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Barsoom #8-9
Swords of Mars / Synthetic Men of Mars
In Swords of Mars: John Carter, determined to stamp out the practice of assassination on Mars, travels to the city where the dreaded assassins' guild has its headquarters. There he encounters the brilliant and evil inventor Fal Sivas, who has created a ship which for the first time can leave the planet to visit the moons of Mars. And there John Carter learns that Ur Jan, the insidious leader of the assassins has abducted the incomparable princess Dejah Thoris...
In Synthetic Men of Mars, John Carter sets out to find Ras Thavas, the only man on the planet able to heal the broken body of his beloved wife. In his way stand miles of perilous terrain, an army of sword-wielding zombies, and a horde of giant birds protecting the doctor's hidden kingdom. Carter braves all these dangers before he finally finds Ras Thavas-only to discover that the scientist is trapped by a horror he himself created: a growing, indestructible tissue which threatens to engulf the secret city and eventually the entire planet.
Book club edition
In Synthetic Men of Mars, John Carter sets out to find Ras Thavas, the only man on the planet able to heal the broken body of his beloved wife. In his way stand miles of perilous terrain, an army of sword-wielding zombies, and a horde of giant birds protecting the doctor's hidden kingdom. Carter braves all these dangers before he finally finds Ras Thavas-only to discover that the scientist is trapped by a horror he himself created: a growing, indestructible tissue which threatens to engulf the secret city and eventually the entire planet.
Book club edition
345 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1995
1 person is currently reading
101 people want to read
About the author
Edgar Rice Burroughs
2,717 books2,715 followersEdgar 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.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 12, 2024
Swords of Mars
The first novel in this double-novel set mostly takes place on Thuria, which we would call Phobos. One of the weirdest parts of this is not at all used weirdly in the story but definitely sets up the possibility for weirdness later. Everyone and everything on Thuria is proportionately sized for Thuria, which is tiny compared to Mars itself.
People change size as they travel from Mars to Thuria and from Thuria to Mars! This has literally no effect on the adventures of John Carter and his friends except to be a bit of very weird background.
And yes, this story returns to the narration of John Carter’s adventures by John Carter.
Thuria is, as the above quote implies, Barsoom in miniature. But there is much less of a focus on the grand intrigues of Barsoom and its conflicting cultures in this book. Instead, the conflict that comes to the fore is one that’s always been overshadowed in the past by those much more dangerous conflicts. Carter acquires a slave and cannot rid himself of her. He naturally trusts everyone, and so can’t trust anyone. Ultimately, he has to fall back on judging loyalty rather than honesty. Whenever he forgets this, he makes a big mistake, even, at the end, almost abandoning Dejah Thoris because he takes a blood enemy at face value.
A lot less happens in this story, even to the point of potential conflicts, such as his relationship with Ozara, his potential fight with the city of Ombra on Thuria, and even parts of dangerous passages through Thuria’s forests being bypassed completely or glossed over quickly.
Martian technology gets even weirder and more relevant in this one. The mad scientist of the book, Fal Sivas, is creating a synthetic/mechanical brain, based entirely on the human brain. He literally takes apart the brains of his captives and slaves to study them and construct a soulless brain to drive his flying vehicle and run his factory.
He’s literally creating a programmable AI for all the modern reasons and uses. He has a vision of machines making machines, forcing the human worker out of his factories and flooding the world with creations under his control.
His synthetic brain can be given simple programming and then will use its human-like reasoning to carry out that programming; it has no initiative, but it knows to avoid obstacles, adjust speeds, intercept moving targets, and so on. What it will not do is question its programming or anticipate new directives. It will, like any modern computer, do what it is told to do, even if it means disaster for the passengers.
Given that John Carter ends the story still in possession of the ship, it’ll be interesting to see if Burroughs refers back to it at all.
Synthetic Men of Mars
In at least two of these collections, Burroughs appears to have planned out his Mars books in pairs; the stories themselves—that is, the characters and locations—are unrelated, but the theme is very similar. Where Swords of Mars was about AI, Synthetic Men of Mars is about robotics in the very early sense: the manufacture of men.
Of course, it’s very weird robotics even given that, creating creatures sort of a cross between a man and a Lovecraftian shoggoth. Most of the creatures are recycled back into the protoplasm that spawned them as too useless to keep.
Burroughs does occasionally get into the weeds of Martian measurements in this book.
