Carson Napier is bored with his life. He needs an adventure. So he decides to go to Mars. He’s a keen rocket hobbyist and he is convinced that he can build a rocket that could reach Mars. He builds the rocket and it is launched successfully, with Carson Napier as the sole passenger. Unfortunately he made a mistake in his calculations and he ends up heading towards the Moon instead. The Moon’s gravitational field alters his course and he assumes that he is going to be headed off into the limitless void of space.
But at this point he gets a lucky break. He ends up on Venus.
He discovers that scientists were both right and wrong about Venus. The planet is indeed covered in thick layers of cloud but it is no uninhabitable. He encounters one group of inhabitants immediately, the Vepajans. They live in the trees. Literally in the trees - they live inside the trunks of the trees. These are not like trees on Earth. These trees grow to a height of 6,000 feet and the trunks of some of them have a diameter of 500 feet or more.
The Vepajans are friendly but they warn him not to try to approach the girl in the garden. Naturally he does approach her and he falls instantly in love with her but she gives him the brush-off in no uncertain terms.
Carson gets captured by the birdmen of Venus and after a number of unpleasant experiences he turns pirate. The book then becomes a pretty decent pirate adventure yarn, but in ships that use what sounds like a 1932 idea of what nuclear power might be like.
There’s plenty of action and Carson doesn’t forget about the girl. Despite her coldness he is sure that she secretly loves him.
Apart from the fact that Amtor is not quite as interesting as Carnak or Pellucidar there’s another problem with this book. Burroughs decides to indulge in some political satire. His target is communism. Sadly the satire is incredibly heavy-handed.
Carson Napier is your basic Edgar Rice Burroughs hero, largely interchangeable with all the others. Burroughs had a formula and he stuck to it. He know how to make that formula work and how to produce exciting stories. His world-building could be extraordinarily impressive. Pellucidar remains one of the great fantasy worlds.
Pirates of Venus is entertaining, the city in the trees is a nice idea and like all Burroughs books it’s well-paced.
It’s also worth mentioning that you only get a partial plot resolution at the end. There’s a kind of cliffhanger which sets things up for the next book in the series.
If you’re new to Burroughs then start with the first of Pellucidar stories, At the Earth’s Core, or the first of the Carnak novels, The Land That Time Forgot, or the first of the Mars books, A Princess of Mars. Pirates of Venus is a lesser work. Recommended, if you’re already a hardcore Burroughs fan.
He discovers that scientists were both right and wrong about Venus. The planet is indeed covered in thick layers of cloud but it is no uninhabitable. He encounters one group of inhabitants immediately, the Vepajans. They live in the trees. Literally in the trees - they live inside the trunks of the trees. These are not like trees on Earth. These trees grow to a height of 6,000 feet and the trunks of some of them have a diameter of 500 feet or more.
The Vepajans are friendly but they warn him not to try to approach the girl in the garden. Naturally he does approach her and he falls instantly in love with her but she gives him the brush-off in no uncertain terms.
Carson gets captured by the birdmen of Venus and after a number of unpleasant experiences he turns pirate. The book then becomes a pretty decent pirate adventure yarn, but in ships that use what sounds like a 1932 idea of what nuclear power might be like.
Apart from the fact that Amtor is not quite as interesting as Carnak or Pellucidar there’s another problem with this book. Burroughs decides to indulge in some political satire. His target is communism. Sadly the satire is incredibly heavy-handed.
Carson Napier is your basic Edgar Rice Burroughs hero, largely interchangeable with all the others. Burroughs had a formula and he stuck to it. He know how to make that formula work and how to produce exciting stories. His world-building could be extraordinarily impressive. Pellucidar remains one of the great fantasy worlds.
Pirates of Venus is entertaining, the city in the trees is a nice idea and like all Burroughs books it’s well-paced.
It’s also worth mentioning that you only get a partial plot resolution at the end. There’s a kind of cliffhanger which sets things up for the next book in the series.
If you’re new to Burroughs then start with the first of Pellucidar stories, At the Earth’s Core, or the first of the Carnak novels, The Land That Time Forgot, or the first of the Mars books, A Princess of Mars. Pirates of Venus is a lesser work. Recommended, if you’re already a hardcore Burroughs fan.
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