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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
An interesting culture in Manator for sure.
Will see if anyone is actually playing Martian chess (Jetan).
Will see if anyone is actually playing Martian chess (Jetan).
Ok, so I said in my last review (Thuvia, Maid of Mars) That I thought either book 3 or 4 was about rescuing a slave, but I think I was wrong and it was actually this one.
It starts out promising, (sort of) with Tara (John Carter's daughter) standing up for herself and saying that she does not want to be forced to marry someone she has not chosen, and before she wants to get married. However, instead of coming off like that, she came off spoiled and pouty, like she was being a silly girl throwing a temper tantrum and ruining off because she didn't get her own way. (Which of course means, since a woman has gone off on her own, she will inevitably need rescued /sigh) Needless to say we find and declare evil a new race, (who, actually I found interesting, despite a touch of their own slavery of kind, or perhaps not?) our main man lies about who is is, and WAM! That silly girl realizes she really does love him (and is written in a nice excuse to marry him and not her betrothed).
It starts out promising, (sort of) with Tara (John Carter's daughter) standing up for herself and saying that she does not want to be forced to marry someone she has not chosen, and before she wants to get married. However, instead of coming off like that, she came off spoiled and pouty, like she was being a silly girl throwing a temper tantrum and ruining off because she didn't get her own way. (Which of course means, since a woman has gone off on her own, she will inevitably need rescued /sigh) Needless to say we find and declare evil a new race, (who, actually I found interesting, despite a touch of their own slavery of kind, or perhaps not?) our main man lies about who is is, and WAM! That silly girl realizes she really does love him (and is written in a nice excuse to marry him and not her betrothed).
This fifth book in the Barsoon series is the last one that is in the public domain and therefore probably the last one I read for quite awhile. The book was true to its predecessors in almost every way. Once again almost insurmountable odds odds were overcome, lots and lot of people dies, two new civilizations were discovered, and the hero came out ahead in the end. However, The Chessmen of Mars does a better job with plot pacing, foreshadowing, and resolving plot points without resorting to my pet peeve, the deus ex machina.
Like the previous novel, this novel too does not follow John Carter as the main character but instead follows one of his children, this time a spoiled princess of a daughter. She gets caught in a storm and blown to unknown parts of Mars. All of here adventures revolve around her escapes from capture and fates worse than death on the journey back to Helium.
If you made it this far in the series there is no reason not to read this novel. I found it to be the second best over all, with Princess of Mars being the best.
Like the previous novel, this novel too does not follow John Carter as the main character but instead follows one of his children, this time a spoiled princess of a daughter. She gets caught in a storm and blown to unknown parts of Mars. All of here adventures revolve around her escapes from capture and fates worse than death on the journey back to Helium.
If you made it this far in the series there is no reason not to read this novel. I found it to be the second best over all, with Princess of Mars being the best.
adventurous
dark
lighthearted
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I’ve spent enough time on this series to be pretty sure there’s a fun adventure story somewhere past the awkward beginning. So it’s not the description of how healthy and fit and did we mention SUPER healthy our heroine is, or the symmetry of her foot (confusing as that comment was…) that has me putting this book off until later. It’s just that in order to make it through to the good part, I need a better narrator than LibriVox can currently provide, or to read the book for myself in print.
I found this, the fifth of the John Carter books, even more problematic than the others. It seemed even more sexist to me and the matter-0f-fact attitude towards slavery was disturbing. Burroughs does know how to write a plot. The book is the product of episodic storytelling and as such, can draw the story out with any number of new developments, although the ultimate resolution is pretty much a foregone conclusion. I was also disturbed by how much the one superstitious and barbaric culture in the book seemed to draw so much inspiration in appearances to some native American cultures. It felt entirely too much to me like the old and demeaning "noble savage" trope
A bit more adventurous than the last one, took a while to get to the actual chessmen part of the story, and it didn't seem to last very long for being the title. Also half the characters seemed to disappear around the middle and only showed up again right at the end, would have been better if we heard a bit more what happened to them in the big storm.
Book five in what normal people call the John Carter series, Goodreads has some weird name no one has ever heard of before but anyway, basically the series seems very dated and a little bit of a chore to get through.
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Meh. The whole tale of adventure, rescue-capture, rescue-capture, and rescue and recapture was made pointless, by the Deus ex machina of john Carter turning up at the last minute.