Pirates of Venus

Venus #1

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Rocketman Carson Napier is surprised to find that his ship has landed on Venus instead of Mars, and as he tries to find his way on the hostile, mist-covered planet, he blunders into a love affair with the princess of Venus

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Pulp, Adventure, Classics, Sword and Planet

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1935

About the author

Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.

Reviews

[Adrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ad Hoc ERB read Sept 2025

Well having finished all the available ERB Barsoom novels, I decided seeing as I had them, that I may as well read his Venus novels, as I don’t remember ever having read them.

And here we are, this is the first. The adventurer Carson Napier builds his spaceship with the intention of flying to Mars as he has been assured it is the only habitable planet in the solar system, however his journey is badly disrupted by the orbit and gravitational pull of the moon, and Carson finds himself heading for the sun until, Venus suddenly appears and he realises he is going to crash on that planet. Fully expecting to die on the descent into what he expects will be a fiery surface, Carson travels through layers of cloud and finds himself way above a verdant jungle with giant trees, into which he crashes.
Rescued by the natives of the trees, who appear remarkably human, he learns there are many competing civilisations and not all are as peaceful and civilised as the tree dwellers. Captured whilst out one day collecting spiders webs, his adventures begin and he finds out just how unfriendly and dangerous the rest of Venus, Amtor, really is.

[Sequoyah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I put A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court down mid-read, and said to myself, "I want a real adventure. One without out the dry preachings of politics. I want a simple epic story."

After saying this, I went down to my local Pike's Peak library and picked up the first two books in Edgar Rice Burrough's Venus series. I, being a virgin to Burroughs, did not know what to expect.

I was hooked by the first couple of chapters. Missing Mars for Venus, exploring a new planet, fighting alien spiders, climbing up tree's that reach the stratosphere; this is exactly what I needed. This simple book was the change I wanted from the dry complexities of classics to simple freshness of an old science fiction.

I've heard that Carson Napiers is in no comparison a John Carter, but Carson is my first Burroughs, therefore he is my John Carter.

[Johnny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although a case can be made for “science fiction” either inspiring or anticipating scientific developments over the course of the last century, there is very little “science” in the “science fiction” of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Pirates of Venus is no exception. Outside of the speculative suggestion of launching a rocket using, essentially, “rocket sled” technology and the fascinating discussion where the protagonist attempts to use the differences in distances at the equatorial circumference of Venus and the polar circumferences to demonstrate the spherical nature of the planet, the book basically takes the antithesis of prevailing scientific views of Venus and the possibility of autochthonous life forms (even from that of 1932 when it was originally published).

This volume has languished in my science-fiction collection for several decades (it’s the 1964 Ace Books printing), but I haven’t read it in all of those years. Why? I found these copies at a used bookstore in the ‘70s. I bought them because of fond memories of John Carter of Mars and my joy at discovering comics and board games (including miniatures) based on this delightful series. John Carter wasn’t “scientific” either, but the pacing was tighter and the discoveries delivered at a savory pace. I thought Carson would be the same, but started the book and lost interest even before Carson landed on ERB’s fictional Venus.

When I needed bedtime reading the other night (I didn’t want my last waking thoughts to be either Napoleon in the lengthy volume I’m reading about the First Consul/Emperor, the detailed rhetorical critical analysis of Isaiah 46, 47 and 48 that I’ve been delving into, or the book that takes Dawkins and Hitchens to task from a scientific perspective.), I almost picked up a novel by William Gibson but felt like cyberpunk was too depressing for where my head was at. I saw these volumes of the Venus series on the shelves and asked myself if I could remember anything about them. I couldn’t, largely because I never actually read them. I had started them, but not gotten into them. So, with lowered expectations, I went back to explore 1930’s pulp adventure with a pseudo-scientific (at best) veneer. And I’m glad that I did.

Carson Napier is a discount John Carter. Duare is a Broadway reprise of Dejah Thoris. With only two arms, Kamlot may be no Tars Tarkas (Carter’s Green Martian friend with multiple arms) as he only has two of the standard appendages, but it seems clear that ERB is traveling the same trail with only slightly different nuances. For example, “…in the midst of death there is life” is presented as a statement rather than Carter’s classic “I still live!” assertion. Yet, once I admitted this was so, I began to enjoy the ride. I decided that the experience was better than the Gor adventures by John Norman (unless you happen to be into the kind of bondage that pseudonymous author advocates) but not quite as engaging as the bulk of the Mars canon.

