The Warlord of Mars
1913
The third installment of Burroughs' legendary Barsoom series picks up with John Carter, Prince of Helium, in a desperate situation. His beloved Dejah Thoris has been captured, and he finds himself lurking in the ancient Temple of the Sun, watching, waiting, hunting the enemies who took her. Thurid, a black-skinned warrior consumed by jealousy and hatred, holds Dejah Thoris prisoner, and has fled deep into the most dangerous territories of Mars. Carter must follow, even as he uncovers a larger conspiracy involving Matai Shang, the sinister Father of Therns, who plots revenge against the earth-born warrior. What follows is a breathless chase across a dying world of ancient ruins, warring red-skinned kingdoms, and savage beast-men. The quest carries Carter at last to the frozen mystery of Mars's northern pole, where an ice-bound civilization may hold Dejah Thoris's fate, and perhaps Carter's own doom. This is pure swashbuckling romance: a hero who never stops fighting for what he loves, a world vivid with wonder and peril, and the kind of adventures that made pulp fiction unforgettable.
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“It is strange how new and unexpected conditions bring out unguessed ability to meet them.””
— Edgar Rice Burroughs
“Imagine, if you can, a huge grizzly with ten legs armed with mighty talons and an enormous froglike mouth splitting his head from ear to ear, exposing three rows of long, white tusks. Then endow this creature of your imagination with the agility and ferocity of a half-starved Bengal tiger and the strength of a span of bulls, and you will have some faint conception of Woola in action.””
— Edgar Rice Burroughs
“If there be a fate that is sometimes cruel to me, there surely is a kind and merciful Providence which watches over me.””
— Edgar Rice Burroughs
“I should at least die as I had lived”
— Edgar Rice Burroughs
“Lives there upon any world such another as John Carter, Prince of Helium? Lives there another man who could fight his way back and forth across a warlike planet, facing savage beasts and hordes of savage men, for the love of a woman?””
— Edgar Rice Burroughs
“If your vocation be shoeing horses, or painting pictures, and you can do one or the other better than your fellows, then you are a fool if you are not proud of your ability. And so I am very proud that upon two planets no greater fighter has ever lived than John Carter, Prince of Helium.””
— Edgar Rice Burroughs
“If I sometimes seem to take too great pride in my fighting ability, it must be remembered that fighting is my vocation.””
— Edgar Rice Burroughs
“As much as I enjoy a fight, I cannot always indulge myself, and just now I had more weighty matters to occupy my time than spilling the blood of strange warriors.””
— Edgar Rice Burroughs
“As a matter of fact I presume I gave little attention to seeking an excuse, for I love a good fight too well to need any other reason for joining in when one is afoot. So””
— Edgar Rice Burroughs
