Thuvia, The Maid of Mars (1916)

This is the first Carter novel that does not feature John Carter himself as the central character. We now begin to focus on Carthoris, Carter’s son. He turns out to be quite the action hero himself. Our new damsel in distress is Thuvia of Ptarth, who Carter had earlier rescued in Gods of Mars, and who by the end of the last book Carthoris had fallen for.

Back in The Gods of Mars we learned that for some unknown reason Thuvia can control the banths, the great cats of Mars. When she and Carthoris are tossed into a pit to be eaten by the god the people of Lothar worship, she is pleasantly surprised to find out this particular god is just a very large banth, subject to her control.

Thuvia, Maid of Mars is a fresh book. If the Barsoom series was going to stall, it would be on the fourth book, where Carter steps off the stage.
Readers shouldn't go into a book written over a hundred years ago expecting it to compare to modern fantasy novels. I love the cheesy action with the same nostalgic fantasy I feel for the old Godzilla movies. Not to mention the fabulous book covers!


TBR 1384 ( )

Carthoris sets out to rescue Thuvia after she is kidnapped in Helios. He knows she is pledged to another but his love sends him on his way. They meet strange Martians with uncanny powers of mind projection before the final rescue. ( )

This is the fourth book in the Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, but the first in where John Carter is not the hero. Instead, it focuses on his son, Carthoris.
My first reaction was a mild disappointment with the change. After the first three novels, my emoting with John Carter was deep and I wasn't at first ready for the transition but after a few chapters, I had settled in.
The plot to kidnap Thuvia seemed overly complicated at first as I did not comprehend the intentions of the captors on their initial plan. The whole taking her to a long-abandoned city in the south of Mars made no sense. It became obvious that the author was not worried about reason, only wanting to establish a new setting and characters not previously discovered in the previous novels. The whole 'mentally projected archers' thing also didn't work for me.
Nevertheless, like the first three novels, there is plenty of heroics, lots of battles, and a number of challenges, both mental and physical, for the hero, all things I had come to expect so all enjoyable.
The final result, 4 stars. The previously mentioned issues being too much to overlook to go 5. ( )

The title character in this story has appeared earlier in the series as thefaithful woman companion of John Carter's consort Dejah Thoris. Thuvia has the advantage that she has won the loyal support of a giant banth, a sort of Martian lion. ( )

Thuvia Maid of Mars is an interesting if old-fashioned story. She’s a bit prissy as the princess of Ptarth and is betrothed to a character Tith, whom we do not meet until the end of the story. The story is mostly about a couple of men who have the hots for her and the length they go through to get her, even risking interplanetary war for her hand.

As with a lot of Mars books, we have interesting subplots – a lost city of Lothar that has men who can imagine so strongly that others can see their thoughts come to life. They usually disappear except for one guy…. but I digress.

Burroughs really gets more into the animal life on Mars – the lion-like banth the most prominent.

Overall, and enjoyable story for John Carter fans, but without John Carter.

Kindle edition was clear, no massive misspellings or errors as I’ve seen in other editions.


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