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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another Strong Story In The Series,
By Dave_42 "Dave_42" (Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Master Mind of Mars (Mastermind of Mars) (Hardcover)
"The Master Mind of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs is the sixth book in the Barsoom series. Burroughs moves further away from John Carter by introducing a new hero, Ulysses Paxton, who uses his Martian name Vad Varo for most of the book. Ulysses is a much different hero than John Carter, or for that matter Cathoris or Thuvia from "Thuvia Maid of Mars" or Gahan of Gathol or Tara of Helium from "The Chessmen of Mars". Ulysses's connection with John Carter is that when on Earth he read the stories of John Carter and believed them to be real. The difference is that unlike those who came before, Ulysses/Vlad does not have the skill in hand-to-hand combat that they possessed. This was a very smart move by Burroughs, for what would be the point of making yet another great warrior to repeat the epic adventures which already exist in the series? Instead, the story has a much different feel, smaller in scope, and yet just as absorbing.
Ulysses is a soldier in World War I, and when he becomes wounded and stranded on the battlefield, he uses the force of his mind to transport himself to Mars. Not surprisingly, though severely wounded as Ulysses on Earth, Vad finds his body whole and healthy on Mars. The first person Vad meets on Mars is Ras Thavas, a.k.a "The Master Mind". When circumstances result in Vad's saving Ras, he is taken on as a trusted servant and bodyguard. Ras shows Vad medical techniques far in advanced of those which exist on Earth, and Vad learns quickly. One key difference though is that Ras has no moral conscience, though he often does very good things, he is just as willing to do horrible things, and when one of the horrible things is to give the body of Valla Dia to the evil Xaxa, Vad realizes that he needs to do something. Through the course of the adventure, Vad gains allies to work with, and he is resolved to capture Xaxa and force the return of Valla Dia's body. Because of the help he has provided them in escaping from the sleeping storage of Ras' lab, his allies are willing to help, and of course Vad is keen to help them achieve their goals as well. Unlike the previous adventures, there is no great evil in this story, though Xaxa is fairly close to it. Vad is not trying to kill those who oppose him, but rather set things right with the woman he has fallen in love with, as well as help his allies regain their lives. John Carter is referred to in the letter which opens the story, and he shows up in the last chapter, so Burroughs maintains the connection to the rest of the series well. This book ranks fairly high in the series for me. I would consider "The Chessmen of Mars" which comes right before it to be superior, but this one would rank very close to "A Princess of Mars" which opens the series. Because of the key role "A Princess of Mars" plays in the series I would rank that one above "The Master Mind of Mars" as well, but only slightly, and I feel that this story is better than the rest. While "The Gods of Mars" and "The Warlord of Mars" are good, they do become a bit repetitious and neither one of them are complete in and of themselves. "The Master Mind of Mars" does not have that problem as it can stand on its own, as long as you are familiar with the setting of the series as a whole.
4.0 out of 5 stars
MORE BARSOOMIAN FUN!,
By s.ferber (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Master Mind of Mars (Mass Market Paperback)
"The Master Mind of Mars" is book #6 of 11 John Carter adventures that Edgar Rice Burroughs gave to the world. It first appeared in the magazine "Amazing Stories Annual" in July 1927, and John Carter himself only puts in a cameo appearance near the book's end. Instead, our hero is another Earthman, Ulysses Paxton, who mysteriously gets transported to Barsoom (Mars) after being critically wounded on the battlefields of WW1. Paxton becomes an apprentice of the eponymous mastermind Ras Thavas, and from him learns all manner of surgical miracles, including brain transplantation. Paxton falls in love with a young woman, Valla Dia, whose body has been sold to an old empress, so that that empress can now live on in her new hotty body. Paxton vows to travel across Mars, kidnap the empress, and restore his beloved's body to her. He enlists the aid of some of Ras Thavas' medical subjects: a Barsoomian white ape with a half-human mind; a professional assassin; and another Martian who has had his body bought/stolen by another. This is a short but extremely entertaining and fast-moving fantasy novel. In it, Burroughs gives us some interesting philosophy on the correlation of mind and body (as he did with the kaldanes in "Chessmen of Mars"), as well as some interesting speculations on the necessity of war in any culture. He also pokes fun at the mumbo-jumbo aspects of organized religion. So there is some actual food for thought, in addition to the fun. And that equilibrimotor chase and scene in the Temple of Tur ARE very much fun! The heart, lung and other assorted transplants that Ras Thavas is engaged in must have seemed like real sci-fi improbabilities back in 1927, although these things are fairly commonplace today. The brain transplants are another matter, of course. (Perhaps one day...) "Master Mind" seems to be slightly better written than some of the earlier Barsoomian novels; Burroughs DID improve with age, at least as far as technique is concerned. Still, there are the usual inconsistencies that crop up. For example, in one scene Thavas complains of the new young blood in his new young body, when it has been established that recipients of new bodies receive their old blood back. I was confused by this. In another scene, the 15-foot-tall ape/man puts on the leather harness of a regular-sized man. Does this seem possible? Clouds are said to obscure the moon in another scene, yet in earlier books, Burroughs has told us that clouds exist on Barsoom only at the poles. A body of a dozen Toonolian soldiers at one point mysteriously turns into 20, and the great scarlet tower of Lesser Helium, which was destroyed in "Chessmen," is inexplicably back again in this book. (I grant that it may have been rebuilt, but Burroughs might have said something to this effect.) The surprise regarding Valla Dia at the book's conclusion was one that was so obvious to me that I don't even think it was really meant to be a surprise after all. And here's another quibble: Paxton falls in love with Valla Dia only after he has seen what her actual body looks like. It might have been more effective had he fallen in love with her only AFTER she was trapped in the haggish body of the empress. A young, strapping American male falling in love with an old ugly woman, based solely on her gracious personality. Now THAT would have been a REAL fantasy!
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