Although my writing skills and style will always be a work in progress, this is one of the earliest where I was just getting my writing “legs”. Still a favorite book with ERB unfettering his imaginatio.
1912 Gods of Mars
Cover by Michael Whelan
Published 1913 All-Story Magazine
This reflection starts out with a confession. Having listened to the book a few years back I wasn’t going to re-read it when giving my reflections. As I pulled it off the shelf for a quick skim, I realized that I didn’t really remember much of the story. I have to say I am very glad I chose to read it again.
This was the book that sold me on Edgar Rice Burroughs more than any other. Mind you I devoured anything Tarzan, TV, movies, comics but I didn’t connect Tarzan with ERB per se. Tarzan was Tarzan. But this second appearance of John Carter of Mars stayed in my psyche. It must have been the first that I read since the ending stuck in my head all these years. Enough that I would confuse it with the ending of A Princess of Mars.
Gods of Mars is Burroughs unleashed, his imagination going places further than “A Princess of Mars”. Reading the first chapter, visualizing the plant men with their kangaroo attack mode with the spade like tails had me spinning. Here ERB creates and deconstructs the religion of Barsoom (Mars). In some ways making his own thoughts about religion clear.
In the desert world of Barsoom, he envisions an oasis at the bottom of the planet. The geography boggles my mind. Here ERB has set a sea at the bottom of the world with another sea underneath it. Immense caverns with parts of the city emerging above ground to be in the upper sea. My mind still reels thinking about it but also I realize that Burroughs had it mapped out in his mind. The action shifts from the civilizations at the bottom of Barsoom to an ancient city to the halls of Helium in typical Burroughs whirlwind fashion but it holds together.
ERB is hitting his stride here with daring feats of battle by John Carter to massive naval air fleets in wide scale battle. We have individual fights, rebellions and armies meeting all in 190 pages. I’ve accused Burroughs of being the master of coincidence and happenstance but in this story it works. Burroughs has his tropes that he uses but in Gods, they aren’t his tropes, this is ERB exploring the ideas for the first time. There is an energy and enthusiasm to this novel that caused me to embrace the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
I read the Del Rey edition with a cover by Michael Whelan. Whelan captures the craziness of the first chapter of the novel while giving us not just John Carter but his faithful companion Tars Tarkas as well.
Looking at Burrough's next novel I find that although Tarzan of the Apes and Princess of Mars introduced the iconic characters, it is with their second novels that Burroughs solidified the characters and established the true wonders of the world they exist in.