In addition to the basic pulp adventure elements (being chased by predators, being captured by enemies, as well as improbable escapes and rescues), ERB offers a few observations with bearing upon his personal philosophy. First, and most obviously for a novel originally published in 1932, the villainous force with which the protagonist must deal is a totalitarian empire (most likely a metaphor for the burgeoning Communist empire, but perhaps prescient for what was about to occur in Germany within the next couple of years). Ah, good models for pulp villains are timeless and work on both sides of the ideological spectrum! Second, a little of ERB’s personal philosophy seems to show with a recurring observation. On p. 33 of my edition, Napier believes his death is inevitable and observes, “It became apparent that the value of what we see is measurable only by the size of our prospective audience.” Later, on p. 190 he offers, “Thus spoke the eternal egotism of man, who, even in death, desires an audience.”

There was one more intriguing philosophical note, the reverse side of what would be found in one of John Norman’s Gor novels. The exotic “Princess” (known in the series as the janjong) Duare tells the protagonist, “Conditions are very different now from any that I have ever before encountered. The rules and restrictions under which I have lived among my own people cannot, I now realize, be expected to apply to situations so unusual or to people and places so foreign to those whose lives they were intended to govern.” (p. 200) To me, it seems like Burroughs recognizes something of the “glass ceiling” imposed by society on women and, in his limited way as a male of the early 20th century, is attempting to look beyond gender to person.

[Eye of Sauron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read A Princess of Mars and Tarzan of the Apes, I thought I had gotten just about as much excitement out of Mr. Burroughs as I was going to get, but then this little novel wandered into my field of vision and proved me wrong.

A bit of backstory; I only picked this book up because the third installment in this series was nominated for the 1939 Retro-Hugo. Being a gung-ho perfectionist, I refuse to read the third book without reading the first two, and I intend to read everything ever nominated for the Hugo, starting (and perhaps finishing, depending on stamina) with 1939. So it was with a bit of skepticism and impatience that I started Pirates of Venus, but I was very quickly surprised in a good way.

It's everything one could want from a good, short, lightweight SF adventure: intelligent prose, fascinating ideas, a hefty helping of fantasy and wonder, tactical combat, and insta-love through male force of will. Wait, maybe you don't want that last one. (But you'll get it anyway, this is 1930s escapist fantasy we're talking about.) Despite one or two strikes against it, this is truly a highly entertaining read, and (gasp!) I think I liked it better than either of the other two, much more famous, works. I'm actually very much looking forward to the next one.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This strange book was an easy, typical Burroughs read. After a rough start in which Burroughs tries to get the protagonist Carson Napier situated in Burroughs world-he establishes that Napier is going to tell Burroughs about his journey via telepathy for some reason-the novel settles down into a standard Burroughs yarn.

Napier is trying to get to Mars, but takes a wrong turn just past Albuquerque and ends up on Venus instead. On Venus he ingratiates himself with the locals, falls instantly in love with the leading woman of society, and inevitably becomes world leader. Holy John Carter, Batman! This is an enjoyable if thoroughly formulaic romp we've all read before.

I have just reread it by accident from having read it earlier this year, which goes to show how memorable it is not. Anyhow, I like it better than my review and three-star rating would indicate. It's really a 3.45 rating now. One thing I should mention is that there is one unique aspect to this series. Namely, it's basically a pirate story. Tarzan mentions pirates but then quickly moves to land. In this book, the main action takes place almost entirely at sea. It's a pirate adventure story (and probably series since I think Venus is going to substitute for an ocean) masquerading as science fiction.

[Ignacio Senao f · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lo mismo de siempre pero con diferentes personajes y planeta.
Aventurero guapetón terrícola, quiere viajar a Marte porque se aburre de su placentera vida. Consigue que le concedan el placer gracias a un cohete. Este pepino se desvía de su trayectoria y llega a Venus, planeta dominado por razas diferentes. El honorable terrestre se enamorara y luchara.

Se lee en nada y se disfruta como nada.

[Clint Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just so you're aware: I loved the movie John Carter. So much so, in fact, that it made me finally pick up my first ERB book in the form of A Princess of Mars--the inspiration for the movie. I loved the book, too, and was disappointed that no one had steered me to ERB in my more inquisitive years.

