Introduction
You often seek an escape from the rigid confines of earthly existence into grand adventures of physical mastery and alien conquest. Edgar Rice Burroughs presents a universe where a displaced soldier defies impossible odds on a dying, hostile world.
A Civil War veteran finds himself transported to a dying Mars, where he becomes a champion and leader in the midst of interplanetary wars and brutal alien societies.
The book follows John Carter from an Arizona cave to the low-gravity surface of Barsoom, detailing his encounters with towering green nomads and civilized red kingdoms. You will discover how a stranger navigates ruthless tribal customs, wins the loyalty of fierce beasts, and fights to save a dying civilization from asphyxiation.
Can an earthman conquer the brutal warrior codes of green nomads? Will you survive the deadly arenas and vast deserts of Barsoom? How does a desperate champion unite warring alien races to save the planet?
1. The Arizona Cave and Arrival on Mars
At the close of the Civil War, John Carter possessed several hundred thousand dollars in Confederate currency and a cavalry captain's commission. Alongside Captain James K. Powell, he located a massive gold-bearing quartz vein in Arizona.
Carter and Powell uncovered over a million dollars worth of ore in a trifle over three months. When Powell failed to return from a supply trip, Carter tracked three unshod Apache ponies across the Arizona desert and discovered that Powell had been ambushed and killed.
John Carter transitions from an earthly prospector to a superhuman warrior on a low-gravity planet.
Carter found Powell's body bristling with hostile arrows on an open plateau near the summit of a mountain pass. Seeking refuge in a cave at the end of a mountain trail while fleeing pursuers, Carter was overcome by a mysterious vapor.
Carter found his lifeless clay body lying on the floor of the cave while his conscious, naked form stood apart from it. His dead body lay undiscovered in the Arizona cave for ten years.
Because Martian muscles are adapted to a lower gravitational pull, an Earth man's muscular strength causes him to leap incredible distances. You will see that Carter's initial jump carried him three yards into the Martian air.
2. Green Martian Society and Captivity
Green Martians live a brutal, communal existence ruled by strict martial customs and devoid of parental affection.
You encounter green inhabitants standing between ten and fifteen feet tall. They feature three rows of tusks and can look in multiple directions independently with protruding eyes. Tars Tarkas and his war party approach Carter mounted on ten-foot-tall eight-legged beasts while brandishing forty-foot metal-tipped spears.
Mars has two very close moons that orbit rapidly and create extreme temperature fluctuations. The nearer moon completes a revolution in just over seven and one-half hours, hurtling through the sky like a meteor.
You discover that green Martians are entirely devoid of finer sentiments like friendship or affection. Carter uses an earthly fist strike and a cudgel to kill an enraged bull ape that is attacking his faithful watch-beast, subsequently preventing a Martian warrior from shooting the creature.
Telepathy serves as a universal language that accounts for the extreme simplicity of spoken vocabulary. The community travels in a grand cavalcade of chariots drawn by enormous mastodonian draft animals to retrieve newly hatched offspring from distant wastelands. Under the leadership of Lorquas Ptomel, a caravan of about two hundred and fifty vehicles travels to the incubator site.
Eggs lie in subterranean vaults for five years before being transferred to solar-heated incubators. You watch the hatchlings run the gauntlet:
- Form two solid walls of women and younger Martians leading out through chariots onto the plain
- Let the little Martians run the full length of the aisle like wild deer
- Capture the little ones one at a time as they reach the end of the gauntlet, with the last person capturing the first arrival and so on
The green Martian society enforces a pitiless child-rearing system designed strictly to cull the weak on a dying world.
Children are communal property with unknown parents. Sola captures a four-foot-tall male child to raise and teach alongside John Carter, despite having no prior children of her own. Carter masters basic communication within a week under Sola's intense tutoring in a spirit of keen rivalry. While he can catch others' telepathic messages, no Martian can read a single thought from his mind.
Warriors employ a highly specialized system of target allocation during airship attacks. During an attack by twenty gray-painted airships, the green Martian warriors systematically crippled the entire fleet within twenty minutes through this disciplined division of target objectives. Captured airships are looted of arms, ammunition, silks, furs, jewels, and water casks. Following the battle, the green warriors emptied carboys over the dead crew of the disabled ship, ignited it with a missile, released the guy ropes, and watched it drift away as a burning wreck.
Society operates without written laws, codes, or lawyers, relying instead on immediate custom and peer juries. When John Carter kills a green warrior in single combat to defend Dejah Thoris, he automatically inherits the dead man's metal, rank, and accouterments under Martian custom.
3. Companionship and Red Martian Science
Genuine affection and gentle treatment override a fierce creature's programming and duties.
You can transform a deadly calot like Woola into an absolute slave. Sit upon the ground near the animal, put arms around its heavy neck and stroke and coax it, and speak in an authoritative tone to command it to follow. John Carter sat outside city limits, stroked and petted Woola, and talked to him like an earthly hound.
