Thuvia, Maid of Mars / The Chessmen of Mars

Barsoom #4-5

by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Frank Frazetta (Illustrator)

This volume contains novels 4 and 5 of the series:
Thuvia, Maid of Mars
The Chessmen of Mars

It also contains the Glossary of Names and Terms in the Martian Books

Mars (Barsoom) stories is a saga of 11 novels, picturing a dying Mars (a vision first expressed by writers like Camille Flammarion), but vastly populated by all kinds of creatures.

John Carter in the late 1800s is mysteriously transported from Earth to a Mars suffering from dwindling resources.

The series has been cited by many well known science fiction writers as having inspired and motivated them in their youth, as well as by key scientists involved in both space exploration and the search for extraterrestrial life.

Many writers have adapted elements of the books in books, television and movies, like the 2012 Disney megaproduction "John Carter".

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Classics, Sword and Planet, Adventure, Pulp

341 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Tony Santo · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the weakest in the series of ERB's "A Princess of Mars" chronicles, this book is written with less intensity and sophistication than Burroughs' other entries in the series. Mind you, that doesn't make it a bad book. A weak ERB novel is still pretty damn good; it just doesn't reach the bench mark I've come to expect from the his other Mars tales.

Thuvia, introduced in a previous book, gets all the attention in an all too familiar plot, as she falls victim to a kidnapping that threatens to throw all of Barsoom into a deadly war. This time, the protagonist is John Carter and Dejah Thoris' son, Carthoris. Although still a good entetaining adventure, complete with its' landscape of outlandish concepts and science-fiction, I had the feeling that ERB wrote this as magazine installments, going through the motions to fulfill a deadline. One never experiences the rewards of a carefully crafted, intensly purposeful story structure as illustrated in the four books that precede this one.

The personal narrative of Carthoris is not quite as fervent or stirring as "A Princess of Mars" or any of the tales told by John Carter in the first person, but there's plenty of low-hanging fruit to enjoy.

If you love ERB's Mars stories, you'll be amused and maybe even fascinated by some of the principles he philosophizes about here. There's a race of Martians that have develped the power of thought to such a great level that merely by the power of suggestion, they can materialze and dematerialze entire armies of warriors to defend their city and defeat their enemies!

[Rafeeq O. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edgar Rice Burroughs' 1916 Thuvia, Maid of Mars and 1922 The Chessmen of Mars, packaged together by Nelson Doubleday in 1972 in a single hardcover with beautiful Frank Frazetta wraparound cover art and some similarly classic Frazetta black-and-white interiors, is an entertaining 4-star read of the early days of science fiction.

Thuvia, Maid of Mars is fourth in the Barsoom series, tales whose echoes can be seen in the fiction of Leigh Brackett and which even receive a nod in such Robert A. Heinlein novels as Have Space Suit--Will Travel (1958) and, if I recall, The Number of the Beast (1980). Interestingly, whereas the first three books--A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, and A Warlord of Mars--are told, after a brief narrative frame discussing Burroughs' possession of John Carter's once-secret sealed manuscript, in the first-person voice of John Carter, this book is written completely in the third person point of view. There is no frame, no tie-in to the real world of the reader; the book simply exists, period.

Thuvia of Ptarth, whom John Carter in The Gods of Mars had brought back with him from the once-forbidden lands where the River Iss deposited those who made the final pilgrimage to death, is the object of the chivalrous but slightly bumbling desire of Carthoris, son of John Carter and Dejah Thoris of Helium. However, he who snoozeth may find that he loseth, for the princess now is promised to neighboring ruler Kulan Tith, her "father's friend and Ptarth's most puissant ally" (page 10). Yet unlike Prince Astok of Dusar, the cad who even on the book's first page calls Thuvia "my princess" (page 5) in shocking breach of custom and who soon, after actually grabbing the woman's arm, needs to be knocked ass over applecart with an uppercut from Carthoris (page 6), the son of John Carter may be, like that great hero, "witless in matters of the heart" (page 10), but he is a youth of integrity and honor. Thuvia will not take the bait of answering whether she truly loves her betrothed, answering only that she is "promised to him" (page 11), and so Carthoris "la[ys] one hand on his heart, the other upon the pommel of his long-sword," and tells her, "These are yours--always," and then he departs (page 11).

