The Gods of Mars
The Gods of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs and the second of Burroughs' Barsoom series. It features the characters of John Carter and Carter's wife Dejah Thoris. It was first published in The All-Story as a five-part serial in the issues for January–May 1913. It was later published as a complete novel by A. C. McClurg in September, 1918 and in many editions subsequently.
Summary
As usual for him, Burroughs begins with a frame story that explains how he came into possession of the text. At the end of the first book, A Princess of Mars, John Carter was unwillingly transported back to Earth. The story proper begins with his arrival back on Barsoom after a ten-year separation with Dejah Thoris, their unborn child, and the Red Martian people of the nation of Helium, whom he has adopted as his own. Unfortunately, Carter materializes in the one place on Barsoom from which nobody is allowed to depart: the Valley Dor, which is the Barsoomian afterlife.After John Carter's arrival, a boat of Green Martians on the River Iss are ambushed by the previously unknown Plant Men. The lone survivor is his friend Tars Tarkas, the Jeddak of Thark, who has taken the pilgrimage to the Valley Dor to find Carter. Having saved their own lives, Carter and Tars Tarkas discover that the Therns, a white-skinned race of self-proclaimed gods, have for eons deceived the Barsoomians elsewhere with the lie that the pilgrimage to the Valley Dor is a journey to paradise. Most arrivals are killed by the beasts who dwell here, and the survivors enslaved or eaten by Therns.
Carter and Tars Tarkas rescue Thuvia, a slave girl, and attempt to escape, capitalizing on the confusion caused by an attack by the Black Pirates of Barsoom upon the Therns. During the attack, Tars Tarkas and Thuvia hijack a Black Pirate flier, while Carter fights his way aboard another, killing all but one of the Pirates, and rescuing a captive Thern princess. From the captured Pirate Xodar, Carter learns that the Black Pirates, called the "First Born", also think of themselves as gods, and accordingly prey upon the Therns; and additionally identifies the captive Thern as Phaidor, daughter of the "Holy Hekkador" of the Therns. When their flier is recaptured by the First Born and taken to their underground realm of Omean, Carter is taken before Issus, the self-proclaimed goddess of Barsoom, who dictates the Therns through secret communications which they mistake for divine revelation.
Issus takes Phaidor as a handmaiden for one Martian year; whereas Carter is imprisoned, with Xodar as his slave as punishment for being defeated by Carter. Thereafter Carter treats him with honor, and thus gains his friendship. In prison, they encounter a young man later identified as Carter's son Carthoris, with whom Carter is taken to a series of games wherein the previous year's handmaidens are killed and later eaten by Issus and her nobles. Carter leads a revolt of the prisoners, killing many of the First Born; and upon the suppression of their revolt, he and Carthoris escape via tunnels, and give themselves to guards unacquainted with the revolt to be returned to their prison. Upon hearing of the revolt, Xodar rejects Issus’ divinity and joins the others in escape. Upon later abandoning their aircraft, they encounter Thuvia, who describes the capture of Tars Tarkas by the green warriors of Warhoon. Carter goes to rescue Tars Tarkas, but is discovered by his enemies. After a chase, Thuvia is sent on alone, mounted, while the men attempt a stand against the Warhoons. They are rescued by the Heliumetic navy but do not find Thuvia. Commanding one of the warships is Carter’s friend Kantos Kan but the fleet is commanded by Zat Arras, a Jed of the hostile client state of Zodanga, and Carter is suspected of returning from the Valley of Dor, which is punishable by death. Tardos Mors, the Jeddak of Helium, and Mors Kajak, the Jed of Hastor are absent from Helium, having led fleets in search of Carthoris. Later, Carter discovers that Dejah Thoris may have taken the pilgrimage to the Valley Dor to find him.
Upon returning to Helium, Carter is tried for heresy by the Zodangans; but the people of Helium do not tolerate this. Zat Arras imprisons Carter after he refuses Zat Arras' offer of freedom in exchange for endorsing Zat Arras as Jeddak of Helium, and is imprisoned for 365 days until his son frees him. Thereafter he goes to rescue Dejah Thoris with a fleet of 1,000 mighty battleships, 5,000 ten-man cruisers, 10,000 five-man scouting craft, and 100,000 one-man scouts, along with 900 large troopships and their escorts carrying 250,000 Green Martian warriors, all of which is manned by a million Heliumetic fighting men.
