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by

Edgar Burrougs

INTRODUCTION

THE PUBLICATION OF JOHN CARTER OF MARS is an historic event for a number of reasons.

First, and most obviously, it is the long and eagerly awaited “eleventh book” of the Martian series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. For sixteen years, ever since the appearance of LLANA OF GATHOL, the tenth book in the series and the last of Burroughs' works to see print during the author's life, there has been a constant desire by his many followers to see the two remaining Barsoomian adventures appear in book form. They are at last available, in the present volume, to Burroughs' myriad fans and admirers.

The second historical aspect of JOHN CARTER OF MARS is its very name. Although JOHN CARTER OF MARS is a “natural” title for a book in the Martian series, it was never so used by Burroughs himself. It has been applied to a number of adaptations of the Barsoomian tales, including two completely different children's books and a comic magazine, but has never before been used as the title of a “real” book.

Regarding the two short novels (or novellas, or novelettes, or even long short stories, the title is not worth the quibble) that make up JOHN CARTER OF MARS, each has a fascinating tale of its own, quite aside from the story content itself.

John Carter and the Giant of Mars (or Giant for short) first appeared in AMAZING STORIES magazine for January, 1941, and created an immediate furore. Dozens of readers wrote to the magazine challenging the authenticity of the story, which was stoutly defended by Raymond A. Palmer, the editor. The complaints were based mainly on two points.

For one, many of Burroughs' more dedicated and scholarly devotees found points on which the setting of Giant conflicted with the pseudo-world Burroughs ad constructed in the rest of the series. Specifically, there is the use of the three-legged rat in Giant, whereas Burroughs had quite graphically described the Martian rat, or ulsio, in CHESSMEN OF MARS, as “fierce and unlovely ... many-legged and hairless.”

Similarly, the imaginary geography of Giant has been criticized as placing cities in regions where other stories indicate only deserts or swamps, and including, without explanation, imaginary creatures and devices present in no other Barsoomian tale.

Another objection to Giant is the fact that it is narrated in the third person, while the Martian series was customarily told in first person. This charge, however, fails on two books, the fourth and fifth in the series. The fourth book, THUVIA, MAID OF MARS, is told in standard third-person style. The fifth, CHESSMEN, opens with an introduction in which Edgar Rice Burroughs recounts, in first person, the circumstances in which John Carter told him, Burroughs, the tale contained in the book.

The story CHESSMEN is told in third person, but this argument against Giant is mitigated by the first person introduction. Not so with THUVIA, which pretty thoroughly demolishes the “first-person / third-person” case against Giant.

In planning the current book, JOHN CARTER OF MARS, it was my hope to verify or refute the charges against Giant of Mars once and for all. In order to do this, I wrote directly to Ray Palmer and asked him outright whether (a) the story had actually been written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and (b) if it had, whether or not Palmer or anyone else had tampered with the manuscript before publication; or (c) if it had not been written by Burroughs, who did write the story.

Simultaneously I wrote to Hulbert Burroughs, the author's son, and asked him to check through his father's files and records, and determine if possible (a) whether his father did write Giant and (b) if he did, whether a copy of the manuscript still existed for purposes of comparison with the magazine version.

Palmer's reply was the first to arrive, and in it he stated that (a) the story had indeed been written by Burroughs and (b) no one had changed it in any way prior to publication. Unfortunately, according to Palmer, the manuscript had been kept in the files of the Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, publisher of AMAZING STORIES, and had been destroyed some years later in a records-clearance move.

An initial reply from Hulbert Burroughs was equally mystifying – a search of the records of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., had produced an entry for the sale of John Carter and the Giant of Mars to Ziff-Davis. But an examination of ERB's notebook, in which the author usually kept painstaking track of starting, completion, and revision dates of all his stories, did not uncover the expected entry for Giant.

More or less reconciled, by now, to permanent mystification regarding the authorship of Giant, I was surprised and gratified to receive a further communication from Hulbert Burroughs, unravelling the mystery at last. Hulbert had continued to investigate both business and personal records of his father, and had discussed the question with other members of the Burroughs family. The story which was pieced together is this:

In 1940 the Whitman Publishing Company, which had published children's adaptations of a number of Tarzan stories with great success, asked ERB for a “Big Little Book” featuring John Carter. The Big Little Books were a children's series following an extremely rigid format: stories had to be 15,000 words in length, and so constructed that they could be published with alternating pages of text and drawings, each picture illustrating the action depicted on the facing page of text.

