The Chessmen Of Mars (Ballantine 23582, Mars #5) - Softcover

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345235827 ISBN 13: 9780345235824

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1973

Synopsis

"1922. After a rambunctious youth and series of short-lived jobs including door-to-door salesman, accountant, a peddler for a quack alcoholism cure and finally pencil sharpener wholesaler, Burroughs found his calling as writer. As the story goes, one of Burroughs' duties was to verify the placement of advertisements for his sharpeners in various magazines. These were all-fiction pulp magazines, a prime source of escapist reading material for the expanding middle class. Burroughs spent time reading those magazines and decided he could write those stories just as well. He was lucky his first time out and sold Under the Moon of Mars. The Tarzan series followed this and Burroughs was now a full-fledged writer. In this volume of the Mars series, Helium, a spoiled princess and John Carter's daughter, rejects Gahan, Jed of Gathol, as a suitor and foolishly flies off into a great storm. Gahan gives chase. By the time he finally catches up to Tara, she has forgotten who he is, and he assumes the name Turjun, a panthan mercenary. Together they challenge the power of O-Tar, Jeddak of Manator, whose barbaric nation of Red Men have preyed upon Gathol for centuries. The Manatorians have elevated Jetan, Martian chess, to an unprecedented level of skill and excitement: they use live chessmen who fight for live princesses. Gahan finds himself fighting for Tara on the chessboard of Manator, and haunting O-Tar's palace."

About this title

From the Publisher:

This book is a large print version using a minimum of 16 point type in a 6 by 9 inch size and library bound. As with all Quiet Vision print books, it use a high grade, acid free paper for long life.

From the Back Cover:

Edgar Rice Burroughs created one of the most iconic figures in American pop culture, Tarzan of the Apes, and it is impossible to overstate his influence on entire genres of popular literature in the decades after his enormously winning pulp novels stormed the public's imagination.

The Chessmen of Mars, first published in 1922, is the fifth book in Burroughs' Mars series, about the adventures of Earthman John Carter on the Red Planet. Here, Carter's daughter, Tara of Helium (aka Kansas), is caught up in a deadly game played by the bizarre creatures of the alien world... while also finding herself under the sway of the nameless warrior sent to rescue her.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1973
• ISBN 10: 0345235827
• ISBN 13: 9780345235824
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 220
• Illustrator: Gino D'Achille