Pirates of Venus was a fun read. I could read about the creatures in ERB's mind all day long, and still hunger for more. It was especially fun for someone (like me) who enjoys a good pirate yarn. I did find the ending a little disappointing, though, as it is something of a cliffhanger. He didn't flat out write the words, but it brought me back to those fearful words from 90s television: "To Be Continued..." I want it now, damn it!

So, why didn't he just write one normal-size book about Venus instead of stringing us along for five-ish mini books? A good paycheque, perhaps?

This was one of his later book series, and kind of felt like he was just trying to warm up his bank account. It was still fun, though, don't get me wrong.

[David B · Rating 4 out of 5]

The plot is vintage (cliché?) Burroughs--stalwart Earthman finds himself alone on an alien world, rescues a beautiful princess, wins her love, and becomes the ruler of a mighty empire. Although there is nothing new in the plot, ERB at his best has a way of writing a tale that just zings along from adventure to adventure in a very enjoyable way, making for fast, fun, escapist reading. This is the literary equivalent of comfort food.

[Meggy Chocolate'n'Waffles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not finish. Reasons to come soon.

[Stephan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is fairly standard swords&planets style science fantasy. The pace is rather slow in the beginning, but it does pick up once our hero, Carson Napier, missing Mars but instead hitting Venus with his self-built rocket, arrives there and meets the Venusians, including the princess to be rescued. There is a lot of adventure and swordplay going on, climbing 5000 ft high trees, fighting giant spiders with spears, "Thorist" captains with swords, and their ships with ray guns. At the end the princess is flown back to safety (?) while the protagonist is taken prisoner by a superior force of Thorists. Go buy Lost on Venus, luckily now also available from Project Gutenberg, if you want to know what happens next.

I've read worse, and this is entertaining enough in an old-fashioned way. The original serial publication was in 1932, the book edition 1934. Somewhat disconcertingly, the Venusian abbreviation for "Soldiers of Liberty" (which will form the core of Napier's pirate crew) is KKK, which causes Napier (channelling Burroughs) to be "compelled to smile at the similarity they bore to those of a well-known secret order". Not a bit that aged particularly well. Still, read the book for the anachronisms and the action, especially if you are low on cash. But there are plenty of better books around (and plenty of worse ;-). Don't take it too seriously.

[Tym · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually read this after reading all of the other books in the series. My family had a copy of the sequel stashed away in a box that I eventually found in storage at the ripe old age of 13. I liberated all of their ERB books (with their forgiveness) and they were missing the first novel of this series. This book. I thoroughly enjoyed the other books in the series and fell in love with them. I read this before reading John Carter so perhaps that explains why I like Carson better. Finally, about 15 years ago I found a copy of Pirates at a local used book store (thank you Black and Read) and read it.

While it didn't hold up quite as well as I remember them being I am sure that is more due to my age and slow change in reading taste than it is to the actual quality of the yarn. Burroughs always rights a great fast-paced story with fantastical elements unique to each setting, even if the story is a retread of what has come before (John Carter). I prefer this world of massive dense jungles, pirate infested waters and weird amoeba people to the dry desolate Barsoom.

Recommended for anyone who likes old pulpy sci-fi that leans more into the fi than the sci.

[Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

So politically incorrect that sometimes it's physically painful to read but seeing as this is 1930s pulp science fiction, anyone who picks it up shouldn't be shocked. Yet so grotesquely campy, it was impossible for me to stop reading. It's like a train wreck in slow motion.

Swashbuckling aliens in loin cloths battling with ray guns and swords. Oh and bird men. And a supremely virginal princess complete with heaving bosom...

God forgive me, it was too ridiculously funny to put down.

[Stephen Gallup · Rating 3 out of 5]

My remembered impression of the Venus series was that it ranked among ERB's best, and on this return the first book of the set did not disappoint. It's a compelling yarn concerning a young man with plenty of money and not much concern about what happens to him, who constructs a rocket with the idea of going to Mars. Due to a whopper of a miscalculation, he misses that destination, begins a fall toward the Sun, and is saved only by becoming caught in the gravitational field of Venus so that he lands there. Once acclimated, he finds a civilization that, like the one in The Moon Maid has been damaged by revolution in times past -- and that, predictably, contains the one girl in the universe able to quicken his heart.