Edgar Rice Burroughs felt uncomfortable writing to the strict formula of this series, and so he asked his son John Coleman Burroughs, who was also the illustrator of the book, to collaborate with him in producing the story. The result was a tale, essentially similar to John Carter and the Giant of Mars, which appeared under the Whitman impress with the same title as the present volume: JOHN CARTER OF MARS.

At the same time, Ray Palmer of AMAZING STORIES was seeking a new Barsoomian adventure from ERB, to feature in his magazine. Taking the as-yet unpublished collaboration as his basis, Edgar Rice Burroughs lengthened it by some 5000 words and adapted it “upward” for adult readership, producing finally John Carter and the Giant of Mars.

The longer version appeared in AMAZING and the shorter one in the Whitman book. The text used in the present volume is the AMAZING version.

Skeleton Men of Jupiter, the second story in this book, offers no such problem as does Giant of Mars. By contrast with Giant, Skeleton Men received nothing but extravagant praise from readers at the time of its first appearance in AMAZING in February, 1943. Its name may sound odd for a “Martian” story, and indeed, most of the action of Skeleton Men takes place not on Mars, but on Jupiter. However, the hero is John Carter, and the basic story rationale is part of the Martian series, so the tale well fits into the present book.

Skeleton Men of Jupiter was intended by Burroughs as the opening episode of the group of interconnected novelettes, probably to number four, which would have become a John Carter novel in the fashion of LLANA OF GATHOL or the Carson Napier book ESCAPE ON VENUS. This form of quasiserialization was one with which Burroughs experimented quite successfully in the early 1940s.

However, wartime service as a correspondent in the Pacific reduced Burroughs' fiction output nearly to zero, and after the end of the war his health prevented ERB from resuming his former pace. As a result, the continuing episodes of John Carter's Jupiterian adventure were never written. Still, Skeleton Men is a complete adventure story, and an excellent one.

Writing (or at least dreaming) its sequels has become a favorite pastime of Burroughs fans over the years, and the reader is invited to join in the fun.

The Foreword of Skeleton Men of Jupiter, by the way, is published here for the first time. When the magazine version of the story appeared twenty-one years ago, the editor may have felt that a Foreword would serve only to put off readers, while a policy of “On with the story” above all else, would have greater commercial appeal.

He may well have been right for the pulp magazine audience of a generation ago, but assuming the readers of books to have a slightly more serious and patient outlook on literature, I have restored the Foreword, obtaining its text from a photostat of ERB's original manuscript, kindly furnished by Hulbert Burroughs.

If you are completely intolerant of forewords and wish, like the magazine audience of 1943, to plunge directly into the narration, you are welcome to skip the first 132 words of Skeleton Men of Jupiter. I personally find them a charming prelude and a minor but fascinating insight into the personality of Edgar Rice Burroughs, science-fictioneer.

The Martian series, of which this book is the final volume, is regarded by many readers as Burroughs' greatest sustained performance as a writer. Of course his Tarzan stories are the more famous, due largely to the popularity of their motion-picture adaptations. And there are many moments of excellence in the Venus and Pellucidar series, as there are in such “singles” as THE MOON MEN, THE MUCKER, THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT, and I AM A BARBARIAN.

Still, for eleven volumes, the adventures of Captain John Carter of Virginia, upon the planet Barsoom, and the comparable deeds of heroism performed by Burroughs' other Martian heroes, represent a series of tales unmatched in their author's works, and, for that matter, unequalled in the annals of science-fiction adventure writing

The first three volumes in the series, originally appearing between 1912 and 1914, actually constitute a single super-epic. In them, John Carter, a Confederate officer mustered out of service at the close of the Civil War, is miraculously transported to the planet Mars, known to its inhabitants as Barsoom. He arrives in the middle of a desert, naked and unarmed, wholly ignorant of local customs and conditions, unable to speak the language of the natives (in fact, knowing nothing about the natives, or even that there are any). Shortly encountering a group of barbarian nomads, John Carter is taken prisoner, and would seem to face a life of degraded slavery ending in early and ignominious death.