About Astok, though... Well, a fellow who talks of "the fiery blasts of [his] consuming love" (page 5) and whose seizing of the princess's bare arm is considered "profanation" when "the persons of the royal women of the courts of Mars are held but little less than sacred" (page 6) doesn't seem like the type who would bow out so nobly, does he? And of course he doesn't. He apparently has no mustachios to twirl, but the piano music is very urgent, and even the audience in the back row can read his intentions. Soon poor Thuvia is abducted and spirited away in the night on a flyer, in a false-flag operation that points to Carthoris and thus sets Ptarth, the bride-robbed kingdom of Kaol, and upright but seemingly offending Helium on a path ruinous war. Yet the blood of the Warlord of Mars flows in the veins of the stout Carthoris, so a rousing tale of mighty fights, hairsbreadth escapes, and full-on pulp-fiction coincidences shall ensure.

The Chessmen of Mars features another damsel in distress, this time Carthoris's sister, Tara of Helium, the beautiful--of course--and rather conceited daughter of "the incomparable" Dejah Thoris and stalwart John Carter. In terms of point of view, however, Burroughs has returned to the technique of using a narrative frame, although here the author receives not a manuscript as in the original trilogy but an actual visit from John Carter himself, fresh from Barsoom via astral projection. While John Carter's first transport to Mars was inexplicable and uncontrollable, eventually he learned to make the journey between worlds at will, and now he "ha[s]...been able to impart to inanimate things a similar power," such that at last the fictionalized Burroughs can "see [him] for the first time precisely as [his] Martian fellows see [him]," decked with "the very short-sword that has tasted the blood of many a savage foeman; the harness with the devices of Helium and the insignia of [his] rank; the pistol that was presented to [him] by Tars Tarkas, Jeddak of Thark" (page 130). Having been asked about his offspring, and seeing the chess pieces upon the table, John Carter launches into a tale about his daughter, which Burroughs "shall try to re-tell...for [us] in as nearly the words of The Warlord of Mars as [he] can recount, but in the third person" (page 131). Handy.

In classic pulp fiction tradition, Tara of Helium is "the fairest thing that ever breathed the thin air of dying Mars" other than, of course, Dejah Thoris; she is a picture "of health and physical perfection--the effortless harmony of faultless coordination" (pages 130-31). Yet although the princess "ha[s] been reared to believe that one day she would wed Djor Kantos, son of her father's best friend," and the young pair even "ha[ve] spoken of it casually as something that would, of a matter of course, take place in the indefinite future," still "[t]hey ha[ve] never spoken of love[,] and that ha[s] puzzled Tara of Helium..." (page 134). On the one hand, well, she does have "all of a woman's curiosity" and "wonder[s] what love [is] like," but on the other hand, they enjoy one another's company "and the same books[,] and their dancing [is] a joy," and she can "not imagine wanting to marry anyone other than Djor Kantos" (page 134).

Now, when her betrothed during a social function is conversing with another "noticeably beautiful" girl and Tara of Helium finds herself "disturbed" (page 134), the princess is introduced to Gahan of Gathol, a warrior prince who, "[e]ven among the gorgeous trappings of the men of Helium and the visitors from distant empires" is "remarkable for [his] barbaric splendor," with "[t]he leather of his harness...completely hidden beneath ornaments of platinum thickly set with brilliant diamonds, as [are] the scabbards of his swords and the ornate holster that [holds] his long Martian pistol" (page 135). She is "fill[ed]...with interest" at the thought of hearing about his remote, ancient land, she tells him, though at this the narrator comments that it is not "likely that the handsome face of the young jed detract[s] anything from the glamour of far Gathol" (page 135). Mm hmm.

At one point John Carter's daughter teases the splendidly trapped man at the notion that he and his warriors "fight in platinum and diamonds," but Gahan "laugh[s]" without offense. " 'We are a vain people,' he admit[s] good-naturedly, 'and it is possible that we place too much value on personal appearances. We vie with one another in the splendor of our accoutrements when trapped for the observance of the lighter duties of life, though when we take the field our leather is the plainest I have ever seen worn by the fighting men of Barsoom' " (page 137). After a dance in which "the personal contact of [the] man's arm against her naked flesh" rouses something in her and likewise makes his eyes flash with "that which she had never seen in the eyes of Djor Kantos," Gahan of Gathol confesses his love (page 139). She "haughtily" purports shock (page 139), later disparages him to her parents as "a walking diamond-mine" (page 142), and tells her slave girl, "I hate him!" and "stamp[s] her foot" (page 140), but...well, you see where this is going, don't you?

