Synthetic Men of Mars

Synthetic Men of Mars is a book by the amazing author Edgar Rice Burroughs. He also wrote the Tarzan series. This book is about Mars and how the people who live on it act. In this sci-fi thriller Mars has advanced life and people from Earth inhabit it along with Mars’s native inhabitants, some humanoid.

The book starts off on Mars where John Carter (Dotar Sojat) the Prince of Helium and Warlord of Barsoom finds out that his wife Dejah Thoris, his wife, was in a coma and only Ras Thavas could save her. Ras Thavas was a world known scientist who could take a brain from someone and put it in a different body. Or just take someone out of a coma. John Carter set out on a quest to find Ras Thavas somewhere in the wilderness. His best officer Vor Daj set out to help him.

They landed at an unknown city to get supplies when they fought and were captured by deformed green men who could not feel pain but were not intelligent. These green men were called Hormads. They were taken inside where they stayed with other prisoners. A prisoner named Janai liked Vor Daj and they fell in love. That was short lived though because the men were put into a room where they would each face a Hormad to the death or what would mean death if not a hormad. Vor Daj and John Carter each killed the hormads. Janai was taken to the women slave room and John and Vor both were sent to work with the mastermind behind the creation of Hormads… Ras Thavas.

To find out how Vor, John, Ras Thavas, and Jania escape this horrible place with their lives after destroying the hormad creating machines before death is what you have got to read. One thing I liked about this book was the fluency of the writing. I also like all of the twists of irony with rainbow sprinkles. One thing I didn’t like about this book was the lack of explanation only because this book was the middle of the series.