Under the Moons of Mars (2 page)

J
ohn Carter, Jeddak of Jeddaks, Warlord of Barsoom.

These words still raise goose bumps on my arms. Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars books, with their dramatic landscapes and rich cast of characters, were my first experience of a complete, fully imagined setting like nothing in my family’s
World Book Encyclopedia
. They were like nothing in the small coal town where I lived, like nothing I saw on television.

They were miraculous.

This was something Burroughs would always do for me, from Barsoom to the London and Africa of the Tarzan books, to the equally strange landscape of Venus, to the savage subterranean land of Pellucidar. He had that happy author’s gift of painting entire pictures with only a few sentences, bringing alien horses, commanding princesses, and giant apes vividly to life. I wanted a calot—a Martian dog—like John Carter’s, more than anything. (I was convinced they had to be available somewhere.) I wanted to be a telepath, so I would never have to deal with my lisp again. And from Burroughs, I first lit onto the idea that a single moon was not an absolute, that different moons were features of different worlds.

Burroughs did one thing more, something that has had a lifelong effect on my view of my own planet and on my career: Burroughs’s women were
strong
. The women of the Tharks were weapons-makers and reserve troops who backed up their fighting men. Sola fights valiantly to defend Dejah Thoris, and Dejah herself was a leader of her people, willing to act in her realm’s diplomatic interests even when it brought her into peril. In later books, the Red Woman Thuvia proves herself a willing fighter. The women of his other universes were the same, able to defend themselves and their families with weapons and tenacity. Burroughs probably didn’t intend it, but he made the books deemed by my teachers to be fit for my age and gender lackluster and unsatisfying. For a very long time, I found women like his nowhere else in fiction, and I missed them. Deeply.

W
hen Edgar Rice Burroughs published
A Princess of Mars
in 1912 (originally published as a serial in the magazine
All-Story
, as
Under the Moons of Mars
), he gave birth to the iconic character John Carter and his wondrous vision of Mars (or as the natives call it, Barsoom). With this setting and character, Burroughs created something that has enthralled generation after generation of readers. Now, a hundred years after the series first debuted in print, new generations of readers—thanks, in part, to the new Disney/Pixar film—are still finding and discovering the adventures of John Carter for the first time.

Until now.

This anthology depicts all-new adventures set in Edgar Rice Burroughs’s fantastical world of Barsoom. Some of the stories in this volume, such as Joe R. Lansdale’s “The Metal Men of Mars” and “The River Gods of Mars” by Austin Grossman, imagine the new or lost adventures of John Carter, while others focus on the other characters and niches not fully explored by Burroughs. So if you’ve ever wanted to find out what happens to the villainous Thark Sarkoja after her encounter with John Carter, Robin Wasserman’s tale “Vengeance of Mars” delivers. Or if you’ve ever wanted to know more about John Carter’s calot companion Woola, then Theodora Goss’s “Woola’s Song” fills in those gaps. Catherynne M. Valente’s story “Coming of Age on Barsoom,” unveils some hidden truths about the Green Men of Mars, and details how John Carter might not have understood their culture as well as he thought he did.

Some of the stories, meanwhile, deal with John Carter and Dejah Thoris’s descendants . . . such as Genevieve Valentine’s tale, “A Game of Mars,” which has John Carter’s daughter Tara playing Barsoom’s deadliest game—Jetan! We also have two tales exploring the adventures of the children of Llana of Gathol and the Orovar Pan Dee Chee; L. E. Modesitt, Jr.’s, story, “The Bronze Man of Mars,” has one of John Carter’s great-grandsons returning to the ancient city of Horz, while S. M Stirling’s story, “The Jasoom Project,” has another great-grandson endeavoring to find a way to travel to Earth (Jasoom) via spaceship.

Two of our stories examine what would happen should John Carter encounter new visitors from Earth on Barsoom. Peter S. Beagle’s story, “The Ape-Man of Mars,” speculates what might have happened if John Carter had encountered Tarzan, Burroughs’s
other
most famous literary creation, in the sands of Barsoom. Garth Nix’s tale, “A Sidekick of Mars,” imagines the possibility that John Carter had an irascible sidekick throughout most of his adventures who was never mentioned in any of the write-ups of Carter’s adventures published by Burroughs. Chris Claremont’s story, “The Ghost That Haunts the Superstition Mountains,” meanwhile, imagines John Carter, Dejah Thoris, and Tars Tarkas are instead transported to Earth, and there encounter not only the great Indian chief Cochise, but weapons of mysterious origin as well.

And then we have “The Death Song of Dwar Guntha,” which shows us a distant future in which John Carter is poised to finally bring an end to the endless cycles of warfare that have rocked Barsoom . . . but gives us one last epic battle for the ages to remember it by.

Whether you’re a longtime fan, or you’re new to Barsoom, I hope you enjoy these all-new adventures of John Carter of Mars.

In the novel
The Gods of Mars
, John Carter finds himself transported to the Valley Dor, which the Barsoomians believe to be a heavenly paradise, a place to which they willingly travel at the end of a long, full life. He finds instead that the place is a fiendish trap, and he is immediately set upon by hordes of monstrous plant-men—savage, faceless creatures who bound after their prey and strike with wicked tentacles. And this is hardly an isolated incident. Carter just seems to have a knack for stumbling upon hidden corners of Mars in which undreamt-of horrors lurk. Many of these horrors involve wondrous Martian technology, which is far advanced beyond what we know on Earth. The most visible examples of Martian technology are the fliers and airships of the Red Men of Mars, but more grotesque examples abound. Perhaps the most vivid example of Martian science occurs in the novel
The Master Mind of Mars
, in which we are introduced to the mad scientist Ras Thavas, who runs a business transplanting the brains of wealthy clients into healthy young bodies. In
Synthetic Men of Mars
, Carter visits Morbus, city of Ras Thavas, where the scientist is engaged in other strange experiments, such as growing men from a single cell. So it would seem that with Martian science, anything is possible. In the tale that follows, John Carter once again stumbles upon a secret realm, and finds himself face-to-face with some new technology that’s visceral and terrifying even by Barsoomian standards.

I
suppose some will think it unusual that mere boredom might lead a person on a quest where one’s life can become at stake, but I am the sort of individual who prefers the sound of combat and the sight of blood to the peace of Helium’s court and the finery of its decorations. Perhaps this is not something to be proud of, but it is in fact my nature, and I honestly admit it.

Certainly, as Jeddak of Helium, I have responsibilities at the court, but there are times when even my beloved and incomparable Dejah Thoris can sympathize with my restlessness, as she has been raised in a warrior culture and has been known to wield a sword herself. She knows when she needs to encourage me to venture forth and find adventure, lest my restlessness and boredom become like some kind of household plague.