17th out of 96 books
—
110 voters
The Master Mind of Mars (Barsoom #6)
Former Earthman Ulysses Paxton served Barsoom's greatest scientist, until his master's ghoulish trade in living bodies drove him to rebellion. Then, to save the body of the woman he loved, he had to attack mighty Phundahl, and its evil, beautiful ruler.
Mass Market Paperback, 160 pages
Published
April 12th 1979
by Ballantine Books
(first published 1927)
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Although Burroughs’s earlier Barsoom novels are nominally science fiction thanks to their setting, ‘The Mastermind of Mars’ moves closer to true SF and away from the fantastical romances of its predecessors. They still, however, have a lot in common including many of the same basic plot elements ERB recycled throughout his writing career.
All in all, I find it a lesser effort. The sense of wonder and adventure we enjoyed in the previous novels is downplayed in favor of a slower pace and a smaller...more
All in all, I find it a lesser effort. The sense of wonder and adventure we enjoyed in the previous novels is downplayed in favor of a slower pace and a smaller...more
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"The Master Mind of Mars" is book #6 of 11 John Carter adventures that Edgar Rice Burroughs gave to the world. It first appeared in the magazine "Amazing Stories Annual" in July 1927, and John Carter himself only puts in a cameo appearance near the book's end. Instead, our hero is another Earthman, Ulysses Paxton, who mysteriously gets transported to Barsoom (Mars) after being critically wounded on the battlefields of WW1. Paxton becomes an apprentice of the eponymous mastermind Ras Thavas, and...more
Although this struck me as the most focused story in the series up to this point and one that presaged any number of brain-transplant / body-swapping SF stories that would come later, I could barely get through it. What I enjoy about Burroughs isn't his ability to write moden, coherent novels, but rather how he packs so much imagery and energy into the earlier parts of this series. When he slows down, pins his story to just one or two places and problems, and tries to work out complications of m...more
“The Master Mind of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs is the sixth book in the Barsoom series. Burroughs moves further away from John Carter by introducing a new hero, Ulysses Paxton, who uses his Martian name Vad Varo for most of the book. Ulysses is a much different hero than John Carter, or for that matter Cathoris or Thuvia from “Thuvia Maid of Mars” or Gahan of Gathol or Tara of Helium from “The Chessmen of Mars”. Ulysses’s connection with John Carter is that when on Earth he read the stories o...more
Despite being the 6th novel in the series, in this story Burroughs proves that there are plenty of stories left to tell on Barsoom, and that John Carter or Carthoris don't need to be present to have a compelling story.
Our protagonist is a World War I soldier with the incredibly badass name Ulysses Paxton. When he gets blown in half by an artillery shell, he finds himself on Barsoom, a planet he knows well from Edgar Rice Burrough's stories. I like that--as with John Carter's original teleportati...more
Our protagonist is a World War I soldier with the incredibly badass name Ulysses Paxton. When he gets blown in half by an artillery shell, he finds himself on Barsoom, a planet he knows well from Edgar Rice Burrough's stories. I like that--as with John Carter's original teleportati...more
Sep 24, 2010
Angela Alcorn
marked it as to-read
The Master Mind of Mars completes the little mini-arc of philosophy I've described. In Thuvia, Maid of Mars, we meet a city of realists and etherealists, the latter of whom believe that none of us exist but both of whom are so focused on the creations of their minds as to ignore reality; in The Chessmen of Mars, we meet a race of Martians who have developed into all brain (the kaldanes) and all body (the rykors), neither of whom enjoys the fullest pleasures of life; and in The Master Mind of Mar...more
Sep 05, 2010
Kathryn
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Burroughs fans
Shelves:
space-opera,
on-my-nook
The Mastermind of Mars is the sixth book in Edgar Rice Burroughs's Mars series. (The first is A Princess of Mars. If you like ridiculous space opera, I recommend this series. The first five are available on Project Gutenberg; I got this one and the seventh in e-book form from B&N, as The Third Martian Omnibus.)
This is one of the better of the seven Mars books I have read. The hero, Ulysses Paxton, is another Earthling who, like John Carter, has traveled to Barsoom to find a new life among t...more
This is one of the better of the seven Mars books I have read. The hero, Ulysses Paxton, is another Earthling who, like John Carter, has traveled to Barsoom to find a new life among t...more
Probably more like a 4.5 or 4.75 . . .
For this volume we're back to first-person narration, but it's not John Carter -- it's Ulysses Paxton, another Earth man who makes his way to Barsoom from the trenches of WWI-era Europe. Paxton already has a basic familiarity with Barsoom because he's read ERB's previous books, although he thought they were fiction. (Burroughs was meta before meta was a thing.)
This is an interesting installment -- it has much more of a science fictional feel to it than other...more
For this volume we're back to first-person narration, but it's not John Carter -- it's Ulysses Paxton, another Earth man who makes his way to Barsoom from the trenches of WWI-era Europe. Paxton already has a basic familiarity with Barsoom because he's read ERB's previous books, although he thought they were fiction. (Burroughs was meta before meta was a thing.)
This is an interesting installment -- it has much more of a science fictional feel to it than other...more
A macabre entry in the Barsoom series, The Master Mind of Mars borrows from Frankenstein and The Island of Dr Moreau, but is still replete with E.R. Burroughs' trademark imaginative flourishes. The ghoulish first half gives way to his more formulaic--but always fun--action adventure heroics, while the central romantic contrivance is his least developed in the series (certainly original, though). The misguided scientist who performs horrific/ingenious transplant operations is a fascinating creati...more
This book had an interesting premise. If medical procedures could progress to a point where we could swap out any body part, including the brain, how would that affect society? People could live forever by swapping out parts or even entire bodies.
