"11 - John Carter of Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

kaldane might change bodies any time he felt like it, even "being" a man one day
and a woman the next!
THE MASTER MIND OF MARS, next in the series, appeared in the AMAZING STORIES
ANNUAL for 1927, and introduces a marvelous new hero in the person of Ulysses S.
Paxton, a U.S. Army captain apparently killed in the trenches in World War I,
but whisked miraculously, instead, to Mars. Here he experiences a strange
adventure with Ras Thavas, a brilliant Martian surgeon who has perfected the
surgical transfer of the brain from one human to another. Valla Dia, a lovely
Martian girl, is victimized by Ras Thavas, being forced into an exchange of
bodies with the hideous Queen Xaxa. The action which ensues leads ultimately to
the regaining by Valla Dia of her rightful body, and her marriage to Paxton (who
has been dubbed with the Barsoomian appellation of Vad Varo).
The seventh book of the series, A FIGHTING MAN OF MARS, is reported to Earth via
a sort of super radio called the Gridley Wave. The narration is somewhat
complicated. An introduction by Burroughs explains that the story recorded in
the book was told him (via Gridley Wave) by Ulysses Paxton/Vad Varo. But Paxton
had the story from its own central character, Tan Hadron of Hastor (a city
enjoying a certain degree of self-rule but within the empire of Helium and
subject to Helium's authority).
A FIGHTING MAN OF MARS perhaps epitomizes that form of science fiction formerly
known as the "scientific romance," a tale of high action and wonder in which
science is the basis of the situation, but plays little part in the development
of the story. Tan Hadron faces peril and horror, travels to two marvelous hidden
cities, faces a maddened monarch who specializes in torturing beautiful maidens,
is sentenced to a form of execution known only as The Death, traverses a forest
inhabited by giant spiders ... and in general has a rollicking swash-buckling
time to the reader's utter delight!
In SWORDS OF MARS, serialized in BLUE BOOK magazine in 1934 and '35, Burroughs
returned to John Carter as hero. The novel features an astonishing prediction of
the automatic control of experimental space craft by computers, including the
size, placement, functioning and even programming characteristics of the
electronic guidance devices being built today, to guide the rockets that will
carry first instruments and then Man to the planets. What a joy if one of those
manned rockets set out for Mars and found Barsoom instead!
In SWORDS OF MARS the space ship is used to carry Carter and a number of others
from the city of Zodanga on Mars to the Martian moon Thuria (Phobos). Here
Carter encounters still more strange people and strange beasts, before returning
to Barsoom.
SYNTHETIC MEN OF MARS (1939) is the final actual novel of the series, has a new
hero again, Vor Daj, and calls Ras Thavas back from retirement to make new
mischief. The problem arises from Ras Thavas's attempt, Frankenstein-like, to
create artificial life. He succeeds, but produces only monsters, who revolt and
attempt to take over the entire planet.
Neither the most imaginative nor the best written of the Martian series,
SYNTHETIC MEN is nonetheless a compelling story, sufficiently suspenseful and
adequately packed with conflict and action to make it well worth reading.
The tenth book in the series, LLANA OF GATHOL, is not a novel but a collection
of four novelettes, loosely intertwined. All are excellent, perhaps the best
being a tale originally published as The City of Mummies, and called in LLANA
The Ancient Dead. In it, scores of ancient Martians are discovered, preserved