Which, given other information in this book (10,500 haads is about 4,000 miles) means that a zode is about 2-½ hours. Since a zode is one tenth of a Barsoomian day, this checks out with the actual rotation of Mars.
This book sees the return of Ras Thavas, the Master Mind of Mars from the book of that title. He continues to be a bit of an overly-focused mad scientist, reformed slightly into wanting to do right, but easily sidetracked into, say, creating monsters because it’s too interesting not to.
Which of course it is.
Like Swords of Mars, this is not quite as exciting as previous books, but (a) it is more so than Swords and (b) that’s a high bar. Synthetic Men is still exciting, weird, and weirdly exciting. And Burroughs continues to amaze me with his ability to take on a different aspect of romantic relationships on Barsoom. There’s a point toward the end where I wasn’t sure things were going to work out right for Vor Daj, but was still sure they were going to work out right from a different perspective.
Vor Daj is the narrator and hero of this story, a member of John Carter’s personal guard; he accompanies Carter on a mission to retrieve Ras Thavas because he’s the only surgeon on Mars skilled enough to save Dejah Thoris’s life. Carter’s greater responsibilities cause him to weave in and out of the story like a Tolkienish wizard. Much of the story is less about overcoming odds than about surviving them long enough for the wizard to return
The first novel in this double-novel set mostly takes place on Thuria, which we would call Phobos. One of the weirdest parts of this is not at all used weirdly in the story but definitely sets up the possibility for weirdness later. Everyone and everything on Thuria is proportionately sized for Thuria, which is tiny compared to Mars itself.
“There exists between Barsoom and her satellites a peculiar relation which I have called a compensatory adjustment of masses. For example, let us consider a mass traveling from Barsoom to Thuria. As it approaches the nearer moon, it varies directly as the influences of the planet and the satellite vary.”
People change size as they travel from Mars to Thuria and from Thuria to Mars! This has literally no effect on the adventures of John Carter and his friends except to be a bit of very weird background.
And yes, this story returns to the narration of John Carter’s adventures by John Carter.
Thuria is, as the above quote implies, Barsoom in miniature. But there is much less of a focus on the grand intrigues of Barsoom and its conflicting cultures in this book. Instead, the conflict that comes to the fore is one that’s always been overshadowed in the past by those much more dangerous conflicts. Carter acquires a slave and cannot rid himself of her. He naturally trusts everyone, and so can’t trust anyone. Ultimately, he has to fall back on judging loyalty rather than honesty. Whenever he forgets this, he makes a big mistake, even, at the end, almost abandoning Dejah Thoris because he takes a blood enemy at face value.
A lot less happens in this story, even to the point of potential conflicts, such as his relationship with Ozara, his potential fight with the city of Ombra on Thuria, and even parts of dangerous passages through Thuria’s forests being bypassed completely or glossed over quickly.
The most remarkable feature of the following two days was the fact that we survived them.
Martian technology gets even weirder and more relevant in this one. The mad scientist of the book, Fal Sivas, is creating a synthetic/mechanical brain, based entirely on the human brain. He literally takes apart the brains of his captives and slaves to study them and construct a soulless brain to drive his flying vehicle and run his factory.
He’s literally creating a programmable AI for all the modern reasons and uses. He has a vision of machines making machines, forcing the human worker out of his factories and flooding the world with creations under his control.
His synthetic brain can be given simple programming and then will use its human-like reasoning to carry out that programming; it has no initiative, but it knows to avoid obstacles, adjust speeds, intercept moving targets, and so on. What it will not do is question its programming or anticipate new directives. It will, like any modern computer, do what it is told to do, even if it means disaster for the passengers.
Given that John Carter ends the story still in possession of the ship, it’ll be interesting to see if Burroughs refers back to it at all.
“It all sounds like a mad dream to me,” said Jat Or.
“I fully agree with you,” I replied, “but you will have to admit that it is going to be a most interesting dream.”
Synthetic Men of Mars
In at least two of these collections, Burroughs appears to have planned out his Mars books in pairs; the stories themselves—that is, the characters and locations—are unrelated, but the theme is very similar. Where Swords of Mars was about AI, Synthetic Men of Mars is about robotics in the very early sense: the manufacture of men.
Of course, it’s very weird robotics even given that, creating creatures sort of a cross between a man and a Lovecraftian shoggoth. Most of the creatures are recycled back into the protoplasm that spawned them as too useless to keep.