Instead, through the display of courage and skill, Captain Carter rises to the position of Warlord of Mars, having along the way fought his way from pole to pole of the red planet, returned to Earth for a period of several years and then travelled again to Barsoom, encountered a variety of strange races of men and beasts, weird nations and weirder peoples. He has, in addition, gained the lesser title of Prince of Helium (not the inert gas, but the leading city-empire of Barsoom), and has won the hand of the incomparable Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium.

The volumes in this trilogy are A PRINCESS OF MARS, THE GODS OF MARS, and THE WARLORD OF MARS. Their enduring qualities have led to their translation into many languages, including even an Esperanto edition of PRINCESS. Further, the same book has been issued by Oxford University Press in its “Stories Told and Retold” series, as a “teaching novel” for school use. Other authors in the “Stories Told and Retold” series include Dickens' Doyle, Shakespeare, Stevenson, Defoe, Wells, Sabatini, Anthony Hope, and Nordoff and Hall.

A mixed roll, these, and yet all have in common the characteristic of a literary quality which endures beyond their times, and makes their works part of the enduring body of the literature of the English language which stands a solid chance of living for centuries to come. The presence here of Burroughs' A PRINCESS OF MARS is perhaps the first important sign that this author, whose works have enjoyed public acclaim from the first, is beginning to receive the acceptance of educators and serious critics as well.

Having raised Carter, in three books, from a naked and unarmed stranger to the Warlord of the red planet, Burroughs faced the question, What do you do for an encore? Faced with the same question in his Tarzan series, Burroughs carried the Ape Man off into a seemingly interminable series of exotic settings, lost cities and forgotten empires dotting the African landscape so that they must ultimately have crowded one another into the sea!

In the Martian series, ERB tried another approach, I think a more daring one, and a completely successful one. Transferring his attention from John Carter and Dejah Thoris, Burroughs called the fourth book of the series TRUVIA, MAID OF MARS. The title figure had been introduced in THE GODS OF MARS as an equivocal character. She was the plaything of the degenerate group of cultist priests, involuntarily so, in fact the term “white slave” might be applied except that for Thuvia, it would have to be “red slave.”

Rescued by John Carter from her unhappy life, Thuvia at the end of the book is imprisoned with Dejah Thoris and a third Martian woman, the beautiful but treacherous Phaidor, in a sort of horizontal ferris wheel which is a Martian prison. Entrance to or exit from each cell is blocked for a year at a time as the giant wheel rotates through a huge hollow rock. As the cell containing the three women passes from sight, Phaidor lunges at Dejah Thoris with a murderous knife-thrust, Thuvia throws herself between the two, seeking to save Dejah Thoris, and ... The tag line is not “continued in the next thrilling installment,” but “continued in the next thrilling book, THE WARLORD OF MARS.”

But Dejah Thoris and Thuvia escape, of. course, and by the book following WARLORD, Thuvia had reached the status not only of lead heroine, but of title character, an honor shared with Dejah Thoris herself (the princess of PRINCESS) and with the granddaughter of John Carter and Dejah Thoris, LLANA OF GATHOL (tenth volume of the series). The action of THUVIA, MAID OF MARS, is no mere rehash of the adventures of John Carter, but blazes new trails across the Barsoomian horizon. The novel is full of invention and intrigue, the most brilliant probably being the Bowmen of Lothar, a phantom army of archers created by the sheer mental power of the Lotharians to counter the aggression of the Warhoons, their hereditary enemies.

THUVIA was first published in 1916, and following it, Burroughs turned his attention to other matters, including several books in his Tarzan and Pellucidar series, as well as several “singles.” In 1922 he resumed the Martian series, producing THE CHESSMEN OF MARS. Again, Burroughs changed focus, this time making his hero Gahan of Gathol, a Martian noble, with the heroine this time Tara of Helium, the younger sister of Carthoris. Again, not mere action and adventure, but wondrous creations of imagination mark the book. The outstanding creations of CHESSMEN may well be the rykors and the kaldanes, inhabitants of the city of Bantoom.

