grief in the past, so though he doesn't intentionally seduce
the Queen he also doesn’t exactly discourage her falling in love with
him.
The second race that Carter encounters is the cat-like Umka,
who he meets while imprisoned by the Tarids. He shares his cell with one
of these one-eyed, two-mouthed grinning Cat-Men, who keeps changing
color to blend with the background like a chameleon, and it’s from this
Umka that Carter learns to speak the local language. When they do
eventually escape the friendship he developed with this Cat-Man serves
him in good stead as it saves Carter and the Queen from being eaten by
his flesh-eating friends. Having the right friends has always been a
key ingredient to survival in Burroughs land.
Swords of Mars has
the usual backstabbing betrayals, though one villain has a nice change
of heart, and there will be moments of sheer coincidence and good luck;
so much so that one assume that John Carter was born with a horseshoe
lodged up his butt and that he spends his free time rolling around in a
pit of rabbits feet. Regardless of the formulaic moments that pop up in
this series I found this book to be immensely fun and engaging, kind of
makes reading a Burroughs book like slipping into a nice comfortable
pair of shoes, and the more one reads Burroughs the more one realizes
just how much of an impact he had on the genre.
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