"Le Cycle de Mars" #2: wrong introduction + The Master Mind of Mars!

I began to read the second omnibus of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Cycle de Mars", or more accurately reading it again since the French translation is identical to the Lefrancq edition one from 1995, made by Martine Blond.

First of all the introduction give erroneous informations about the last volume of the adventures of John Carter, "John Carter of Mars". The short story "Skeleton Men of Jupiter" is really considered canonical, it's just unfinished. And "John Carter and the Giant of Mars" was not completed by John Coleman Burroughs after his father's death, but when he was alive and well. The short story was even published in two  magazines in 1940, therefore 3 years before the publication of "Skeleton Men of Jupiter", leading to some mail from readers who didn't recognize the Old Master's style, with good reasons!

Anyway, I just finished reading again The Master Mind of Mars, the first novel in the book, with always the same pleasure, smiling from ear to ear. The adventures of Ulysses Paxton, the second human to cross the void from Earth to Mars after John Carter, have a lot of appeal. We meet Ras Thavas, a mad amoral scientist character, really fascinating. He masters surgery to such a degree that even death doesn't seem to be a problem for him. He's able to transfer at a whim members, internal organs and even brains in such a perfect manner that he allows himself to lead conter-nature experiments, like exchanging half the brain of a man and of a Barsoomian white ape! As is the case many times with Burroughs, the motor of the plot is the all-out and absolute love which develops between Ulysses Paxton and a young woman, hapeless victim of Ras Thavas's experiments, Valla Dia. And as usual in Burroughs' stories, the young woman, even if she doesn't take part in the action and has the role of the girl in distress, shows an incredible strength of will and dignity.

There are also in the book some thoughts about war. Ulysses Paxton is a victim of the first World War, one of many soldiers who suffered mutilation in the trenches. His only saving grace will be his knowledge of Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels! Later he witnesses from Barsoom with a telescope the end of the war. He's happy about it until his companion points out that there is never any end to war, and that conflicts only birth more conflicts. It was unfortunately prophetic, Burrougs had written these words in 1927...

Very funny are the bits where Burroughs unleashed his wits on religious cults. The temple of the god Tur in Phundahl is a place of completely ludicrous and amazing feats of devotion, like this idol around which you have to turn on your head, without any explanation than a complete and blind application of a dogma nobody understands.

In short, a totally delightful novel! To be continued with what is probably my favorite in the "Cycle de Mars", A Fighting Man of Mars !