Strange symbiotes, these two races, the rykors resemble headless humans, while the kaldanes are little more than animated heads, provided by evolution with chelae with which they attach themselves to rykors and control the bodies. A kaldane might change bodies any time he felt like it, even “being” a man one day and a woman the next!

THE MASTER MIND OF MARS, next in the series, appeared in the AMAZING STORIES ANNUAL for 1927, and introduces a marvelous new hero in the person of Ulysses S. Paxton, a U.S. Army captain apparently killed in the trenches in World War I, but whisked miraculously, instead, to Mars. Here he experiences a strange adventure with Ras Thavas, a brilliant Martian surgeon who has perfected the surgical transfer of the brain from one human to another. Valla Dia, a lovely Martian girl, is victimized by Ras Thavas, being forced into an exchange of bodies with the hideous Queen Xaxa. The action which ensues leads ultimately to the regaining by Valla Dia of her rightful body, and her marriage to Paxton (who has been dubbed with the Barsoomian appellation of Vad Varo).

The seventh book of the series, A FIGHTING MAN OF MARS, is reported to Earth via a sort of super radio called the Gridley Wave. The narration is somewhat complicated. An introduction by Burroughs explains that the story recorded in the book was told him (via Gridley Wave) by Ulysses Paxton/Vad Varo. But Paxton had the story from its own central character, Tan Hadron of Hastor (a city enjoying a certain degree of self-rule but within the empire of Helium and subject to Helium's authority).

A FIGHTING MAN OF MARS perhaps epitomizes that form of science fiction formerly known as the “scientific romance,” a tale of high action and wonder in which science is the basis of the situation, but plays little part in the development of the story. Tan Hadron faces peril and horror, travels to two marvelous hidden cities, faces a maddened monarch who specializes in torturing beautiful maidens, is sentenced to a form of execution known only as The Death, traverses a forest inhabited by giant spiders ... and in general has a rollicking swash-buckling time to the reader's utter delight!

In SWORDS OF MARS, serialized in BLUE BOOK magazine in 1934 and '35, Burroughs returned to John Carter as hero. The novel features an astonishing prediction of the automatic control of experimental space craft by computers, including the size, placement, functioning and even programming characteristics of the electronic guidance devices being built today, to guide the rockets that will carry first instruments and then Man to the planets. What a joy if one of those manned rockets set out for Mars and found Barsoom instead!

In SWORDS OF MARS the space ship is used to carry Carter and a number of others from the city of Zodanga on Mars to the Martian moon Thuria (Phobos). Here Carter encounters still more strange people and strange beasts, before returning to Barsoom.

SYNTHETIC MEN OF MARS (1939) is the final actual novel of the series, has a new hero again, Vor Daj, and calls Ras Thavas back from retirement to make new mischief. The problem arises from Ras Thavas's attempt, Frankenstein-like, to create artificial life. He succeeds, but produces only monsters, who revolt and attempt to take over the entire planet.

Neither the most imaginative nor the best written of the Martian series, SYNTHETIC MEN is nonetheless a compelling story, sufficiently suspenseful and adequately packed with conflict and action to make it well worth reading.

The tenth book in the series, LLANA OF GATHOL, is not a novel but a collection of four novelettes, loosely intertwined. All are excellent, perhaps the best being a tale originally published as The City of Mummies, and called in LLANA The Ancient Dead. In it, scores of ancient Martians are discovered, preserved for millenia in a trance-like state, Awakened, they find their world gone, their city dead. It is a touching and melancholy scene, and marks a high point in a generally excellent book.

Finally, of course, the present volume, JOHN CARTER OF MARS, containing one unconnected tale and another which was intended as the opener of a new cycle of adventures, adventures fated never to be written.

A final note now concerning John Carter and the Giant of Mars. In the magazine version of two decades ago there were a number of footnotes, signed “Ed.” It is not known today whether this “Ed.” was Raymond A. Palmer, editor of AMAZING STORIES, or Edgar Rice Burroughs, who sometimes described himself as merely the “editor” of John Carter's true adventures, rather than as an author. These footnotes are retained in the present edition, the reader is free to form his own opinion regarding their authenticity.