What sets Burroughs apart from run-of-the-mill pulp writers is the inventiveness and detail in the fantastic societies he concocts. Sometimes in this book he lets his enthusiasm for details get out of hand. I couldn't help being amused when, in the midst of a climactic action scene, he steps in with a sidebar like the following:

This word [kloonobargan:], by way of parenthesis, is an interesting example of the derivation of an Amtorian substantive. Broadly, it means savages; literally, it means hairy men. In the singular, it is nobargan. Gan is man; bar is hair. No is a contraction of not (with), and is used as a prefix with the same value that the suffix y has in English; therefore nobar means hairy, nobargan, hairy man. The prefix kloo forms the plural, and we have kloonobargan (hairy men), savages.

The average reader, I think, impatiently skips over that stuff. All we really want to know is whether Carson can survive among the Vepajans, avoid horrible death under the fangs of one of the giant spiders there, discomfit the treacherous Thorists, and win the girl. As long as it stays in the background, the abundance of local color simply makes those adventures somewhat plausible and therefore more enjoyable.

[Cesar Leon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una gran aventura de las que nos tiene acostumbrado Burroughs en un lugar tan diferente al marte que nos presenta con John Carter al darnos este Venus con su propia Fauna.Sin duda otra aventura que te llevara a pasar un buen rato cargado de accion en su mayor parte.

[Nicholas Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't let the name fool you, this isn't your typical 70's sci-fi novel, mainly because it was written in the 30's. That means that you will go on a planet hopping adventure pre lunar landing era. That was a time when most fantasy and sci-fi had heavy Greek, and Mesopotamia leanings so you will see many alien cultures coincidently resembling them. Also expect aliens who are little different then man, only altered by slight differences in stature, skin color, and bizarre alien customs.
This story starts a little strangely by the author using one of his character from a different book series that he had written, the Tarzan adventures. He is met by the book's main character who learned astral projection in India. The main character arranges a deal with the Tarzan character to send astral projections to him so that the Tarzan character can recorded what the main character is doing on Mars. The main character then travels to Mars on a cool 30's German rocket, and through miscalculation ends up landing on Venus.
The feeling of adventure you have when you follow the first person perspective of this main character is almost overwhelming, drawing you into this magical world where anything could be possible because, well, it's a different planet and there anything could happen. As he meets the races of this planet as well as it's terrible beasties, you fall a little more in love with this romantic depiction of Venus and begin to resent the fact that the book is only 200 pages long.
The plot of the story is generally lacking, making the series of action sequences the main driving force of the story, but the sequences vary so differently and are so remarkable in their swashbuckling way that you never find yourself board.
Like most sci-fi stories, the writer tried to incorporate some social commentary, but if you're not paying attention you'll hardly notice.
If you love lost world story lines and epic adventure where you sit back in anticipation dying to see what happens next then you'll love this book. And like I said don't let the title fool you, there's a grand total of fifteen pages of Venusan Piracy.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have the Ace edition of this. Carson Napier, the hero, is no John Carter, but the Venus series is fun and inventive. This is the first in the series but ends rather abruptly and you need to go immediately to the next, "Lost on Venus," to get closure.

Still, you've gotta love ERB's endless inventive imagination.

[Adrian · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book of 2 halves - the first half when Carson is stranded on Venus is great, such an unusual alien setting in a giant forest, really imaginative creatures and culture, like nothing I've read.

The 2nd half though, when Carson starts up piracy in order to romance a woman who is illegally young by the law of the land, not so good. I will not be reading the others.

[Erik · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the first in Edgar Rice Burroughs' 5th sf/adventure series, and it is a huge step down from Tarzan, Barsoom, Pellucidar, and Caspak. Carson Napier, who can astrally project himself to anywhere on Earth, decides that isn't enough, and builds a spaceship to Mars. However, he did not include the Moon's gravitational pull in his calculations and misses Mars altogether. Luckily Venus stops his plunge into the Sun. Venus is a cloud-covered world. (Burroughs still playing along with Arrhenius' 1918 speculation that Venus was a swamp. However, by 1932 when Pirates of Venus was written, astronomers already knew that Venus' atmosphere was full of carbon dioxide.) On Amtor (the native name for Venus), he goes through the same old drill that John Carter went through on Mars and David Innes in Pellucidar. Fighting strange creatures. Taking sides in their conflicts. There's also another tiresome Burroughs princess that won't give our hero the time of day. Napier learns the language, and the action sometimes stops so the reader can be clued on the plural forms of Venusian nouns. (Rule for sf writers: Unless your invented language reveals some strange alien way of thinking, keep it to yourself.) The sequel, Lost on Venus, is sitting on my shelf, but I think I'll restrain myself.