Burroughs does occasionally get into the weeds of Martian measurements in this book.
The malagors flew swiftly and smoothly. My guess would be that they flew at a speed of more than four hundred haads a zode (about sixty miles an hour).
Which, given other information in this book (10,500 haads is about 4,000 miles) means that a zode is about 2-½ hours. Since a zode is one tenth of a Barsoomian day, this checks out with the actual rotation of Mars.
This book sees the return of Ras Thavas, the Master Mind of Mars from the book of that title. He continues to be a bit of an overly-focused mad scientist, reformed slightly into wanting to do right, but easily sidetracked into, say, creating monsters because it’s too interesting not to.
Which of course it is.
Like Swords of Mars, this is not quite as exciting as previous books, but (a) it is more so than Swords and (b) that’s a high bar. Synthetic Men is still exciting, weird, and weirdly exciting. And Burroughs continues to amaze me with his ability to take on a different aspect of romantic relationships on Barsoom. There’s a point toward the end where I wasn’t sure things were going to work out right for Vor Daj, but was still sure they were going to work out right from a different perspective.
Vor Daj is the narrator and hero of this story, a member of John Carter’s personal guard; he accompanies Carter on a mission to retrieve Ras Thavas because he’s the only surgeon on Mars skilled enough to save Dejah Thoris’s life. Carter’s greater responsibilities cause him to weave in and out of the story like a Tolkienish wizard. Much of the story is less about overcoming odds than about surviving them long enough for the wizard to return
“Come,” said Ras Thavas, “to the spawning of the monsters. We may be needed.”
January 23, 2025
Il volume contiene i romanzi "Le spade di Marte" e "Gli uomini sintetici di Marte", rispettivamente ottavo e nono capitolo del ciclo di Barsoom. Siamo quasi alla fine.
John Carter torna da protagonista nel primo, in una missione di spionaggio ed eliminazione che presto si tramuta in un'odissea spaziale. Il nostro è infatti costretto a volare fino a Thuria, una delle lune di Marte. Qui Burroughs spinge oltre ogni limite il concetto di "sospensione dell'incredulità", e si inventa un principio secondo cui, se un corpo viaggia verso una massa planetaria più piccola, si rimpicciolisce esso stesso. Tutto questo per far sì che la piccola luna di Marte (che credo sia Phobos in questo caso) poi risulti un grande pianeta ai miniaturizzati protagonisti... Era troppo avanti quest'uomo :)
Il secondo romanzo introduce un nuovo protagonista e ripesca qualche vecchia conoscenza. È una storia intricata di scambi di cervelli e minacce planetarie da giudizio universale, ma complessivamente godibile.
Nel complesso l'infrastruttura delle storie è oramai immutabile: c'è l'eroe, una damigella in pericolo che ne è innamorata (o se ne innamora nel mentre), un villain malvagio, e azione a rotta di collo condensata in brevi capitoli dove succede di tutto e di più.
La formula è chiaramente trita e ritrita, e immagino che già ai tempi l'effetto wow del primo romanzo non sia più stato replicato nei successivi capitoli della saga.
Rimane una lettura leggera e una piacevole distrazione, ma mi sento di dire non indispensabile, se non per completare il ciclo.
John Carter torna da protagonista nel primo, in una missione di spionaggio ed eliminazione che presto si tramuta in un'odissea spaziale. Il nostro è infatti costretto a volare fino a Thuria, una delle lune di Marte. Qui Burroughs spinge oltre ogni limite il concetto di "sospensione dell'incredulità", e si inventa un principio secondo cui, se un corpo viaggia verso una massa planetaria più piccola, si rimpicciolisce esso stesso. Tutto questo per far sì che la piccola luna di Marte (che credo sia Phobos in questo caso) poi risulti un grande pianeta ai miniaturizzati protagonisti... Era troppo avanti quest'uomo :)
Il secondo romanzo introduce un nuovo protagonista e ripesca qualche vecchia conoscenza. È una storia intricata di scambi di cervelli e minacce planetarie da giudizio universale, ma complessivamente godibile.
Nel complesso l'infrastruttura delle storie è oramai immutabile: c'è l'eroe, una damigella in pericolo che ne è innamorata (o se ne innamora nel mentre), un villain malvagio, e azione a rotta di collo condensata in brevi capitoli dove succede di tutto e di più.