Red Martians send out research expeditions to rechart air currents and test atmospheric density to preserve the dying planet's remaining air and water supply against depletion. Dejah Thoris explains to Lorquas Ptomel that her expedition from Helium was a purely scientific research party.
Martians have spent ages perfecting instruments capable of projecting high-detail images of events happening on distant stars and planets onto screens for study and enlargement. Dejah Thoris demonstrates a deep familiarity with Earth because schoolboys on Barsoom study images captured via these planetary viewing instruments.
The red Martian race emerged from the forced alliance and intermarrying of three ancient, distinct populations over a hundred thousand years since ancient progenitors flourished. As Martian seas dried up, the fair-haired people, a very dark black race, and a reddish-yellow race intermarried over ages to form the modern red race. Dejah Thoris describes how ancient cities like Korad originally sat upon landlocked harbors.
Lorquas Ptomel is strictly forbidden from executing other members without direct orders from Tal Hajus, except under two exact conditions. He warns John Carter that he awaits an escape attempt or a personal self-defense attack to rid the community of his presence.
Green Martians own all property in common except personal weapons, ornaments, and sleeping furs. Mating is directed strictly by the council of chieftains like animal breeding to improve the horde. When John Carter kills two chieftains, their retinues of women and youths automatically become his property by tribal custom.
You can successfully tame and manage thoats through humane treatment rather than constant violence.
Native warriors beat vicious thoats between the ears with pistol butts until they either submitted or killed their riders. John Carter establishes mutual trust and affection instead.
- First teach the thoat that it cannot unseat the rider by rapping it sharply between the ears to establish mastery.
- Gradually win the confidence of the animal through consistent humane treatment.
John Carter demonstrates this by placing his arm between the jaws of his thoat to remove a wedged stone, prompting Lorquas Ptomel to demand he teach the method to the entire horde. Martian bullets utilize an opaque outer coating covering a glass cylinder containing a minute particle of radium powder that explodes upon impact in sunlight. Exposure to sunlight instantly triggers an explosion with irresistible violence.
Tars Tarkas explains that because John Carter will not escape without Dejah Thoris and is too powerful a fighter to easily manacle, they bind Dejah Thoris by the ankle as a practical security measure. Tars Tarkas eventually takes custody of the key from Sarkoja and secretly unfastens Dejah Thoris' fetters himself each night.
While destroying a Warhoon incubator, Tars Tarkas explains that newly laid eggs are little larger than ordinary goose eggs and only grow to enormous proportions during a five-year period of incubation under the sun. The Thark warriors smash all the small eggs inside with their short-swords.
During John Carter's sword fight to the death with the hulking warrior Zad within a one hundred feet diameter clear space, a blinding flash hits his eyes. Sarkoja uses a tiny mirror to blind him, but Dejah Thoris knocks it from her hand and Sola deflects a dagger blow with her metal breast ornament.
Sola reveals that she is the secret daughter of Tars Tarkas and an executed mother who defied tribal customs to preserve her. Sola explains how her mother and father loved in secret for six years before forty years of tragic separation, how her egg was hidden in an ancient ruined tower, and how Sarkoja betrayed her.
4. Escapes, Arenas, and the Atmosphere Plant
Escaping captivity leads Carter through deadly arenas, hostile hordes, and the vital global atmosphere factory.
Dejah Thoris creates the first map of Barsoomian territory for John Carter by scratching lines with a large diamond from her hair upon a marble floor, showing waterways as long straight lines and cities as circles. John Carter successfully enters a restless paddock of fierce thoats at night and leads his animals out silently by relying on the trust and affection he previously established with them.
When a subordinate chieftain insults or challenges a jeddak, the ruler responds by attacking him bare-handed, tearing at each other until one is killed and the victor claims the title. Dak Kova challenges the young jeddak Bar Comas of Warhoon, leading to a brutal bare-handed duel where Bar Comas is ripped open and killed before Dak Kova assumes the title. Ten thousand in number compose the Warhoon horde returning from the expedition.
Prolonged imprisonment in absolute darkness filled with creeping creatures causes severe psychological strain and temporary mental breakdown unless the captive maintains focus and seizes an opportunity for action. John Carter is chained in an inky black dungeon in Warhoon filled with creeping creatures, nearly losing his reason before killing his jailer for keys.
Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium, dispatches seven great fleets of one hundred war ships each, maintaining two thousand smaller craft in search of Dejah Thoris. Seven hundred officers and men form the original crew of Kantos Kan's vessel, leaving ten survivors on board after reaching Helium thirty days after the capture.
Captives and wild creatures are housed in cages around a subterranean amphitheater and forced to fight in elimination matches where only the final victor earns freedom. The twenty thousand Warhoons assemble in a subterranean amphitheater where prisoners, females, and beasts are pitted against each other in daily elimination contests lasting ten days.
