Helpful Score: 1
I have been reading Burroughs since I was a teenager back in the 1960s. When I was 10 years old, my father gave me a copy of Tarzan and the Golden Lion for Christmas. I don't think I read it until a few years later but when I did, I became hooked on Burroughs. My father also had an old copy of A Princess of Mars, the first book in the Mars series which I also read as a teenager. Later in the 70s and 80s, I reread most of the Tarzan series as well as some Mars books and my favorites, the Pellucidar series. Since then, I have collected most of Burroughs books in hardcover and read them somewhat sporadically. I had never read Master Mind before â the last Mars book I read about 20 years ago was Chessmen of Mars so I decided to see what happens in the next book in the series.
Master Mind is the sixth book in the Mars series. It was originally published in the magazine Amazing Stories Annual vol. 1, on July 15, 1927 and then published in book form in 1928.
In this book, Burroughs uses a new character, Ulysses Paxton, to tell a really unusual tale involving brain and other organ and limb transplants by an elderly mad scientist named Ras Thavas. Paxton was serving in the trenches of WWI when he is magically transported to Mars where he meets Thavas and becomes his apprentice. At first Paxton is thrilled to gain the knowledge of Ras but then he discovers that Ras has transplanted brains and uses this skill to provide rich elderly Martians with youthful new bodies for a profit. Paxton falls in love with one of the women who has had her brain replaced by that of an old hag and the novel proceeds as an adventure to get the rightful brain back into the beautiful body. Of course, all is well that ends well and Paxton gets his beautiful bride.
I was kind of disappointed in this novel. It really didn't seem like the John Carter novels I had read in the past. The plot about brain transplants was right out of Frankenstein or H.P. Lovecraft's Reanimator. It was like the plot of a very bad B movie from the 50s. The writing to me also seemed very juvenile (maybe it always was) and the dialog was not very realistic. Also all the Martian names became very confusing. I guess mostly I read this for nostalgia's sake but I'm not sure if I will be reading any more of these anytime soon. However, I still have Burroughs Venus series which I have not read â maybe I'll sneak one of them in just to see what happened on Venus. :-)
Master Mind is the sixth book in the Mars series. It was originally published in the magazine Amazing Stories Annual vol. 1, on July 15, 1927 and then published in book form in 1928.
In this book, Burroughs uses a new character, Ulysses Paxton, to tell a really unusual tale involving brain and other organ and limb transplants by an elderly mad scientist named Ras Thavas. Paxton was serving in the trenches of WWI when he is magically transported to Mars where he meets Thavas and becomes his apprentice. At first Paxton is thrilled to gain the knowledge of Ras but then he discovers that Ras has transplanted brains and uses this skill to provide rich elderly Martians with youthful new bodies for a profit. Paxton falls in love with one of the women who has had her brain replaced by that of an old hag and the novel proceeds as an adventure to get the rightful brain back into the beautiful body. Of course, all is well that ends well and Paxton gets his beautiful bride.
I was kind of disappointed in this novel. It really didn't seem like the John Carter novels I had read in the past. The plot about brain transplants was right out of Frankenstein or H.P. Lovecraft's Reanimator. It was like the plot of a very bad B movie from the 50s. The writing to me also seemed very juvenile (maybe it always was) and the dialog was not very realistic. Also all the Martian names became very confusing. I guess mostly I read this for nostalgia's sake but I'm not sure if I will be reading any more of these anytime soon. However, I still have Burroughs Venus series which I have not read â maybe I'll sneak one of them in just to see what happened on Venus. :-)
