John Carter of Mars

For some time now, I’ve been promising a review of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Martian Tales Trilogy. At last, here it is. Of course, I read them several months ago now, so my memory is a touch fuzzy. The good news for you is that this should be a relatively short post.

First, a note on presentation. I bought the Barnes and Noble edition which is great in terms of price ($9.99 for the three book collection) but horrible in terms of quality presentation. First, the cover is a rather bland picture of Mars, which is quite the contrast with vivid fantasy art that normally goes with these books. The book is also riddled with typos. Apparently Barnes and Noble couldn’t be bothered to run it through the spell checker. It is also a flimsy glued binding which will start to fall apart after just a few readings. But again, it was only ten bucks for three books.

It also has a forward that reads like it was written by a bachelors in humanities at Berkley. There were numerous times during the book that I found myself wondering if that person had read the same book I was reading. For example, he was talking about Carter’s attitude to the Martians as being like that of a British officer to the people in the various colonies. To make his point, he quotes Carter saying something like “I am a better master by being a kind master.” Presumably this quote would have come from the third book, Warlord of Mars when Carter is basically made king of the whole planet. But no, it doesn’t refer to the Martians at all, not the sentient ones anyway. It actually comes from the first book and refers to a beast of burden used by the green Martians much as we use horses.

Moving on to the story, it quickly becomes clear that the author the forward got one thing right, it is an action-adventure story, with the closest modern counterpart being probably Indiana Jones. That is, character, plot, and setting all exist largely to facilitate the action. Not that all these other story elements are completely neglected, they simply aren’t the point. The point is that John Carter is an unstoppable warrior who leaps first and looks second, and fortunately usually finds himself on the side of right.

Things begin with an introduction to our hero, who knows well that he is “not like other men,” for a number of reasons. These include the fact that his nephew cannot remember Carter ever looking any different, even though he first met his uncle as a small child and is now a full-grown man. In fact, Carter himself really doesn’t remember ever being any different, seemingly perpetually to be aged in his mid-thirties and in peak physical condition.

The adventure begins in Arizona where John Carter is prospecting for gold. Naturally, not all is peaceful and he winds up taking refuge from a band of natives in a cave where is seemingly overcome by some gas from within. This triggers a kind of out of body experience in which he is transported to Mars. It is a “kind” of out of body experience because we quickly realize that he has a fully functioning body on Mars, in addition to the one left in the cave on earth. This isn’t explained, and frankly doesn’t need to be. As I said, such things really aren’t the point.

Once there, he quickly is captured by a tribe of green Martians. These are four-armed green giants who live a brutal existence among the deserts and ancient ruins of Mars. While a prisoner, he actually becomes a chieftain of the tribe, basically by killing everyone who pisses him off (don’t worry, they deserve it) and so earns the respect of this warlike people, especially of Tars Tarkas, apparently just about the only green Martian with something like a conscience. He also makes the acquaintance of Deja Thoris, who is a red Martian and looks human, in fact, like a very beautiful human. She is also the princess of Mars and thus a great prize of the green Martians. Carter though, eventually helps her to escape. Through a number of other adventures, he gets her back to her home city of Helium, marries her and forms an alliance with all the green Martians after Tars Tarkas becomes their big chief. First book ends with Carter rushing to restart the air production facility that continually replenishes Mars’ thin atmosphere. But not before passing out and waking back up in the cave in Arizona.

The second book involves John Carter’s return to Mars ten years later. Rather than a quick reunion with Deja Thoris and their child (who had not quite hatched – yes hatched – at the end of the first book) he is plunged into the deep south of Mars. This is where their religion thought Heaven was. However, we quickly find out that this Heaven is more like Hell, populated with great white apes and strange plant-men who rend nearly everyone who gets down the river. If they make it past them, they are taken prisoner by a race of white Martians who essentially are the priests of the land. They, however are not the top of the food chain though as they are themselves enslaved by a race of black Martians, whose leader is the goddess of Mars. Naturally, over the course of the book, Carter exposes the whole brutal deception, leading right to the third book in which he leads the red and green Martians in the defeat of the a coalition of surviving and discontented black and white Martians who are joined by some discontented red Martians and the long-last race of yellow Martians who hide in a secret city at Mars’ north pole.

As I said, though, they real star of the books is Carter’s physical prowess and loyalty to Deja Thoris and Tars Tarkas, all of which are demonstrated through a never ending series of sword and fist fights. All in all, the action is written well, and Tars Tarkas is as good of a character as John Carter. Deja Thoris though is a largely forgettable damsel in distress, bringing little to the story except motivation for Carter. Which now that I think about it is a very good thing. After all, no motivation equals no story. So while her visible role is small, the whole series of books couldn’t exist if not for her. Something to ponder.

My personal recommendation is that if you want a fun read to just let the brain relax a bit, pick up a John Carter book and enjoy the ride. However, I wouldn’t recommend reading multiple stories in a row since they constant battles and demonstrations of Carter’s invincibility do start to get a tad repetitive after a while.

