The Gods of Mars

Book 2 is book 1 on steroids. Is this really pulp fiction? It reads more like superhero fiction. John Carter took those steroids too - his first person narration went to the extreme in self-praise. If you're annoyed by his “oh, this is so dangerous, but I'm just too good” narrations in book 1, I would recommend you not read book 2, since he comes across as even more arrogant now that he's familiar with Mars - practically a superman, perfect in every way except being blatantly oblivious a few times to extremely clear clues.

The majority of pages deal with three things: capture, escape, fight. Finish one cycle, rinse and repeat. Throw in 3 women who loves him (2 of them by virtue of being damsels in distress) and several oh-so-convenient moments, and you have a book that you simply cannot treat as a serious read. Still no explanation on how he jumps between planets though.

As long as you take this book lightly, you'll enjoy the story. Take it seriously, and you'll get annoyed - like how John Carter manages to stay in tip-top fighting condition capable of holding back armies almost single-handedly despite bearing untreated wounds and usually not sleeping enough. Two of the more unrealistic bits is how his 10 Earth-year-old son is able to kick butt and deal death like his pa, and how John Carter can be chained and imprisoned for an Earth year surviving on gruel and yet come back out still in perfect fighting condition. The imprisonment itself was pointless - needless drama for a "oh, I forgot that a Martian year is much longer!" moment...

The bad and corny aside, the plot itself is actually pretty good. It sheds light on the religion and faith of Issus on Mars and a ruse within a ruse. This book also gives a rich history of Martian civilizations, although I found the idea of using colour to differentiate humans to be boring and stereotypical - probably something to do with the era this book was written in.

I hope there's no more new human colour in book 3. And yes, I'm going on to book 3 later, since just as book 1, the finale is another cliffhanger - one that involves a weird and unrealistic prison; so cliffhanger for cliffhanger's sake. But then again this is pulp, so that's sort of expected I guess.

I either loved or hated this. I'm really not quite sure which.

On one hand, it has a lot of the problems the first one did, most of which can be forgiven as products of the time it was created. On top of that, though, this was and feels like a cash-in from the first one, primarily made because of the popularity of the first one.

At the same time though, if we continue the thesis that Burroughs was writing about his society, rather than Mars, there is some nicely subversive stuff going on here; John Carter learns that the religion of the Barsoomians is a fabrication, and that the ruling class uses that religious belief to keep themselves in power and to leech off of the mainstream population. That's pretty subversive stuff for 1918, and I have to admire Burroughs for including that.

Some of the magic wore off for me. I got really pulled out by just how ridiculously random it was for the first person John meets back on Mars os his old sword buddy. And that's pretty much how the whole book went for me. I enjoyed everything and then deus ex machina would annoy me.

It didn't help that I didn't like this narrator. Something about his style made it really hard for me to maintain focus on the story instead of SQUIRREL!

And finally, in the end, the cliff hanger conclusion annoyed me. Which is kind of funny, I guess, since Princess ends in much the same manner and I recall satisfaction with that ending.