Near Omean, Carter is challenged first by the Therns with a fleet of thousands of battleships. Carter sends ten battleships to guard against the fleet of the First Born. He then lands 100,000 Green Martian warriors to attack the home of the Holy Therns and engages the Thern fleet. After the Green warriors dealt the Therns a heavy loss, Carter orders the Green warriors to embark back onto their transports, for the fleet had spotted another enemy fleet of 5,000 ships commanded by Zat Arras. Upon sighting of Zat Arras' fleet, the Therns resumed firing. Carter's fleet again engaged the Thern fleet and landed the Green warriors with orders to ravage the Therns even more fiercely.
While Carter was fighting the Therns, the ten battleships he sent to guard against the First Born were spotted to be retreating. For a moment, Carter allows himself to despair before joining his men in fighting. After taking a Thern ship, he joins Kantos Kan, who sprang his coup. Onboard Zat Arras' fleet, the Helimetic crews rose up against the Zodangan soldiery and took control of every ship in Zat Arras' fleet, with the exception of his flagship. Carter led a boarding party onto Zat Arras' flagship, and overwhelmed the Zodangan troops. Zat Arras threw himself overboard to his death after being ordered to surrender by Carter.
After seeing that the warships of the Therns and the First Born fought whenever they encountered each other, he ordered his Heliumetic ships to disengage and withdraw to the southwest of the battle. He also ordered the Green warriors to embark back onto their transports and for those transports to join the main fleet. Carter gave Xodar command of 5,000 battleships and the transports and sent him directly to the Temple of Issus, with orders to land in the garden of Issus or the surrounding plain. Carter, Carthoris, and Kantos Kan would lead the rest of the fleet to Omean, to attack through the pits under the temple. They captured a First Born submarine commanded by Yersted, who tells Carter that Dejah Thoris is still alive. Before, Carter had given her up as dead, before Yersted's information made him realize that a Mars year is 687 days, rather than the 365 days of an Earth year. From his force, Carter assembled a force of 5,000 men, to be led by Carthoris through the pits under the Temple of Issus.
However, the tunnels were being slowly flooded, due the pumps of Omean having been stopped. During the march, the water had risen to such a level that Carter was forced to call a portion of the troops to enter a diverging tunnel. Of the 3,000 troops that obeyed Carter, most escaped. Casualties were minimal. However, during the march, a chemical fire was started in the tunnel they were marching in, presumably by the First Born. Carter ordered some 2,000 troops up another tunnel. He doubled back to the flames to make sure that no soldier had been left behind. However, when he turned back to follow his men, he found a massive steel grating blocking the tunnel path. Before long, the smoke grew so intense that he was forced to go back down the tunnel in hopes of an easier death by drowning. However, he managed to escape through yet another tunnel, which led him directly to Dejah Thoris. He hid her in the pits from which he had just emerged, and went to find his men. He found himself in a chamber in which 500 men, both Red Martians and First Born, fought to the death. With the addition of Carter, the black lines broke and the First Born warriors ran. The men in the chamber also witnessed the charge of the Green warriors, which broke the thin black line defending the garden. Leading the survivors of the red force, guided by Carthoris, he went back to the pits where he hid Dejah Thoris. Finding her gone, Carthoris led him to Issus' chamber. Carter took her prisoner, and during the standoff, a full thousand red men broke into the chamber. Issus went insane, and during her mad rant, she told Carter that Dejah Thoris, Thuvia, and Phaidor are imprisoned in the Temple of the Sun, each of whose rooms opens only once per year. Issus put them there specifically to spite Carter, as Issus was aware that all three were in love with him. Carter and his men scramble to find the keys to their cell in time, but are unsuccessful. Immediately before their room closes, Phaidor attempts to kill Dejah Thoris, and her success or failure are left unknown.
Writing
On March 4, 1912, Burrough's editor at All-Story Magazine, Newell Metcalf, wrote suggesting a sequel to Under the Moons of Mars. The Valley of Dor, the River Iss and the Sea of Korus were all key locations in the Martian conception of heaven or the afterlife, which Burroughs had introduced in A Princess of Mars. Metcalf, who thought the appeal of these mystical locations might be strong for readers of the previous tale, suggested that John Carter could arrive from Earth at this location and be instrumental in exposing and destroying this religion as a falsehood. These ideas, which may have already occurred to Burroughs, appeared to be highly inspirational.During 1912 Burroughs had been working on Tarzan of the Apes, which he finished in June of that year. By 20 September 1912 Burroughs had almost completed the sequel to A Princess of Mars, which was entitled The Gods of Mars. It was submitted on October 2, 1912. Metcalf had suggested killing off Dejah Thoris in the story, but Burroughs admitted to be unable to do so. Although readers had already complained about the suspense created at the end of A Princess of Mars, Burroughs once again, produced a story with a cliff hanger ending. The tale was advertised in the December 1912 issue of All-Story magazine.