narrlitnarrlit
Edgar Rice Burroughs · 54min
A son of Earth and Mars seeks his place among the dying planet's ancient rivalries and shifting sands. Carthoris pursues a kidnapped princess across a landscape of phantom armies. Join the hunt.
“We selected Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs to explore its lasting influence on the evolution of adventure. It provides a perfect canvas for debating the complex motives of its characters.”
Get this book free
Sign up and your first token is on us, use it to unlock permanently.
The narrative centers on Carthoris, the son of John Carter, who seeks to win the hand of Thuvia of Ptarth. The conflict ignites when Prince Astok of Dussar, rejected by Thuvia, orchestrates her kidnapping and frames Carthoris for the crime. Astok uses a sophisticated act of sabotage on Carthoris’s flyer, causing the prince to unknowingly pilot his craft into the desolate, ancient ruins of the Dead Sea bottoms. This set-up aims to trigger a global war between the Martian superpowers of Helium, Ptarth, and Kaol, leaving Dussar to profit from the aftermath.
As Carthoris tracks Thuvia through the wilderness, the story shifts into a surreal exploration of telepathy and mental projections. They encounter the Lotharians, a fading race of white Martians who have replaced physical combat with lethal hallucinations. In this city, Carthoris meets Kar Komak, a 'thought-form' general who has achieved independent physical existence. Thuvia also demonstrates her unique ability to command the savage, ten-legged Banths through rhythmic, hypnotic speech, proving she is a capable actor in her own survival rather than a mere captive.
The resolution occurs when Carthoris infiltrates the city of Dussar disguised as a mercenary. He discovers that Astok’s father, the Jeddak of Dussar, has ordered Thuvia’s execution to destroy evidence of the kidnapping. Carthoris rescues her and, in a final display of the Barsoomian code of honor, saves his romantic rival, Kulan Tith, from a green Martian ambush. Moved by this extreme selflessness, Kulan Tith voluntarily dissolves his betrothal to Thuvia, allowing the two protagonists to unite. This ending reaffirms the series' emphasis on personal integrity over political machination.
Edgar Rice Burroughs, the prolific American author famous for creating Tarzan, first published Thuvia, Maid of Mars as a three-part serial in All-Story Weekly in 1914 before its book publication in 1916. It serves as the fourth installment in his influential Barsoom series, which reimagined Mars as a dying, desert world of high adventure. The book reflects the early 20th-century scientific speculation of Percival Lowell, who popularized the idea that an advanced Martian civilization built canals to survive a drying planet. Writing during the transition from the Victorian era to modernism, Burroughs blends old-world chivalry with speculative technology like radium-powered flight and telepathy. The novel helped establish the 'planetary romance' subgenre, influencing generations of science fiction writers by shifting the focus from hard science to exotic settings and heroic internal codes. This period in literary history saw a boom in pulp magazines, which prioritized narrative momentum and vivid, imaginative landscapes over dense prose.
The novel explores how easily national stability can be disrupted through false-flag operations and manipulated information. Astok frames Carthoris by dressing Dussarian soldiers in the insignia of Helium, nearly triggering a world war. This illustrates that on Barsoom, political reality is often a construction of optics rather than fact, requiring heroes to physically prove their truth to restore peace.
In the city of Lothar, the boundaries between imagination and physical reality dissolve. The Lotharians project phantom armies that can kill despite being figments of the mind. This theme is embodied in Kar Komak, a mental projection who becomes a sentient, physical being. It suggests that sustained belief and mental discipline can create a tangible reality that outlives its originators.
Carthoris’s adherence to a rigid code of integrity serves as the narrative’s ultimate problem-solver. When he finds his rival, Kulan Tith, facing certain death, Carthoris chooses to save him rather than let him die to secure his own marriage to Thuvia. This selfless act is what ultimately breaks the legal betrothal, proving that honor possesses a social power greater than deceit or force.
Moments from Jasper and Maya's discussion of Thuvia, Maid of Mars:
“He is playing a coward's game of chess; he wants the prized Thuvia and the destruction of his rivals, but he lacks the courage to wage open war.”
— Jasper
“He is a fiction who has outlived his author.”
— Maya
“She handles a violent physical assault with absolute geopolitical precision.”
— Jasper
“The bodies of the fair skinned bowmen, the men who just fought and died, have literally vanished into thin air.”
— Maya
“The brilliance isn't in the wax. The brilliance is in the specific nature of the sabotage.”
— Jasper
It follows Carthoris, the son of John Carter, as he rescues Princess Thuvia from a kidnapping plot intended to spark a planetary war. The story involves the exploration of ancient ruins, encounters with telepathic civilizations, and the eventual exposure of the treacherous Prince Astok.
The book was written by American pulp novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs and was first published as a complete novel in 1916. It is the fourth entry in his celebrated Barsoom series.
The main character is Carthoris, the Prince of Helium and son of the legendary Earthman John Carter. He is a master swordsman and engineer who must navigate the treacherous politics and lethal landscapes of Mars to save the woman he loves.
The book is worth reading for its significant influence on the 'planetary romance' genre and its unique exploration of telepathic warfare. While it contains pulp tropes of its era, its fast-paced adventure and imaginative world-building remain engaging for fans of classic science fiction.