Kudos to the University of Nebraska Press for its great work in reissuing works of late-19th and early-20 century science fiction, but did they really need to go all out and supply this with a foreword, an afterword, a glossary, and new illustrations?

[Blaze · Rating 3 out of 5]

A space-mission gone wrong forces Carson Napier to crash-land on Venus. The ingredients for some good, classic sci-fi are all there: an unknown planet, strange creatures, a few good guys, a lot of bad guys and a beautiful extra-terrestrial woman. All this makes for an entertaining read!T

I quite enjoy Burrough's writing and he manages to put in some social criticism along the way. There has been a revolution on Venus and the lower class has forced their opponents to hide far away, after purging as many of them as possible (mostly people with an education). Now the revolutionists, who didn't get what they were promised, are governed by an elite few and life has not turned for the better. They are devolving. Well, if Burroughs didn't think he was pointing it out clearly enough, this being written in the 30's and all, he names one of the baddies Moosko.

What struck me most though, is what a lazy person I am. Here we have a main character  who is only 27 and he has so far managed to finance, build, and fly a spaceship. He has worked as a stuntman and he swims, runs and climbs like he was born to it. So is that all? No, just the beginning... Carson has mastered the arts of mentally projecting his body and best of all, he has taken up fencing classes in Germany.Me, I can barely get up in the morning.

With a character like this we are in safe hands and in for a good ride!

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pirates of Venus is fairly obviously a sci-fi adventure. One which was purchased for its obvious absurd title. One which has all the quirks of early sci-fi. Here, we have the daring space explorer, a bored and rich young man who is resourceful and muscular and dashing, who makes women fall for him at the sight of him. We have incredibly outdated science (after all, Venus is now known to be uninhabitable for life as we know it, let alone for complex humanoid populations and massive vegetation). We have master races without bashfulness, composed entirely of the most beautiful folks (the fact that this was written just pre-Hitler is probably not lost on a modern reader).

But as it is, it is a perfectly serviceable adventure, inasmuch as there is drama and intrigue, action and suspense, and this all does its job fine as long as we do our job, which is to read such work without being overcritical.

The story ends on a cliffhanger. Is it enough to make one want to pick up the second book in the series? That will remain to be seen, but if I were to stumble upon it, I wouldn't be averse to continuing the story.

[Naomi · Rating 2 out of 5]

La primicia me emocionaba mucho, ya que no leo mucha ciencia ficción y parecía bueno al principio con su planteamiento y creación de mundo (que si lo miras en retrospectiva tampoco es tan espectacular), pero nada de eso importa cuando tu protagonista es tremendo Gary Stu.

A Carson todo le sale bien, todo mundo lo respeta, aprende idiomas extraterrestres en tres días, se saca habilidades de la cola... Que flojera.

Sólo le faltó volar para que mi risa la escucharán todos mis vecinos. Definitivamente no leeré las siguientes partes.

[Steve Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Burroughs has a formula and all of his stories are the same. But he does it differently so well. His worlds are real. Good guys are good, bad guys are bad. Good triumphs.

This is the martian series set in Venus. I like the martian series just slightly better, but they are close. Read dozens of times over the years and every book is just as good as the first

[Rick Hautala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes Burroughs isn't so good, but in this case, in spite of a few "coincidences" that shade into disbelief, PIRATES is a fun "space" adventure with plenty of action and a fairly realistic and likeable protagonist ... Not great literature, by any means, but a fun way to pass a gloomy afternoon ...

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm relatively new to the work of ERB, but it seems to me he just keeps writing the same story over and over. This was not as much fun as The Moon Maid, was a real struggle to finish, and ends on a cliffhanger.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

First in the Venus series. Carson Napier makes reference to real science of the era in planning and launching his rocket, unlike the mystical teleportation ERB uses in his Mars books. Not a bad start to a new series.

[Gracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable - you must keep in mind that it was published in 1932, however.
This is good ol' fashioned sci-fi. Highly imaginative but not far from the human experience. Plot moves very quickly, characters although alien and somewhat shallow nonetheless work well.

[John Yelverton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was good, and science fiction/adventure fans will enjoy. It's not Edgar Rice Burroughs greatest work though, and truth be told, it's not even on a par with his others works like Tarzan and Barsoom. For one who has become expectant on greatness, good just isn't good enough.

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Mars series may be better known but E.R.B.'s ability to make up a world really shines in this.

[H. P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the high-level changes that separates modern speculative fiction from the old stuff is the balkanization of science fiction among hard science fiction, social science fiction, and adventure fiction. You know that wasn’t always so, but the brain still wants to categorize based on the immediate examples to come to mind, so you wind up categorizing that old book anyway, usually as adventure fiction. Nobody would write about a hard science fiction novel today about a guy trying to fly to Mars on a privately financed (and unregulated) space mission and landing on Venus by accident—and finding full civilizations when he got there. Nor would modern social science fiction likely come at things from the same way, if only because certain views on society and anything that smacks too strongly of fun are well out of fashion. Burroughs, though, bird-men and dog-crabs notwithstanding, takes the science and the society seriously.

And so tells the story of Carson Napier, who sets course for Mars, hits Venus, and underneath two levels of cloud cover finds vast societies of near-immortal very human-like peoples along with the aforementioned bird-men, dog-crabs, and some mean-ass giant spiders.

I was immediately struck by the framing story. Carson approaches a man who appears to be none other than Burroughs himself through a mysterious letter. After providing both his own telepathic bonafides and Burroughs’ spiritual compatibility via spectral projection, Carson hires Burroughs as scrivener for his one-way trip to Mars, diary entries to be provided by telepathy. (Burroughs manages to squeeze in a fair amount of pathos as to why Carson is willing to sacrifice his life for scientific exploration.) I was mildly surprised to see Burroughs reference Tarzan and Pellucidar, and probably John Carter as well—I hadn’t realized all the Burroughs tales took place in a shared universe. (I was much more surprised to see a reference to “trust deeds, receivers in equity, and deficiency judgments” in an adventure yarn—another reminder of Burroughs’ previous, highly successful creations.)

I was again struck by how seriously Burroughs takes getting to Venus. The basic concept—man tries to get to Mars in privately funded rocket, lands on Venus by mistake—is so silly you expect it to be treated as such. Burroughs plays it straight. He has a good reason for setting Carson’s initial sights toward Mars, I think—presumably that there was hope at that time of life on Mars but we had already given up hope for Venus. Carson would have been crazy to start his search there. And he gives a depressingly plausible reason for screwing up the rocket’s trajectory. Carson, the physicist he hires, and the astronomer he hires check and double check the math. It’s right, with the rather large exception that they failed to account for the Moon. Whoops. Getting the minutia right but failing to account for a large, important variable? It happens. The point is that it’s almost hard science fiction. That’s a good thing in my book not because I care about the science—which even if it was cutting edge at the time is certainly long since out of date and proven wrong—but because it’s good worldbuilding. Burroughs doesn’t take even the first step for granted. This is a problem with some of the newer Retro SF. The authors know the science is moot and assume readers who are going to pick up something like that don’t care so they wind up treating it in a way that’s silly and, worse, boring.

The entire sequence is surprisingly drawn out, and Burroughs manages to imbue it with a great deal of suspense and creeping terror given the reader can pretty well guess from the title Carson will survive to land on Venus. Carson also engages in a little gallows humor, neither the immense distance to Alpha Centauri or the incredible heat of the center of the Sun concern him, on account that he would be long dead before reading either. (Carson’s sardonic wit pops up frequently throughout.)

Also on the hard, or quasi-hard sci fi front, the natives also wield weaponry using radiation (this is pre-atom bomb, mind you).

Carson finds a rich society on Venus. The human-appearing Vepajans that find him are, notwithstanding their scant clothing and settlement high in 5,000 foot trees, scientifically and societally advanced. The former has given them almost unlimited lifespans. The latter gave them a class-based but utopian society. At least it had until “the lazy and incompetent” were led in a bloody Thorist uprising by leaders whose “aims were solely selfish.” The Thorist uprising is almost certainly heavily based on Communism, but this was pre-Chinese Communist Revolution, pre-WWII, and pre-Cold War. Burroughs may have had an eye of the rise of fascism and national socialism in Europe as well. Dissidents to the uprising have escaped to their Taiwan in the trees. They did learn one thing from the revolution—their updated society has dispensed with even “slight class distinctions.” Things turned out for the pawns of the Thorists about as you would expect, as history has since taught us they always will:

“[T]hey are all reduced to virtual slavery. An army of spies watches over them, and an army of warriors keeps them from turning against their masters; they are miserable, helpless, and hopeless.”

