Warlord of Mars.

By Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Synopsis:
Following straight on from the cliffhanger at the end of the last book, John Carter persues Dejah Thoris halfway across the planet. Again.

Review:
I quite liked it. The ending of the last book is dealt with in the first couple of pages and a completely different problem is set up, which was a bit annoying, as I liked the Temple of the Sun. It appealed to the Crystal Maze-loving bit of me.

Anyhoo, Dejah Thoris gets kidnapped by the evil guys (as John Carter was far too honourable to kill them at the end of the last book. Those that he could catch anyway) so he's goes chasing off after her, and discovers the long-lost race of Yellow Martians, who live at the North Pole. He saves a rebel prince from being hacked to death by a load of brigands (this lot should be in the synopsis, surely?) and then offers to go and kill his evil uncle who rules over the city of Kadabra. The rebel prince's evil uncle, not John Carter's. John Carter doesn't have an evil uncle that I know of. Of course, I haven't read all the books yet.

Over the course of the last two books, the number of known races of Martians has risen from two to five. And this time, there was definate racial harmony stuff going on at the end (although all these different races choose John Carter - a white man - to be their supreme leader... odd that); although the White Martians were still all evil, the Red, Green, Black and Yellow Martians have all chosen to live together in peace and harmony.

Oh, and John Carter helps overthrow yet another false religion, but this time it's pretty much incidental to the actual plot, amd it's the Yellow Prince guy who does all the actual work.

Thuvia shows up again, but doesn't get to do much apart from get captured, get rescued, and intrigue Carthoris, nicely setting up the next book.

Conclusion - Nice book, shame about the ending. And about the Temple of the Sun. And Carthoris surviving. But aside from that it was OK.