A Princess of Mars
The founding text of planetary romance.
Book Entry · Science Fiction
The Gods of Mars
by Edgar Rice Burroughs · 1913 · Barsoom, book 2
What is The Gods of Mars about?
Carter returns to Barsoom after ten years' exile and materialises in the Valley Dor, the Martian heaven to which the devout sail down the river Iss — and which turns out to be a slaughterhouse run by the white-skinned Therns and the black pirates of the moon, with a false goddess at the top of the pyramid. Burroughs gleefully demolishes his invented planet's religion in an adventure of arena fights, aerial battles and audacious escapes, ending on the most notorious cliffhanger in pulp history.
Why it matters
Widely rated the best Barsoom novel, and a startlingly savage satire of organised religion for 1913 pulp fiction.
Where does it sit in the series?
Burroughs's dying Mars of dead sea bottoms, four-armed green warriors and incomparable princesses — eleven volumes of swashbuckling planetary romance that taught the twentieth century to dream of the red planet.
In the Guide from Barsoom:
- A Princess of Mars (1912)
- The Gods of Mars (1913)
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