When faced with a giant adversary in single combat, a smaller fighter can throw their sword point-first overhand to pierce the opponent's heart at a distance. Kantos Kan defeats a giant green warrior sixteen feet tall in the Warhoon arena by throwing his sword point-first into the giant's heart from twenty feet away.
- Come within about twenty feet of the adversary.
- Throw the sword arm far behind over the shoulder.
- Hurl the weapon point foremost at the opponent with a mighty sweep.
Combatants in a staged arena battle can fake a fatal wound by letting a friendly opponent slip a blade harmlessly past the body into the sand, allowing the victor to claim freedom and slip away after dark. John Carter and Kantos Kan fake a fatal thrust in the arena, allowing Carter to fall into the sand as if dead while Kantos Kan claims freedom and escapes into the hills.
The entire atmosphere of Mars is sustained by a single massive isolated plant operated by two men and powered by the ninth ray. The atmosphere plant covers four square miles, towers two hundred feet high, and has walls one hundred and fifty feet thick protected by a five-foot glass roof. The process uses twenty radium pumps in a battery to separate the ninth ray from solar radiation in large reservoirs. Three hundred and forty-four days marks the length of time each man spends alone on watch during a Martian year, while an eight-hundred-year duration has passed since the keeper first watched the pumps. One thousand years of the ninth ray reserve remain stored in the plant.
John Carter discovers this isolated plant after a fifteen-day desert trek and meets the ancient keeper who has watched the twenty radium pumps for eight hundred years.
The massive doors of the atmosphere plant are locked and unlocked entirely through telepathic commands using a specific combination of thought waves. Nine Martian thought waves are required to open the doors, bypassing the twenty-foot steel portals without physical keys. John Carter learns the nine thought waves from his host's mind and uses them to force open the massive portals to escape.
Red Martian residences are raised forty to fifty feet into the air at night using a tiny radium engine to protect against assassination, while doors are left unbolted because thievery is virtually unknown. John Carter stays with three Ptor brothers who are government farm officers occupying houses raised on metal columns.
Martian currency consists of oval metal coins and individual paper money that must be redeemed twice yearly by the issuer. The Ptor brothers fill a sack at John Carter's side with Zodangan oval money before he departs for the city.
5. Conquest of Zodanga and Global Crisis
Martian aircraft achieve flight and buoyancy by harnessing the eighth ray, which acts as a force of repulsion against the planet's gravity. The eighth ray is an inherent property of all light and streams outward from Mars into space, creating a natural repulsion of gravity. When harnessed within the metal hulls and reservoirs of air vessels, this ray allows battleships and one-man fliers to sail smoothly through the thin Martian atmosphere. John Carter learns to operate a one-man air craft consisting of a sixteen-foot metal body propelled by a noiseless radium engine. The body measures two feet wide and three inches thick, while an ancient runaway battleship orbits as a tiny satellite ten thousand miles from Mars.
Zodanga and Helium are locked in an unpopular war initiated by Zodangan leadership, with Dejah Thoris held as a hostage for peace. Prince Sab Than of Zodanga has hidden Dejah Thoris in the city and forced her to agree to a voluntary marriage as the sole condition for ending the war. Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium, refuses the alliance, stating his people would rather see their princess dead than wed to an enemy. Kantos Kan and John Carter discuss the political crisis in a Zodangan cafe before joining the air-scout squadron to find the princess. Kantos Kan stays in Zodanga for three days prior to meeting John Carter.
On Barsoom, a woman's public promise of marriage is absolute and final, overriding any previous romantic declarations.
Once a woman promises herself to a suitor to save her people or fulfill a custom, the pledge cannot be broken, and subsequent ceremonies are treated as mere formalities. Furthermore, a woman may not wed a man who slays her husband, even in self-defense. Dejah Thoris rejects John Carter's renewed proposal of marriage, explaining that her promise to Sab Than is binding under Martian law.
To save a loved one from a forced political marriage, an individual must bypass heavily guarded military lines using sheer audacity and resourcefulness. John Carter scales a thousand-foot barracks wall using an air-sailor's hook and strap, overpowers a sentry, steals air-scout machines, and navigates secret palace corridors to reach Dejah Thoris before her wedding. John Carter scales the Zodangan barracks by throwing his landing hook over the eaves and swinging across a thousand-foot drop. The barracks rise one thousand feet with eaves projecting twenty feet, while the secret pinnacle entrance allows travel in five minutes.
Exposing a tyrannical and cowardly leader through public confrontation enables a righteous warrior to claim legitimate leadership. John Carter interrupts Tal Hajus in front of the assembled chieftains, calls him out as a coward who hides while others fight, and champions Tars Tarkas as the rightful jeddak, resulting in a fatal duel that places Tars Tarkas in power. John Carter publicly shames Tal Hajus before twenty chieftains of Thark, prompting Lorquas Ptomel to call for a duel in which Tars Tarkas defeats Tal Hajus.