Tara of Helium doesn't, naturally. Yet when during a morning flight the next day her flyer is disabled and blown far off into the mysterious wilds by a colossal storm, of course it is Gahan who rushes his own larger ship out on what surely must be a fruitless, even suicidal search. Such is the stuff the warriors of Barsoom are made of, especially when spurred on by love. What follow, then, will be standard Edgar Rice Burroughs fare: the unlikeliest of coincidences, the most unbelievably missed recognitions, and, more important, villains and slavering monsters, swordfights and escapes and brave exclamations, and final just desserts.

Thuvia, Maid of Mars and The Chessmen of Mars do not appeal especially to our modern tastes in subtler literature or to our modern sensibilities of class or race, but boy, oh, boy, are they fun, sometimes-silly, and yet also rousing 4-star reads from even before the Golden Age of science fiction!

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike Gods of Mars/Warlord of Mars, these two stories are separate. The first, Thuvia, Maid of Mars, follows Thuvia—daughter of one of the great Jeddaks of Mars and also one of John Carter’s greatest friends—and Carthoris, the latter being John Carter’s son: during the previous installations, Carter had been gone from Mars for well over a decade in Earth years.

The full import of just how ancient Martian civilization is comes out in both of these stories, but the first one is the most incredible. There are civilizations, remote and unknown, that have progressed, or nearly so, to pure thought, and on Mars the thought is literally the deed.

Carthoris thus ends up with an imaginary friend, but it’s not his own imagination that produced it!

And as an aside, this series was almost certainly very influential on the George Lucas Star Wars. The similarity between Jeds, Jeddaks, and Jedi is easily overlooked—Jedi are not supposed to be warlords. The similarity between padwar and padawan is less easily overlooked. Both are beginners. The similarity between banths and banthas is pretty much impossible to ignore.

While they’re completely separate stories with completely separate protagonists—the first features John Carter’s son Carthoris and Thuvia, daughter of the jeddak Thuvan Dihn; the second Carter’s daughter Tara and the jed Gahan of Gathol—both do share overall themes. In both stories the protagonists find themselves in an isolated kingdom, kingdoms deliberately separate from and disdainful of (to the extent they’re aware of it) the rest of Mars. Such isolation breeds both corruption and backwardness.

Burroughs highlights the backwardness by contrasting it with the other theme, that of overweening intellectualism. Even among the advanced psychic abilities of Lothar (Thuvia, Maid of Mars) and the nearly pure brains of the Kaldanes (The Chessmen of Mars), the people are backwards technologically and socially compared to the ever-warring but ever-interacting peoples of the other Martian kingdoms.

Neither, for example, have flying ships. The people of Manator must know about them—they steal slaves from kingdoms that do have them—but have no desire to copy this amazing technology. Among the people of Manator, their excessive intellectualism, which once caused conflicts to be solved by games of Martian chess, has degraded so far that these games have become little more than brutal bloodbaths.

Burroughs hasn’t quite abandoned slavery as an issue, but both of these stories basically assume that slavery is so evil it doesn’t even need to be argued against. Slavery is mostly unmentioned in Maid of Mars, but the imaginary minions of Lothar are in a sense history enslaved.

The food created by Lotharian mind powers is real food that nourishes, and the warriors created by Lotharian mind powers are real warriors, imagined from their history. These imaginary warriors are real while they last, and even have the potential to become real, as Kar Komak the bowman does toward the end.

Are they slaves, created and dismissed as needed? Given the stories that have gone before, and the story that follows in Chessmen, it is likely that there was something of slavery in what Burroughs was going for here.

In Chessmen, Burroughs creates his weirdest pair of races yet, weirder even than the Lotharians and their powers of mind. The Rykors have been enslaved by the Kaldanes for so long that the Rykors are no longer an intelligent species; they have been bred to be ridden, as Lincoln might have said.

And while there is some question as to whether one branch of Rykorian ancestry was ever intelligent, they are Martian-like and most likely bred partly from Martians who definitely were intelligent. They have been enslaved for so long that they will never regain their freedom. It has been bred completely out of them, so that they are no more than a warning to other peoples about the consequences of depending too long on other masters.

But slavery corrupts, and the Kaldanes have bred independence out of themselves while they’ve been breeding it out of the Rykors. It is clear that they are not a hive mind (though their method of reproducing is reminiscent of hive insects); but they are all the same, nonetheless.

“How do you know he would like my singing?” she asked.

“He would have to,” replied Ghek. “If I like a thing he has to like it, for are we not identical—all of us?”

“The people of my race do not all like the same things,” said the girl.

