The Master Mind of Mars

Barsoom 6

By: Edgar Rice Burroughs

Narrated by: Peter Silverleaf

The Master Mind of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the sixth of his Barsoom series. Burroughs' working titles for the novel were A Weird Adventure on Mars and Vad Varo of Barsoom. It was first published in the magazine Amazing Stories Annual vol. 1, on July 15, 1927. The first book edition was published by A. C. McClurg in March 1928.

Public Domain (P)2023 Bookstream Audiobooks

Another Barsoom tale comes to Audible!

Although there are multiple performances of each of the first five books of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars series, there were virtually none available for the remaining five or six books in the series — until now. So apart from everything else, it was great to see The Master Mind of Mars become available earlier this year (2023), and hopefully the remaining volumes are not far behind.

Like many others, I am a Burroughs fan who greatly enjoyed all of his books when I was growing up, and the availability of the books on Kindle and Audible has allowed for a delightful revisiting, not just of the books themselves, but of my own childhood. As an adult however, it is sometimes difficult to suspend one’s critical faculties when it comes to plot, dialogue, etc. and when it comes to The Master Mind of Mars, it’s a bit more of a stretch than even the earlier volumes. As with the previous two volumes in the series, John Carter makes only a minor appearance in this book. Instead we have Ulysses Paxton, a fellow American military man and friend of John Carter (on Earth), cut from the same cloth. Traveling to Barsoom (in the same preposterous manner as Carter), Paxton finds himself in the laboratory of Ras Thavas, the “Master Mind” of the book’s title. The gruesome and lurid events of the next few chapters, while straining credulity to the breaking point, serve as a jumping off point for a more conventional Burroughs-esque tale of adventure and romance, of which some of us never tire! So by all means, put up with the casual brain surgery and other unbelievable parts, kick back, be a kid again, and enjoy the story!

The narrator is competent and reads well, but with a “thick” and unusual British accent (reminiscent to me of Marlon Brando’s bizarre interpretation of Fletcher Christian) that I found a little difficult to follow, and somewhat incongruous with a story that is presented in the “first person” by an American military officer. That said, I am delighted to see a new Barsoom release, regardless of the narrator.

There were a couple of unusual aspects to this Audible edition. First, the book is in English, but the introductory and closing “comments” from Audible are in German. Secondly, the audiobook is divided into more than a hundred “chapters” that are only a minute or two in duration and that do not correspond to the actual chapter division of the book itself. Neither of these issues detracted from the listening experience in any way, however.

Any fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs or Barsoom will want to embrace and enjoy this audiobook!