A charismatic leader can unite disparate, hostile factions by promising them a common enemy and the prospect of substantial loot. Tars Tarkas leverages the promise of Helium's alliance and the loot of Zodanga to unite one hundred and fifty thousand green warriors from multiple hordes, setting aside their traditional blood feuds. Tars Tarkas enlists fifty thousand additional warriors from various hordes over ten days, bringing a total of one hundred and fifty thousand green warriors to march on Zodanga. The initial force stands at one hundred thousand strong.
Formidable fortifications can be breached from within by utilizing cooperative physical scaling and exploiting unguarded secondary entry points. John Carter uses a human pyramid of green warriors to reach the top of a seventy-five-foot carborundum wall, lowers a strap to pull up his men, and opens the gates from the inside. John Carter has ten green warriors form a three-step human pyramid against the Zodangan wall, allowing him to leap to the top, drop a strap, and open the gate for the army. The wall measures seventy-five feet high and fifty feet thick, with the topmost warrior reaching forty feet. You can execute this breach using precise tactical steps:
- Place three warriors with their faces to the wall and arms locked.
- Command two more warriors to mount to their shoulders.
- Order a sixth warrior to climb upon the shoulders of the upper two to reach over forty feet.
- Run swiftly up the tiers and leap to the top of the wall.
A forced wedding ceremony provides a prime tactical window for rescue when the primary antagonists are gathered in one public place. During a formal nuptial ceremony in the Zodangan audience chamber, John Carter shatters the window with his sword hilt, disrupts the wedding of Dejah Thoris and Sab Than, and slays the ruling monarchs. John Carter breaks into Than Kosis's audience chamber during the wedding of Dejah Thoris and Sab Than, shatters the golden chain with his long-sword, and kills both Than Kosis and Sab Than during the ensuing battle.
Combined warfare utilizing both aerial dreadnoughts and ground-level marksmen can decisively overwhelm a besieging naval force. The joint forces of Helium's navy and the green Martian warriors' small-arm fire quickly dismantle the Zodangan fleet besieging Helium, leading to a traditional mass surrender by the defeated commanders. A fleet of two hundred and fifty battleships carrying green warriors attacks the Zodangan besieging fleet outside Helium, working in tandem with Helium's twin cities' airships. The fleet carries one hundred thousand green warriors during the one-hour aerial battle.
Extended periods of domestic happiness can be abruptly shattered by catastrophic systemic failures affecting an entire planet. After nine years of service and family life in Helium, John Carter receives news that the keeper of the atmosphere plant has been murdered and the engine has stopped, leaving the planet only three days to live. Tardos Mors summons the council to announce that the atmosphere plant's wireless reports have ceased, the assistant keeper's mutilated body was found, and the air pressure is rapidly dropping worldwide. Two days have passed since the last report.
Crisis situations can summon dormant memory reflexes that provide the exact key needed to avert global disaster.
Faced with the imminent asphyxiation of all life on Mars, John Carter remembers a series of nine long-forgotten sounds that serve as the key to the atmosphere plant's three great doors, racing there by scout flier to restart the pumps. John Carter flies to the atmosphere plant on a fast scout flier as citizens collapse into comas, uses the nine thought waves to open the massive doors, and instructs a surviving worker to turn on the pumps.
Carter spends twenty years yearning for his Martian family after returning unexpectedly to Earth. After being transported back to his earthly body in the Arizona cave, Carter finds his old mine has made him wealthy, but he remains haunted by memories of Dejah Thoris and his life on Mars. Carter sits in his study overlooking the Hudson River twenty years after first opening his eyes on Mars, believing his Martian family is waiting for him forty-eight million miles away.
10 Key Ideas
- John Carter transitions from an earthly prospector to a superhuman warrior on a low-gravity planet.
- Green Martians live a brutal, communal existence ruled by strict martial customs and devoid of parental affection.
- Genuine affection and gentle treatment override a fierce creature's programming and duties.
- Escaping captivity leads Carter through deadly arenas, hostile hordes, and the vital global atmosphere factory.
- On Barsoom, a woman's public promise of marriage is absolute and final, overriding any previous romantic declarations.
- Carter finds his lifeless clay body lying on the floor of the cave while his conscious, naked form stood apart from it.
- The green Martian society enforces a pitiless child-rearing system designed strictly to cull the weak on a dying world.
- You can successfully tame and manage thoats through humane treatment rather than constant violence.
- Martian aircraft achieve flight and buoyancy by harnessing the eighth ray, which acts as a force of repulsion against the planet's gravity.
- Crisis situations can summon dormant memory reflexes that provide the exact key needed to avert global disaster.