I apologize for that, the reviews will happen, don’t worry gentle readers, to tide you over for the immortals here’s a review of “Thuvia Maid of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
“Thuvia Maid of Mars” is the fourth book in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars or Barsoom series. This series is only second to the Tarzan series in Burroughs’ oeuvre, and has been largely forgotten by the general public. Whereas you can walk up to any American and they’ll know who Tarzan is, if you walk up to an average American they would have absolutely no clue who or what Barsoom or John Carter are.
With that all in mind, let’s refresh shall we? The first book called “The Princess of Mars”, John Carter was an ex-confederate soldier who was hunting for gold in Arizona when he is suddenly attacked by Indians and miraculously astrally projects himself to Mars.
On Mars, John Carter meets Dejah Thoris, the beautiful Red Martian, the “princess” of the books title. Of course when Carter meets her she’s being attacked by giant green four armed creatures, called Tharks, the Green Martians of Mars.
Burroughs mars is a wacky place, it’s full of four armed white apes, Red Martians, Yellow Martians, Black Martians. It’s a world where swords, are used right along side pistols, and ships can fly. Remember the first book was written in 1912, well before there were such things as science fiction.
Carter quickly finds that due to the difference between Earth’s gravity and Mars, he can leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Of course Carter our scrappy hero, wins the heart of Dejah Thoris, and in the second and third books unites Mars(or Barsoom as the Martians call it) and becomes the warlord of Mars.
Let’s be perfectly clear here Burroughs was not a terribly good writer, imaginative, yes, good? Not so much. He relies very heavily on formula and the same plot. We can’t, exactly hold this against him of course, he was writing for the pulps, and when you are writing under that time frame it’s understandable you’re going to rely on what works, and what is the fastest to write.
Which brings us to the fourth Barsoom book, “Thuvia Maid of Mars”. What’s interesting here, is that the main characters of the book are not John Carter or Dejah Thoris, but their son Cathoris, and Thuvia a feisty minor character you meet in the second Mars book.
Our story opens with Thuvia in her home city of Ptarth, where Our Villain Astok Prince of neighboring city state Dusar tries to subject himself to Thuvai, she rebuffs him, but he still is not getting the hint, and Cathoris leaps to her rescue. Astok leaves, like a whiny little bitch and swears revenge.
After the commotion, Cathoris professes his love for Thuvia, but she of course is betrothed to another. This breaks Cathoris’ little heart, but he being a man of chilvary, decides he’s just going to go home.
Astok, then complicates matters by up and kidnapping Thuvia, and implicating Cathoris in the process. When Cathoris hears about this he jumps to the ready to find Thuvia and the adventure begins.
So we’ve got all the Burroughs plot elements, we’ve got the lecherous villain, in Astok. We’ve got Thuvia, he heroine who needs to be rescued, and we’ve got our noble hero, who after finding out that Thuvia has been kidnapped leaps into his flyer to save her, not out of some sense that maybe this will lead to her loving him, but literally he’s just doing it to keep her safe.
It’s like those day dreams I used to have when I was twelve, a cute girl in my sixth grade class would be threatened by bullies, space aliens, monsters, what have you, and I would swoop down in my jet pack, and it was always a jet pack. Save the girl from the threat. The girl would inevitably swoon, and fall head over heels for me, and offer a kiss, I would decline opting out of the kiss and flying into the heavens on another adventure. Which leads me to conclude that I would most likely be more neurotic than I am had I read these books when I was twelve.
Cathoris eventually finds Thuvia in a broken down flier, and being attacked by Green Martians. Cathoris gives chase, which eventually leads him to a hidden valley in one of the dead seas of Barsoom. The Green Men are suddenly attacked by the Lotharians and millions upon millions of archers, and Banths(a kind of six legged lion).
Cathoris having inherited some of Dad’s special gravity defying tricks (I think if I tried to figure out how this happened my brain might explode) leaps into the fray and saves Thuvia from the hands of the Green Martians who are quickly being decimated by those damn archers.
Cathoris and Thuvia escape. And Thuvia of course thinks Cathoris is the one at fault for kidnapping her. Which if you apply logic to the situation wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense. Thuvia implies that Cathoris had 1) Thuvia kidnapped, 2) Had his crew attacked by the Green Martians and 3) Risked his own neck to save her. I guess it’s not THAT far fetched, considering from what it sounds like, that’s exactly the type of plan most people on Barsoom come up with. Also, Thuvia gives in to her baser tempers every so often, so she’s just in the heat of the moment.
