The Swordsman of Mars

I had known of Otis Adelbert Kline as a rival for the pulp mantle of exotic adventure accorded to Edgar Rice Burroughs, and was for some years interested to read his Martian sword-and-planet contributions. I expected them to seem derivative from ERB. What I discovered instead is that they appear to have been a significant model for the early Flash Gordon stories. There is a non-trivial extraterrestrial "yellow peril" element (although the yellow Ma Gongi aliens are shown in the cover art of my copy as green), and romantic intrigue with the daughter of the evil despot. (The chronology fits, with Swordsman of Mars published throughout 1933 and the earliest Flash Gordon strips appearing in 1934.)

The voyage to Mars is of the esoteric show more mind-transfer sort, additionally including time travel, so that like the Martian adventures of Leigh Brackett, it is set in the planet's past. Kline surprisingly makes no mention of the lower Martian gravity, which even serves as a plot point for ERB's John Carter. Martian fauna here include a lot of oversized insects, but also some strange vertebrates that I often found difficult to picture. There are giant birds used for mounts, a staple of the sword-and-planet subgenre, here called gawrs.

The book is a fast read, with frequent cliff-hanger chapter endings reflecting its genesis as a pulp serial. The prose is serviceable. I feel I have done my duty by including this book in my readings of Martian tales, and I'd read its sequel to kill some time, but it's not something I'll be in a hurry to seek out. I would recommend it to those who are fond of the old Flash Gordon stories. show less

This book has its amusing moments and various points of interest. But I suppose it's rather "average" sword-and-planet fare. It was originally published in the pulp magazine Argosy (1933), and has a definite period vibe about it. Note: I read the RGL edition based on the PG Australia text.

In those days, perhaps in the shadow of ERB, it seems like people needed a gimmick to get their Earthling hero up to Mars (or what have you). This book's gimmick is mind transference machinery that is said to transcend space and time, so the big-wig scientist is able to communicate telepathically with counterparts millions of years ago when the Red Planet was habitable and much like Earth. And with a compatible-enough pair of doppelganger bodies, they show more are able to transfer minds across all that space-time. The first Earth guy to be transferred (before the story opens) went rogue so they decided to transfer gallant Harry Thorne to go fix things. (His mind goes into the Martian body of the person he swapped with, naturally.) Of course he's great with a sword and he's super dependable and wholesome and so forth. One of the first people he meets upon arrival on Mars, aside from the counterpart scientist, is a woman named Thaine, every bit this equal with a sword, which is good. She's the bee's knees. So of course he falls in love with her immediately, but they're just good friends, sort of.

There's another (evil) race on this version of Mars that's kind of a "yellow-peril" analogue typical of American SF in the 1930s. The Martian technology is swords and similar, but centuries before the story begins someone had made destructive "green ray" machines and now the evil government (aided by that previous rogue Earthling) has re-invented the technology. So part of Harry's mission is to overcome and restore the good government. Through various events, he becomes a guard over a "princess" named Neva who's so beautiful everyone falls instantly in love with her, she spurns Harry, etc. But he ends up in prison (sent to labor in the mines), gets away, goes through one harrowing crisis after another, etc. There are a few too many coincidences and lucky breaks along the way, but this is after all red-blooded men's magazine adventure fare of the thirties, so we'll cut it some slack.

In addition to the human-like Martians and the evil yellow-peril type Martians, there are fairies! Well, they're called Ulfi, but they're tiny little people with wings, but they come in handy to help the protagonist who saves their princess' life. And they give him a glittery ring which he can rub to produce a scent that will summon them when needed. Uh huh.

Oh, at one point Thaine, the "girl" (because of course everyone in the 1930s who wasn't a man was a girl), actually gets carried off over the shoulder of the brutish antagonist. LOL. I kid you not. I won't tell you how the "war" was won, or which of the male protagonists ends up with which of the females, but I was mildly surprised when I got there.