To the reader who regards science fiction as a sugarcoated course in chemistry and physics equally as to the one who seeks only serious sociological extrapolation, Burroughs' Martian novels will prove unsatisfactory.

But to the reader who seeks magnificent adventure in an endlessly imaginative, exotic setting, these books without question represent an all-time high in the field.

RICHARD A. LUPOFF

New York City

Jasoom

June, 1964

One

ABDUCTION

THE MOONS OF MARS looked down upon a giant Martian thoat as it raced silently over the soft mossy ground. Eight powerful legs carried the creature forward in great, leaping strides.

The path of the mighty beast was guided telepathically by the two people who sat in a huge saddle that was cinched to the thoat's broad back.

It was the custom of Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, to ride forth weekly to inspect part of her grandfather's vast farming and industrial kingdom.

Her journey to the farm lands wound through the lonely Helium Forest where grow the huge trees that furnish much of the lumber supply to the civilized nations of Mars.

Dawn was just breaking in the eastern Martian sky, and the jungle was dark and still damp with the evening dew. The gloom of the forest made Dejah Thoris thankful for the presence of her companion, who rode in the saddle in front of her. Her hands rested on his broad, bronze shoulders, and the feel of those smooth, supple muscles gave her a little thrill of confidence. One of his hands rested on the jewel-encrusted hilt of his great long sword; and he sat his saddle very straight, for he was the mightiest warrior on Mars.

John Carter turned to gaze at the lovely face of his princess.

“Frightened, Dejah Thoris?” he asked.

“Never, when I am with my chieftain,” Dejah Thoris smiled.

“But what of the forest monsters, the arboks?”

“Grandfather has had them all removed. On the last trip, my guard killed the only tree reptile I've ever seen.”

Suddenly Dejah Thoris gasped, clutched vainly at John Carter to regain her balance. The mighty thoat lurched heavily to the mossy ground. The riders catapulted over his head. In an instant the two had regained their feet; but the thoat lay very still.

Carter jerked his long sword from its scabbard and motioned Dejah Thoris to stay at his back.

The silence of the forest was abruptly shattered by an uncanny roar directly above them.

“An arbok!” Dejah Thoris cried.

The tree reptile launched itself straight for the hated man-things. Carter lifted his sword and swung quickly to one side, drawing the monster's attention away from Dejah Thoris who crouched behind the fallen thoat.

The earthman's first thrust sliced harmlessly through the beast's outer skin. A huge claw knocked him off balance, and he found himself lying on the ground with the great fangs at his throat.

“Dejah Thoris, get the atom gun from the thoat's back,” Carter called hoarsely to the girl. There was no answer.

Calling upon every ounce of his great strength, Carter drove his sword into the arbok's neck. The creature shuddered. A stream of blood gushed from the wound. The man wriggled from under the dead body and sprang to his feet.

“Dejah Thoris! Dejah Thoris!”

Wildly Carter searched the ground and trees surrounding the dead thoat and arbok. There was no sign of Dejah Thoris. She had utterly vanished.

A shaft of light from the rising sun filtering through the foliage glistened on an object at the earthman's feet. Carter picked up a large shell, a shell recently ejected from a silent atom gun.

Springing to the dead thoat, he examined the saddle trappings. The atom gun that he had told Dejah Thoris to fire was still in its leather boot!

The earthman stooped beside the dead thoat's head. There was a tiny, bloody hole through its skull. That shot and the charging arbok had been part of a well conceived plan to abduct Dejah Thoris, and kill him!

But Dejah Thoris – how had she disappeared so quickly, so completely?

Grimly, Carter set off at a run back to the forest toward Helium.

Noon found the earthman in a private audience chamber of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium, grandfather of Dejah Thoris.

The old jeddak was worried. He thrust a rough piece of parchment into John Carter's hand. Crude, bold letters were inscribed upon the parchment; and as Carter scanned the note his eyes burned with anger: It read:

I, Pew Mogel, the most powerful ruler on Mars, have decided to take over the iron works of Helium. The iron will furnish me with all the ships I need to protect Helium and the other cities of Barsoom from invasion. If you have not evacuated all your workers from the iron mines and factories in three days, then I will start sending you the fingers of the Royal Princess of Helium. Hurry, because I may decide to send her tongue, which wags too much of John Carter. Remember, obey Pew Mogel, for he is all-powerful.”

Tardos Mors dug his nails into the palms of his hands.

“Who is this upstart who calls himself the most powerful ruler of Mars?”

Carter looked thoughtfully at the note.

“He must have spies here,” he said. “Pew Mogel knew that I was to leave this morning with Dejah Thoris on a tour of inspection.”

“A spy it must have been,” Tardos Mors groaned. I found this note pinned to the curtains in my private audience-chamber. “But what can we do? Dejah Thoris is the only thing in life that I have left to love–” His voice broke.

“All Helium loves her, Tardos Mors, and we will all die before we return to you empty-handed.”

Carter strode to the visiscreen and pushed a button.

“Summon Kantos Kan and Tars Tarkas.” He spoke quickly to an orderly. “Have them come here at once.”

Soon after, the huge, green warrior and the lean, red man were in the audience-chamber.

“It is fortunate, John Carter, that I am here in Helium on my weekly visit from the plains.” Tars Tarkas, the green thark, gripped his massive sword with his powerful four hands. His great, giant body loomed majestically above the others in the room.

Kantos Kan laid his hand on John Carter's shoulder.

I was on my way to the palace when I received your summons. Already, word of our princess' abduction has spread over Helium. I came immediately,” said the noble fellow, “to offer you my sword and my heart.”

I have never heard of this Pew Mogel,” said Tars Tarkas. “is he a green man?”

Tardos Mors grunted, “He's probably some petty outlaw or criminal who as an overbloated ego.”

Carter raised his eyes from the ransom note.

“No, Tardos Mors, I think he is more formidable than you imagine. He is clever, also. There must have been an airship, with a silent motor, at hand to carry Dejah Thoris away so quickly – or perhaps some great bird! Only a very powerful man who is prepared to back up his threats would kidnap the Princess of Helium and even hope to take over the great iron works.

“He probably has great resources at his command, It is doubtful, however, if he has any intention of returning the princess or he would have included more details in his ransom note.”

Suddenly the earthman's keen eyes narrowed. A shadow had moved in the adjoining room.

With a powerful leap, Carter reached the arched doorway. A furtive figure melted away into the semi-gloom of the passageway, with Carter close behind.

Seeing escape impossible, the stranger halted, sank to one knee and leveled a ray-gun at the approaching figure of the earthman. Carter saw his finger whiten as he squeezed the trigger.

“Carter!” Kantos Kan shouted, “throw yourself to the floor.”

With the speed of light, Carter dropped prone. A long blade whizzed over his head and buried itself to the hilt in the heart of the stranger.

“One of Pew Mogel's spies,” John Carter muttered as he rose to his feet. “Thank you, Kantos Kan.”

Kantos Kan searched the body but found no clue to the man's identity.

Back in the audience-chamber, the men set to work with fierce resolve.

They were bending over a huge map of Barsoom when Carter spoke.

“Cities for miles around Helium are now all friendly. They would have warned us of this Pew Mogel if they had known of him. He has probably taken over one of the deserted cities in the dead sea bottom east or west of Helium. It means thousands of miles to search; but we will go over each mile.”

Carter seated himself at a table and explained his plan.

“Tars Tarkas, go east and contact the chiefs of all your tribes. I'll cover the west with air scouts. Kantos Kan will stay in Helium as contact man. Be ready night and day with the entire Helium air force. Whoever discovers Dejah Thoris first will notify Kantos Kan of his position. Naturally, we can only communicate to each other through Kantos Kan. The wave length will be constant and secret, 2000 kilocycles.”

Tardos Mors turned to the earthman.

“Every resource in my kingdom is at your command, John Carter.”

“We leave at once, your majesty; and if Dejah Thoris is alive on Barsoom, we shall find her,” replied John Carter.

Two

THE SEARCH

WITHIN THREE HOURS, John Carter was standing on the roof of the Royal Airdrome giving last-minute instructions to a fleet of twenty-four fast, one-man scouts.

“Cover all the territory in your district thoroughly. If you discover anything, don't attempt to handle it by yourself. Notify Kantos Kan immediately.” Carter surveyed the grim faces before him and knew that they would obey him.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 719