It should be pointed out here, that Thuvia is interesting because she’s a little bit feistier than most Burroughs’ heroines, resembling Burroughs other famous female character Jane in some of the later Tarzan books. Thuvia is feisty, self sufficient, and has this crazy ability to hypnotize lions, which is a nice little trick and gets Burroughs out of some narrative log jams in the story.
However, like all Burroughs female characters she still has to be saved by Cathoris, how the hell else are you expecting them to fall in love? Talking over a game of Jetan (martian version of chess)?
Despite Thuvia’s reticence about Cathoris they make their way to the city of Lothar, which is a lost city of Barsoom, where as the population started to die out, and by constant attacks from the Green Martians they’ve developed this technique of creating imaginary people, namely the archers. There’s a fun little moment where Cathoris asks what the hell is going on with this wacky place and the Lotharian tells them that are two factions of the Lotharians, the “etherialists” who believe there is no such thing as matter, only mind and the “realists” who believe the opposite. This weirds Cathorsis out. Which is amusing because the weird barometer on Barsoom is pretty high, so when something wigs a Martian out, it’s gotta be pretty strange.
Thuvai and Cathoris are separated but, Thuvia manages to escape the clutches of the Lotharians. Cathoris makes a new friend in Koar the once imaginary archer/ ancient legendary hero of the Lotharians. They after Thuvia and just when it looks like things are going to be okay, Thuvia is kidnapped by Astok.
Poor Thuvia suffers so much abuse in this book, that you could call the book “Thuvia and no good, very horrible, rotten day”, but considering through the first half, she’s insufferably annoying, I wouldn’t call the book that, I also wouldn’t call Thuvia poor either, I mean everybody wants to marry this chick, even though she’s a spoiled brat.
Meanwhile the implication of Cathoris as kidnapping Thuvia has literally set Barsoom on the brink of a civil war. Ptharth Thuvia’s city is sending its battle ships against Helium (Cathorsis’ city), and things look really bad.
I’m not entirely sure what Ptarth thinks it can accomplish, John Carter is of course the Warlord of Mars and he lives in Helium, he knows the Black Men of Barsoom, the Yellow Men, and they will all rally behind him, unless Ptarth just feels like getting their ass handed to them because of a slight of honor, which again makes some Barsoomian sense of logic, but wouldn’t make any strategic sense.
In other Burroughs touch Cathoris impersonates a Panthan(read Ronin). And of course through a series of events Cathoris and Koar manage to kill Astok, and they are running into the fray of the civil war, when they come across the Green Men attacking a ship. Cathoris being the most honorable man in the universe swings down to save him, and in an amusing plot contrivance it happens to be Kulan Tith Thuvia’s intended betrothed. Thanks to Cathoris, well, really thanks to Koar who without his imaginary warriors Cathoris would not have beaten back the Green Martians. Even more amusingly, Koar runs with his archers after the Green Men. Never to be seen again.
Cathoris professes his love for Thuvia, and Thuvia nearly cries because she realizes she does love Cathoris. Kulan Tith over hears all of this and instead of being pissed off that his bride to be doesn’t love him, he takes the higher road and says that’s okay, that it’s better to be with the one you love, and I won’t marry Thuvia.
And the book ends.
WAIT? WHAT? That’s it? I mean, okay, I can infer that the civil war was averted and Cathorsis and Thuvai got married, and may have had kids, but, I mean, it’s not like there are very good communication systems on Barsoom. Did half the planet go to war and then find out that they didn’t really need to do that? It was all fine!? Cathorsis was in a dead sea with his bride to be, while the rest of the world went to war?
So, “Thuvia Maid of Mars” is not going to win any literary awards but it is a rip-roaring fun adventure story. Barsoom is always a fun place to visit. This time out the Lotharians are a fun and amusing and present an interesting threat. Cathoris while being a John Carter clone has a better sense of humor than his super serious father, and Thuvia although being insufferable at the start of the book grew on me. Burroughs always seems to be having more fun on Barsoom than he ever does with his most famous creation, Tarzan. Which I find interesting, and sort of sad, while Tarzan is remembered, the Barsoom novels have been far more influential to science fiction, without them we wouldn’t have Star Wars.
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