God of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

So the second book of john carter titled Gods of Mars. So the Therns are a real thing, but they don't make an appearance until the second book. In fact, all of the space traveling explanations happened with this book that happened in the movie, so I guess they combined parts of the second book with the first book for the movie. To be honest, I think the second book would have made a far better movie. However, there is a lot more racism in this book.

So the book largely deals with religion and the falsity of religion. The valley of Issus is where the red and green men of Barsoom go when they are ready to die and go to heaven. What they don't realize and what John Carter stumbles into after 10 long years, is that it's a place where people get eaten alive. Plant men were introduced and the Therns, who enslave people that come to the valley of Issus. If one comes back from the valley of Issus, however, they are killed immediately so it doesn't get out that the valley is not what it's cracked up to be.

John Carter stumbles into that and meets up with Tharks Tharkus who wants to go down the valley of Issus. They run into Plant men,Therns and white apes. There is a lot of fighting with Tharks and John all excited to be together again. However, all John carter wants to do is see his boo.

However, the first born race comes into town. They are a race of black men who are vicious and also steal people for slaves and for their living goddess Issus. Oh yes, you read that right. Race of black violent men who can't control themselves around women. They are pirates too. So Burroughs naturally writes more racist shit. Oh, and they are cannibals and have gladiator fights. They also enslave people and at one point, Burroughs notes that the entire race, the women especially, don't do anything. The slaves do it.

Burroughs describes more of the planet this time and admits that though John was there for 5 years, he saw little of the planet. There is also a middle earth sort of deal like Dinotopia. Which is cool, i guess. There is lots of fighting and men who devote their lives to John Carter or women that wanna bang John Carter. John sheepishly admits many times he isn't a ladies man, but he so is.

There is a tragic end to the story, and I had to read the first chapter of the next book in order to confirm that De'Ajah Thoris didn't die. I didn't think Burroughs would do such a thing, considering John gets mostly everything he wants. However, there was a finality to the last few sentences, so I quickly scanned the chapter. Phew, Burroughs didn't kill her off.

Overall, Burroughs is a racist. I'm going to keep plugging through the rest of the books, because gosh darn it, I bought them!