I cannot believe they don’t recognize me!

The intellectual demands on the readers of early science fiction were minimal. There are no less than three episodes in ERB’s third Barsoom novel in which our hero John Carter has disguised himself in the look of a particular Martian race (different races/colors each time). In every instance he is shocked nobody recognizes him, and he grows puzzled when he tries to communicate with a friend and they do not see him, John Carter, but instead the disguise he just put on! He makes a hand gesture of love to Dejah Thoris, his wife, while disguised as a bearded yellow Martian, and she recoils! What gives? Utter perplexity. Oddly enough, moments later his arch-enemy and the man from whom the disguise is mean to hide easily sees through the façade and exposes Carter. This happens multiple times.

Naturally, he spends months traversing a dangerous series of tundras, cliff walls, jungles, caverns, across the planet and into uncharted territory of legend. He then capriciously decides to separate from his trusty animal companion. He instructs the pet to find his son on the other side of the planet, and to return with an army. He doesn’t say to return “just in the nick of time”, but this is understood.

Tiring (and tired) is the novel in which every new king figure is a lecherous, misogynistic, slave-driving double-crosser. Every leader of every new race puts our hero on trial, everyone wants to stab him in the back, all would like to force themselves sexually on his wife, and each is devoid of honor. In a way this type of novel is fun and familiar and consistent. And yet, yawn.