“How strange!” commented Ghek. “All kaldanes like the same things and dislike the same things. If I discover something new and like it I know that all kaldanes will like it. That is how I know that Luud would like your singing. You see we are all exactly alike.”

On a lesser note, it’s possible that Burroughs was considering moving away from having radium be ubiquitous on Mars. Radium bulbs light all passageways, even ancient ones. While he continues to describe these lights as “radium bulbs” he emphasizes for what I think is only the second time that they may or may not actually be radium.

They consist, usually, of a hemispherical bowl of heavy glass in which is packed a compound containing what, according to John Carter, must be radium.

The only other caveat about the use of the word radium that I remember comes from the first book, A Princess of Mars, in which the manuscript’s editor says that “I have used the word radium in describing this powder because in the light of recent discoveries on Earth I believe it to be a mixture of which radium is the base. In Captain Carter’s manuscript it is mentioned always by the name used in the written language of Helium and is spelled in hieroglyphics which it would be difficult and useless to reproduce.”

In both of these novels, Burroughs continues to expand the wonder that is Mars, emphasizing that immense antiquity of Martian society, and generally performing the impossible: creating even more fantastic stories than what has gone before, that yet remain exciting and readable rather than over the top.

[Nathan Dehoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fourth and fifth books in the Barsoom series move on to a new generation by focusing on John Carter and Dejah Thoris' children Carthoris and Tara, respectively. The former goes to rescue his crush, the titular Thuvia, from kidnappers who live in the ruins of an ancient city. They then visit a country where the inhabitants use telepathic powers to project people and animals to fight battles for them, although it only works if they believe in these phantoms. The latter has Tara being captured by the Kathans, basically disembodied heads with legs who, in a triumph of Lamarckian genetics, evolved that way because they valued intellect over anything else, but have to interface with headless animals called Rykors in order to interact with the world. Since this is a series that focuses a lot on action and physical prowess, they're at a general disadvantage in that way. Tara's admirer Gahan, Jed of Gathol, then has to play a game resembling chess in order to save the Princess from the raiding Manatorians. Why so many damsels in distress? I don't know, but these aren't going to be winning any awards for their representations of women. Burroughs played a lot of chess, and came up with his own rules for Jetan. It's stated that it's usually played with normal pieces, but the Manatorian version uses living people, and a move that would usually result in a capture instead has the two participants duel to the death.

[Simone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Il volume contiene il quarto e quinto libro della serie del Ciclo di Barsoom, Thuvia, fanciulla di Marte e, appunto, Le pedine di Marte.

Gli intrecci son quelli tipici dei primi tre libri della serie e sono sicuro che, tra un po’ di tempo, tutti questi episodi di rapimenti, monarchi cattivi, alleati improvvisati, fughe rocambolesche e assalti all’arma bianca si confonderanno nella mia memoria. John Carter e Dejah Thoris sono sullo sfondo, ma insomma, le caratterizzazioni dei nuovi protagonisti gira che ti rigira son sempre quelle.

Ci sono alcune idee carine, proprio da albori della fantascienza. Nel primo libro un popolo che crea guerrieri con la forza della mente, e ci crede talmente tanto che quei guerrieri assumono autocoscienza ed esistono davvero. Nel secondo libro delle teste-ragno che prendono il controllo di corpi usati come burattini. Le ingenuità non si contano, ma sono libri carini e scorrevoli.

[Joe Davoust · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume of John Carter books was not as fun as the last one. For one there is very little of our hero, John Carter, as each of the two books focuses on one of his children. The formula is set by this time and in each, the protagonist gets in trouble, gets lost, finds themself trapped in a seemingly magic and inescapable city of all powerful inhabitants, then escapes. I don’t know if the writing was worse with these books or by the end of this volume (book five), I had just gotten bored with the idea. Fun, but maybe more so if not read all at once.

[Eros Fratini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quarto e quinto romanzo del ciclo di Marte.
Manca un po' la figura di John Carter, che qui appare solo sporadicamente, ma il succo è più o meno sempre quello.
Azione, eroismo, romance, tutto condensato efficacemente e sparato in faccia al lettore alla velocità di un cavallo al galoppo.
Burroughs è sicuramente uno scrittore che va al punto senza tanti fronzoli, e anche se questo genere di avventure ad oggi può far un po' sorridere, rimane un piacevole svago.