The Conservative Mind

So, I recently read The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk. I only heard of it fairly recently but this book, published in the 1950's apparently launched conservatism as a serious movement in this country. Not what the Fox News variety but real, thinking, philosophical conservatism. Perhaps I'll discuss exactly what the difference between the two is another time. Rest assured, it's a big, big difference.
In any case, I picked it up at a book store in Mecosta, home of the Kirk Center and it was at the conference there that I started to really have an important thought. As I sat there in a room full of authors, professors, on priest and a couple of young intellectual heavy-weights to be I realized that on one level, I and my friend being just regular guys with regular jobs were more than a little out of place. And yet, we are also in a way the more important people who were at that conference for the simple fact that we are the regular guys. We are the ones who are out in the normal 9-5 world, down in the trenches as it were. We are the ones who have the ability to influence those around us, in a way more than all the authors and all media types in the world.
The reason I am telling you this is that as I was reading the forward to The Conservative Mind last night, Kirk made mention of the influence the book had on the "real shapers of public opinion; the thinking men and women" who speak with and influence their neighbors. This got me thinking a bit more. Mostly about how little interaction and influence we have with our neighbors these days. This is in part due to technology which allows us to cut ourselves off from those around us and huddle up with others like ourselves so that we never have to seriously confront other viewpoints. It also due to the general fear our culture has of engaging in serious conversation, especially about politics and religion. There really isn't much that can be said here (by me at least) except that we, including myself simply need to get over it and stick our necks out a bit. I'm not saying go all Old Testament prophet on your nearest co-worker or anything, but simply jump into a conversation or bring up some small thing that might strike up a worthwhile conversation. Because Kirk's observation is only true if we come out of fear-armored technology bubbles and interact at more than superficial level with those around us.
Alright, that's it for now. I'll probably post some more thoughts on this book in the near future.

The Golden Age - Part 2

So, after much deliberation, I am not going to walk you through the story of the second and third books of the trilogy. I greatly enjoyed the process of discovery along with Phaetheon, finding out why his memory was erased and who the enemy was who attacked him. Although to be fair, he really should have guessed the enemy sooner that he did given how smart he is. Therefore, I will discuss some of the themes prevalent in the trilogy.
The single biggest theme is the nature of truth. Given the ability to manipulate the senses and even memories that exists in Phaethon's world, it is certainly no wonder that many people think that truth is malleable and relative. Even, Helion, Phaethon's father and founder of the Silver-Gray school which adheres to ancient traditions and promotes an objective philosophy and morality does believe that his ideas are truly universal. In fact, at the crucial moment, it seems that only Phaethon, his wife Daphne and possibly the one man army (literally) Atkins maintain a faith in the objectivity and rationality of truth. And it is this faith in rationality and reason (yes, you read that right. Just chew on it for a bit) that in the end defeats the enemy and his philosophy of nihilism. Yes, in the end the enemy is not defeated through force of arms but through philosophy. And the enemy is not just defeated, he is converted.
Another theme explored in the book is the nature of free will. This is less explicit but still there. It comes out through the relationship of the Sophotech, super intelligent computers, capable of predicting virtually all events and even ordering those events in certain ways. In fact, the story largely hinges on a couple of small interventions on the part of one of the most intelligent Sophotechs.
If these machines are so intelligent and capable of controlling so much of human affairs, how can it be said that people are truly free? This argument, as well as an argument based on the lack of direct intervention on the part of the Sophotech to alleviate suffering are used by the enemy to paint these machines as evil and manipulative tyrants. The astute reader will recognize the arguments marshaled against the goodness of the Sophotechs as being the same arguments used against the goodness of God. The answers are of course fairly simple, the machines do not control our choices, they merely predict them. Even when they intervene, the do not force the choices made, they only make them possible. As to suffering, the only way to fully eliminate it would be to eliminate human free will. This is not explicit but rather implicit in the description of how the enemy's civilization came to collapse.
Other issues discussed are the nature of authority, law, and the ability of a free and peaceful society to deal with external military threats but as this is already a very long post, I will leave such discussions for the comment boxes.

The Golden Age - Part 1

Here's part one, which basically gives a brief description of the world of the Golden Age and the highlights of the first book.

The Golden Age is a highly speculative bit of science fiction by the intrepid John C. Wright. Set (I think) 100,000 years in the future, technology has continued to develop to the point that people are able to alter their bodies to pretty much any configuration, change, erase or add memories at will and transfer their minds into "mannequins" so that they never actually have to move in their real bodies (much like the movie Surrogates). As for society, there is unheard of wealth, it seems everyone has access to most of the fruits of the age save for those who choose not to make use of them.
That last actually brings me to one of the more interesting aspects of the trilogy, the fact that people are still people. There are still people who reject most technology, others who worship it; there is still pettiness and jealously, rebels, control freaks, etc.
Getting back to the story, we meet the main character, Phaethon, who is a an accomplished engineer and the "son" (a word that doesn't necessarily mean the same thing in Wright's world as ours) of Helion, another engineer whose claim to fame is that he rearranged the sun so that its "useful life" has been extended. In any case, he is confronted by two mysterious figures who both claim that he is not who and what he thinks he is. Essentially, he is informed that rather than the popular well-loved figure he believes himself to be, he is a pariah and his memory has been altered such that he cannot remember why this is. In fact, almost the entire society has also had its memory altered. Naturally, he starts asking questions and ultimately is attacked by an unknown enemy, which forces him to open up his memory casket, despite the risk of permanent exile.