If this had been a stand alone novel, I think it would have worked better. As a Barsoom novel, there are certain things you come to expect. My two favorite things about Barsoom are the fantastic world filled with fantastic creatures and the larger than...more
If this had been a stand alone novel, I think it would have worked better. As a Barsoom novel, there are certain things you come to expect. My two favorite things about Barsoom are the fantastic world filled with fantastic creatures and the larger than...more
These were considered "planetary romances" according to one source back when this series from the creator of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs, was written. This series of about 10 books started in 1912 and culminated around 1948. There's an odd mention of a book in 1964, but the other had been dead for 14 years by then. Plus there are a few shorts published in some pulp periodicals of the 1940s (where many of these stories appeared in years prior).
Today we call this stuff sci-fi, but it's quite diff...more
Today we call this stuff sci-fi, but it's quite diff...more
This was a pretty good read in the Mars series, though so far it is my least favorite. It's an interesting adventure story dealing with a new character from Earth who finds himself on the red planet and into an apprenticeship for the Mastermind who transfers the mind of one person to another. This is the third book in a row that doesn't feature John Carter, though he does make an appearance at the end. But I guess it is not the John Carter of Mars series, rather just the Mars series. It's a good...more
This book is interestingly as topical as ever, as the adherents of the religion of Tur described here are quite reminiscent of the Christian fundamentalists and creationists that still get lots of media coverage. As the other extreme ERB gives us the Spock-like logic and calculating amorality of Ras Thavas and the other Toonolians, who are described as science-worshipping atheists. How similar to the debates of today!
This is book #6 of the Barsoom series, and I think it is - so far - one of the best. There is a good sf-story in this book with good content and no excessive figting. John Carter only plays a tiny part in he last chapter, and in fact all the characters are new after the first five books.
It is the story of Ulyssus Paxton, an American soldier, who is transposed to Mars and arrives there near a laboratory where dubious experiments take place. This is worked out in an inventive way into a story wit...more
It is the story of Ulyssus Paxton, an American soldier, who is transposed to Mars and arrives there near a laboratory where dubious experiments take place. This is worked out in an inventive way into a story wit...more
This story follows the adventures of an unrelated hero, Ulysses Paxton, an Earthman. Like John Carter, Paxton arrives on Mars via astral projection and ends up being trained by mad scientist Ras Thavas, the titular Mastermind of Mars, in the techniques of mind-body transfer. Paxton uses these techniques to restore his beloved Valla Dia's brain into her own beautiful body after her brain had been swapped with that of the hideous Xaxa of Phundahl.
These stories are not high art, or even good sci-fi...more
These stories are not high art, or even good sci-fi...more
It's been so long since I've read these books that the details are lost in the mist of time. That said, I'm sure there are variations in the quality of story and prose throughout this series (it's Burroughs, after all), but I choose to remember the series as a whole, and rate it as I remember it through the eyes and mind of the child that read it for the first time...
Something a little different finally. Burroughs branched out and found another hapless soldier of Earth to be mysteriously transported to Mars at the point of death. He was a true romantic, since every single one of his books has been about a brave warrior risking all odds to save the woman he loves, even if, in this case, the woman herself is safe but her body is not.
Ha! One day I'll tire of this same story told through different characters, over and over and over again. But that day wasn't today. This book is another one of Ed's hero saves damsel in distress tails, which I'm pretty sure is all he knew how to write. Not the best in the martian series, but really after the first book they all kind of run together.
Please note, this 5 star rating is based on my long ago memories of this book - I may have read it greater than 20 years ago. I recall reading and really liking it, and even kept the book to read again in the future (something I only do with good, or otherwise significant books). The memories of an old man are sometimes faulty so this could really only warrant 3.5 to 4.5 stars, instead of the 5 I gave it. Once I re-read the book I will update this rating/review to more accurately reflect my thou...more
I like Burroughs so much that I even like bad Burroughs, but this book (the 6th in the Mars series) is one of his best. Our hero, Ulysses Paxton, a dying soldier on a World War I battlefield, is mysteriously beamed up to Mars where he ends up serving as a laboratory assistant to a weird scientist who has discovered the secret of switching people from one body to another. Paxton falls in love with a beautiful young woman who is unfairly trapped in the old body of a mean empress, and vows to resto...more
Apparently, when one goes to Mars, one no longer needs to go to the bathroom. I mean, 4 beings, one a 15ft tall ape, stay hidden in a little closet all day, without leaving? clench those buttocks Bobby!
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I like this one better than some of the recent Barsoom series I've been reading.
The hero is another earthman, Ulysses Paxton. He is in the service of an old scientist who makes his living moving people's brains into younger bodies.
Ulysses sees a beautiful woman, and her brain is put into an old body. I like this one because they carry on a relationship, even though she is not beautiful through most of the book. He loves her anyway despite her looks (or lack thereof).
He enlists the help of a whit...more
The hero is another earthman, Ulysses Paxton. He is in the service of an old scientist who makes his living moving people's brains into younger bodies.
Ulysses sees a beautiful woman, and her brain is put into an old body. I like this one because they carry on a relationship, even though she is not beautiful through most of the book. He loves her anyway despite her looks (or lack thereof).
He enlists the help of a whit...more
Another Earth member makes his way to Mars and finds himself in the presence of a Martian scientist. Ulysses Paxton learns how to reanimate bodies and falls in love with one of them. The interesting part of it is that the body is being used by an evil leader whose old wrinkled body was given to the love of his life. I know it sounds weird, but just read it.
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Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.
More about Edgar Rice Burroughs...
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