Now, moving on to points of interest in the realm of world-building... The machine technology is kind of "big" in the Flash Gordon sense. The flying machines are mechanical birds. And the land vehicles are propelled by legs instead of wheels, basically like mechanical caterpillars with a varying number of legs depending on size and passenger capacity. They have some huge cities with interesting architecture and "baridium" lighting technology.
There are plenty of jungles and some dangerous creatures, too. show less

Harry Thorn's failed suicide attempt has landed him in a cell, but not a padded one strangely enough. His saviour is a Doctor Morgan who needs Harry for a very particular mission: to swap bodies, or to be more exact minds, with his doppelgänger on the planet Mars - a Martian named Borgen Takkor - and of noble blood no less. His mission to confront and likely have to kill in the process a rogue agent from Earth named Richard Boyd who has been sent ahead of Harry to Mars in the body of one Sel Han.

Once on the planet, some one million years in the past Harry is stung by a giant blood sucking bug and in this weekend state manages to practically faint into the arms of the man he has been sent to kill - thus bringing shame and dishonour upon show more himself. To make things worse; around the same time his Martian father dies.

On his way to his ancestral homeland to claim his lands (albeit stained with his own shame and dishonour) Harry's or rather Borgen's aerial convoy is attacked by flying assassins and he is hit and takes a death role into the marshes and is lost!

Surviving the fall was nothing to escaping the various swamp monsters now after his blood! but Harry is rescued by a beautiful Amazon named Thain who also knew Borgen Takkor from childhood and is not fooled by this guise. After explaining the whole story to Thain they set out to reclaim Takkor's kingdom and restore Thain's father's territories from the Kamud who have seized power.

Thain and Takkor are accosted by some spindly yellow refugees named Ma Gongi formally of Earth's own Moon who where marooned on Mars after failing to conquer the planet years earlier.

The next morning after being pointed in the right direction, Harry sets off to claim his birthright; but before that can happen he will be declared dead and accused of being a fraud then imprisoned; made to fight for his life, brought before the local Dixtar and pardoned - only to be rewarded with the unenviable task of guarding the Dixtar's nymphet daughter; which in tern lands him a death sentence at the Baridium mines from which he will escape and end up in a desert adventure during which he will form alliances with other Martian races; Just as well as during this time Richard Boyd has been in cahoots with the Ma Gongi and taken over as Dixter before imprisoning all his remaining enemies in castle Takkor!
Thorn now has to figure out a way to save all his friends, escape, kill Boyd and restore the empire!

I loved this book - and I've only read the cut-down ACE version! show less

My new 2and favorite pulp writer behind Robert E Howard whom he served as editor for. Otis A Kline's Mars is better than Burroughs' Barsoom. To be fair this is because in my mind the main character Harry Thorne is presented as a complete far more likable person than John Carter. Thorne is a hardy adventurer but far from some mutant superman. He gets hurt and does not always reach the right conclusion. The logical, within it's own terms, action filled plot moves as fast as the hero's sword trust. I was surprised by how well the supporting cast were presented. This is a must have far any fan of pulp /planetary romance.

Not a bad story but also not a great one either. It is extremely fast paced so much so that it felt like there was stuff missing. There was a number of errors in the wording that made me actually stop and reread them a number of times, this to me seriously detracts from a story. The world he was creating in the story had a great deal of potential to be built upon though.

This is a Burroughs style Mars story, and nothing else. If you like those sorts of stories, you'll like this one, as it is well written, and the plot is decent. Its a bit more complex than a typical Mars swordsman tale, and well written. This is a reprint of a story from the 1940's, so this is not 'modern' fantasy, but the old fashioned kind. Its really a fantasy/sci-fi crossover (ray gun wielding goblins!) but more of a fantasy than scifi.

Not as good as ERB, and I probably should only give it a 3 rating, but I just enjoyed it too much. Call it a guilty pleasure. I liked it in spite of itself. I wish Amazon had a separate category for the genre of "planetary romance" or "sword and planet", as they are my favorite type of story. Even more than zombies. :)