[Tex-49 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conferma l'impressione il gradimento dei precedenti volumi: Avvincente e ancora leggibile anche se penalizzato dal fatto di essere stato scritto più di cento anni fa. L'avventura ha la preminenza sulla fantascienza, lo svolgersi degli eventi sull'approfondimento dei personaggi; notevole inventiva narrativa, specialmente per quanto riguarda le varie razze di Barsoom.

[Ethan Knierim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do not have a review of Thuvia, Maid of Mars but my review of The Chessmen of Mars can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Brett Chaffins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I rather enjoyed the two stories. Mars has a lack of alliances if traveling is that hazardous. The character development through struggles was entertaining.

[Massimo Penazzi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gli albori della fantascienza. Commovente.

[Lindsay Stares · Rating 5 out of 5]

Premise: Books 4 and 5 of the Barsoom Series, following Warlord of Mars. John Carter has built an alliance over much of Mars, but there are still plenty of dangers to challenge the younger generation. These are the further adventures of the children of John Carter and Dejah Thoris.

Yes, these books are dated and silly and really repetitive, but I love them anyway.

I enjoyed Thuvia, Maid of Mars, which follows Cathoris (John Carter’s son) and Thuvia of Ptarth. Others try to keep them apart, and Thuvia quickly gains a stalkery admirer who kidnaps her and blames Cathoris. The young lovebirds have to rescue each other, escape, and get home in time to stop a war. It’s more of the same from the earlier books, although I still found it a really fun read with some new supporting characters and enjoyable action.

On the other hand, I really adored The Chessmen of Mars, which I think is best described as a fairy tale retold as a space opera adventure with romantic comedy elements.

I mean, here's the beginning: A princess meets a foreign prince at a ball. He seems to be just a rich jerk, so she won't give him the time of day, but he falls hard for her. The princesses' transport is caught in a storm and she's stranded halfway around the world, so the prince rushes after her. He suffers his own setbacks, and by the time they find each other, he's in disguise as a common soldier, and he swears himself to her service. More adventures, escapes, new friends, new enemies, and romantic banter follows.

I really enjoyed Tara of Helium (daughter of John and Dejah), she was strong and brave and honorable. It takes her time to love Gahan of Gathol, and I have a better sense of their romance than of some of the others in this series. While she doesn’t get as much time to be badass as I’d like, she is badass, and she gets more time following her point of view than the other ladies of Mars.

The humor in Chessmen of Mars tickled me as well. At times the narration seems to be having a great deal of fun with its own heightened romantic style.

I have been a huge sucker for the blend of chivalry, adventure, romance and wonder in these books so far, and I very much enjoyed the fourth and fifth entries in the series.

Thuvia, Maid of Mars - 4 Stars
The Chessmen of Mars - 5 Stars

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed these 2 tales of heroics on the planet Mars. I was worried that shifting the focus away from John Carter would diminish the excitement, but Burroughs had a talent for telling essentially the same story over and over, yet making it feel like a new adventure every time. I am still in awe by the forward thinking he put into these space age tales as he wrote them in the early 1900s. I tracked down the remaining six(!) novels of Barsoom and can't wait to revisit the dying world of Mars.

[Old Man Aries · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nel secondo volume del ciclo di Marte tornano John Carter e la sua sposa, assieme a nuovi personaggi (figli inclusi).La protagonista assoluta è però l'avventura, oltre alla geniale fantasia di Burroughs.Nel secondo volume del ciclo di Marte tornano John Carter e la sua sposa, assieme a nuovi personaggi (figli inclusi).La protagonista assoluta è però l'avventura, oltre alla geniale fantasia di Burroughs.

[Ting · Rating 3 out of 5]

A must for all sci-fi fans. Burroughs captures all the romance and adventure you would expect from a pulp writer, a really talented pulp writer. Chock full of plot twists, heroic exploits and derring-do, strange martian species, damsels in distress and incredibly brave, chivalrous, and masculine heroes. A page-turner and I loved every minute of it!

[Christian Freed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Typical ERB. Fast paced stories of adventure and slight romance. You can't fault the story due to the period in which it was written, but good lord is it difficult to follow with the switching povs without breaks. Still, I love a good ERB story.

[Rob Hilton]

Thuvia, Maid of Mars & the Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1972)

[Jack Teague · Rating 4 out of 5]

Barsoom,ERB,John Carter

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Chessman of Mars is a better story then Thuvia, Maid of Mars.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Out of the two stories in this one book, the better one was "The Chessmen of Mars"......long live Ghek!

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Burroughs, Mars, John Carter - what else needs to be said - great stuff