There is also the inevitable problem that they have slaughtered, driven off, or disincentivized the most productive members of society. Hence the need to live in the trees, to hide from Thorist raiding parties intent of reimporting knowledge and skill. Written two decades earlier, the whole thing has a sort of sequel to Atlas Shrugged feel to it.

Pirates of Venus was my first Burroughs. I inevitably came in with certain preconceptions about a guy who published dozens and dozens of books going back over one hundred years ago, who is routinely looked down upon today, and who never had any literary pretentions to begin with (“I think I love books, though God knows I am about as far from being high-brow as one can get and yet pass the literacy test.” – Edgar Rice Burroughs). Burroughs prose isn’t the dumbed-down prose of modern YA but nor is it florid or purple. It can, at times, be quite beautiful:

“I returned to the porthole. The Moon lay just ahead and a little to the left. It was no longer a great sphere; it was a world that filled my whole range of vision. Against its black horizon I saw titanic peaks; below me huge craters yawned. I stood with God on high and looked down upon a dead world.”

Things get to a bit of a slow start—the pacing of the period immediately after Carson’s crash landing are my only real complaint—but about halfway through really get going. There are fights and derring-do. There is, of course, a dame. Who is, of course, a princess of Venus. No shrinking violent, though, on meeting Carson she immediately slaps him in the face and pulls a knife on him (“like a tigress”). She has a point. To his discredit, Carson is more than a bit of a jackass. To his credit, he has some self-awareness of this. It’s a rich world. There are the aforementioned 5,000 foot trees that rise like mountains in the distance viewed from one of Venus’ oceans. Not a place where you would want to fight giant spiders (I don’t know if Tolkien read Burroughs, but it wouldn’t surprise me if his giant spider encounters owed quite a bit to the depiction here). As the title suggests, Carson eventually finds his way to the seas of Venus, and we get swashbuckling piratical exploits. Bird-men feature as heavily in the plot as they do on every cover I’ve seen. (it’s hard not to see the inspiration for the the aarakocra in Burroughs’ bird-men, right down to the hollow bones.)

I very much enjoyed Pirates of Venus and very much look forward to devouring the rest of the series. And if this is Burroughs at his worst, which seems to be the consensus, then I really look forward to reading some of his other work.

[Jerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a disappointing book. It has little of the dynamism or wonder of Tarzan or of John Carter. It seems deliberately different from those books; everywhere something would happen on Mars to keep John Carter from his goal, Venus just guides Carson Napier to where he needs to be. That is, where Mars would be exciting, Venus is not.

The world itself is potentially interesting: underbrush the size of our sequoias and trees that reach into the clouds, a civilized culture surrounded by one falling into barbarism, and desperately trying to enslave the members of the civilized culture to keep from losing all of their technological and medical advances. On the edges, a bird-people that is very different from the other intelligent races.

This is the same world as the Pellucidar and Tarzan books, and possibly the Barsoom books. Burroughs wrote an introduction at the beginning explaining that he got this story as a result of his chronicling those real expeditions. The protagonist is able to share his experiences mentally, and Burroughs is the most compatible writer he could find.

This does slightly conflict with one of the protagonist's thoughts toward the end:

In that other world that I had left forever no creature would ever have knowledge of my fate. Thus spoke the eternal egotism of man, who, even in death, desires an audience.

But it could simply be that sharing his perceptions requires concentration, which is difficult when lost in the middle of an ocean tempest with nothing but your loincloth, a sword, a dagger, and an R-ray blaster. None of which float.

This ends, technically, on a cliffhanger, but it’s more like just ending mid-scene. The only reason we know it’s a cliffhanger is that Napier stops narrating the action and lets us know this will be continued in the next book. If I happen to find the sequel materialize in front of me I would probably read it, but I won’t be searching out the series. Not when I still have more Tarzan and John Carter books to read!