La formula è chiaramente trita e ritrita, e immagino che già ai tempi l'effetto wow del primo romanzo non sia più stato replicato nei successivi capitoli della saga.
Rimane una lettura leggera e una piacevole distrazione, ma mi sento di dire non indispensabile, se non per completare il ciclo.
August 16, 2018
Come al solito l'autore è inventore di una trama godibilissima sia nel primo che nel secondo libro. L'unica cosa non essermi piaciuta è il motivo per il quale secondo libro incomincia, la restituzione della spina dorsale funzionante della principessa solo perché purtroppo ai giorni nostri ancora non siamo in grado di rimediare a un tale danno.
Per il resto consiglio a tutti di leggere le avventure del nostro eroe a partire dal primo libro perché si tratta davvero di qualcosa di unico.
Per il resto consiglio a tutti di leggere le avventure del nostro eroe a partire dal primo libro perché si tratta davvero di qualcosa di unico.
February 5, 2023
Gli albori della fantascienza. Commovente.
August 31, 2024
John Carter is the best name for a warlord of Mars
March 25, 2015
I gave this book top marks, largely because this was the first book I read in this series way back when I was in high school and the Frazetta artwork fired by young imagination. It's sort of an uneven pairing since "Swords of Mars" is one of the stronger entries in the series and actually stars John Carter, and "Synthetic Men of Mars" adds up a weaker entry.
To other, I highly recommend reading the series in order. I was just being totally random and read the first one I found in the library. Still, it made for a good first taste of the Sword and Planet experience that Burroughs did so much to help create.
"Swords of Mars" is actually an interesting deviation in the series because it has John Carter engaging in a cloak & dagger mission to put an end to a criminal enterprise, rather than just the mad balls-to-the-walls type adventure we're used to from him. Of course, it's also got a mad scientist and John Carter sword fighting all over the place.
"Synthetic Men of Mars" is more of a throw-away, which starts off with some decent concepts, but the conclusion is disappointing.
The bottom line is that this is still great vintage stuff, and the Frazetta illustrations are among his best.
To other, I highly recommend reading the series in order. I was just being totally random and read the first one I found in the library. Still, it made for a good first taste of the Sword and Planet experience that Burroughs did so much to help create.
"Swords of Mars" is actually an interesting deviation in the series because it has John Carter engaging in a cloak & dagger mission to put an end to a criminal enterprise, rather than just the mad balls-to-the-walls type adventure we're used to from him. Of course, it's also got a mad scientist and John Carter sword fighting all over the place.
"Synthetic Men of Mars" is more of a throw-away, which starts off with some decent concepts, but the conclusion is disappointing.
The bottom line is that this is still great vintage stuff, and the Frazetta illustrations are among his best.
October 3, 2011
both of these books are excellent examples of pulp science fiction...i love the barsoom books for all of the imagination it took to write them...but pertaining to these two books swords of mars is a much better novel then synthetic men of mars...swords is about john carter and told from his point of view...it is action packed and moves along very quickly...synthetic men is a story about a soilder of john carters who's brain is put into a synthetic mans body...it drags on alot and the ending is almost to abrupt for all the work you put into reading and keeping the characters straight...would give five stars to swords but only 2 stars to synthetic...
September 30, 2014
These were the first John Carter stories I read and was so entranced and enchanted by the world that Edgar Rice Burroughs created that I went out and hunted down every single book from the series. These are 8& 9 of 12. Amazing Sci-Fi fantasy that was so ahead of its time. Disney screwed up big time with marketing the movie. It wasn't dead on but pretty close. John Carter remains to this day one of my favorite hero's and love that they are writing new stories in Comic Books now. I've read these books 2-3 times.
March 16, 2012
(This is really a review of "The Synthetic Men of Mars," not both, as the book by itself wasn't in the system)
The concept was really good, and John Carter takes a large, though not central role, in this one. But Vor Daj, the main character, wasn't particularly interesting. Nor was Jania, his love interest - she seemed more of a token princess, rather than an awesome character like Thuvia or Tavia. But I enjoyed the story at least, a good, fast read.
The concept was really good, and John Carter takes a large, though not central role, in this one. But Vor Daj, the main character, wasn't particularly interesting. Nor was Jania, his love interest - she seemed more of a token princess, rather than an awesome character like Thuvia or Tavia. But I enjoyed the story at least, a good, fast read.
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August 22, 2008Synthetic Men of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
June 7, 2010
Barsoom,ERB,John Carter
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews