Llana of Gathol!

This book, the tenth of the Barsoom cycle, is composed of four novellas, but which form a continuous story, published in 1941 in Amazing Stories, and reunited as a 1948 book. This would be the last book of the cycle published while Edgar Rice Burroughs was alive. He died in 1950.

 -          “The Ancient Dead”, published in the magazine with the title “The City of Mummies”: John Carter decided … to play the tourist, in Horz, the ancient city of the Barsoomian ancestors, the Orovars, white-skinned beings like John Carter, with blond hair, all dead. Well, almost anyway, because John Carter meets their last survivors, who are willing to execute him to preserve their secret. Even more astonishing, Carter finds in the city his granddaughter, Llana of Gathol, daughter of Tara (heroine of the fifth novel)! She’s running from a tyrant of the North, Hin Abtol, who wants her to be his eighth wife. The Orovar who accompanies John Carter, Pan Dan Chee, falls in love with Llana, but she seems very decided to make him wait…

-          “The Black Pirates of Barsoom”: fleeing Horz by foot, Carter, Llana and Pan Dan Chee have to retreat before a Green Martians horde to a canyon, filled with corpses. They are imprisoned by a Black Pirates colony (see The Gods of Mars), and their “nervous index” is registered by a machine. This device could kill them instantly at any time. Carter meets there Jad-Han, a red man who is none other than the brother Janai (the heroine of Synthetic Men of de Mars).

-          “Evasion on Mars”, published in magazine under the surprising title “The Yellow Men of Mars”, surprising because there’s no yellow man at all in the novella! : Flying away from the Black Pirates, the whole group heads to Gathol, to bring Llana back home, only to discover that the city is under siege by Hin Abtol’s men, the Panars. Seeking informations, Carter is captured by Gatholians, while Llana and Pan Dan Chee fall at the hands of the Panars. Llana is brought north to Pankor, a domed arctic city. Carter finds a way to penetrate the Panar camp and to steal an airship. He finds there one of his officers also captured, Tan Hadron of Hastor, the hero of A Fighting Man of Mars (book 7)! Flying north, Carter is victim of a mutiny and abandoned not far from Pankor with a benevolent Panar, Gor-Don. Carter will succeed in getting out of town, with Llana, and in the airship he had at the beginning of all this adventure!

-          “The Invisible Men of Mars”: forced to land to get food in a rare lush valley, Carter and Llana are captured by invisible men! In a very uncharacteristic manner, Carter will see himself reduced to play with the feelings of a woman, Rojas, to get from her the invisibility pills which will allow his escape. Fortunately it will be revealed that she also played games with him! Carter will get back to Helium and will end up vanquishing the panar army which sieged Gathol. Pan Dan Chee will be found among the prisoners, and will become ultimately the mate of Llana of Gathol!

 A very surprising collection of novellas, with a recurring gag in the fights between Carter and an opponent who claims each time to be the “finest sword of all Barsoom”. Face to face with John Carter, don’t even think about it! The last duel of the book is especially striking, since it’s no less than a half-hour of bloody humiliation for Carter’s adversary, a real butchery!

 The female character of Rojas is particularly astounding. When she arrives in Helium she kisses Dejah Thoris on her mouth, a surprising detail, unexplained by anything previously in the story! Wouldn’t Burroughs try to suggest, in 1941, that the young woman could be bisexual, if not lesbian?

 And also, it was great to see Tan Hadron again, the hero of A Fighting Man of Mars (my favorite of the cycle), but couldn’t we just know what happened to him after he was forced to let John Carter near Pankor, and when he had to fly away, prisoner among pirates?