Tarzan, Conqueror of Mars

Wild Adventures of Tarzan

by Will Murray, Romas Kukalis (Illustrator)

Ever since Edgar Rice Burroughs created John Carter of Mars and Tarzan of the Apes over 100 years ago, his millions of readers have yearned for a novel in which these classic heroes meet. Now, in an epic adventure authorized by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., the Warlord of Barsoom and the Lord of the Jungle come face-to-face in what must be described as their more most challenging exploit yet. When Tarzan finds himself marooned on dying Mars, without friends or weapons, he undertakes a trek across the dead sea bottoms of the Red Planet in search of food and shelter. What happens when the ape-man falls in with a tribe of four-armed Martian gorillas beside which the bronzed giant is no more than small boy? Will Tarzan sink into abject slavery or rise to ape-lord? By the author of Return to Pal-ul-don and King Kong vs. Tarzan.

Genres: Science Fiction, Pulp

468 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2020

About the author

Will Murray is an American novelist, journalist, and short-story and comic-book writer. Much of his fiction has been published under pseudonyms. Will is the author of over 50 novels in popular series ranging from “The Destroyer” to “Mars Attacks”. Collaborating posthumously with the legendary Lester Dent, he has written to date nine Doc Savage novels, with “Desert Demons” and “Horror in Gold” now available. For National Public Radio, Murray adapted “The Thousand-Headed Man” for “The Adventures of Doc Savage” in 1985, and recently edited “Doc Savage: The Lost Radio Scripts of Lester Dent” for Moonstone Books. He is versed in all things pulp.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like good old-fashioned pulp adventure such as in the pulp magazines of the 20s and 30s, you should enjoy this story by Will Murray. Murray has written a number of novels featuring Doc Savage, one of the pulpiest of the pulp characters. And in this one, he brings to life the two greatest characters created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes and John Carter of Mars. Of course, if you're familiar with the Tarzan and John Carter books, that will help you appreciate Murray's bringing together these two legendary heroes...but if you would just like an exciting adventure story, this one should be for you. A man from the African jungle finds himself on a strange and desolate planet and encounters strange and dangerous creatures and humanoids.
We don't have to get very far into the story before we see that it's all leading up to a clash between Tarzan and John Carter. Carter, an Earthman (from Virginia) has become the "Warlord" of Barsoom (as they call Mars) and discovers that a horde of potential enemies is moving across the Red Planet, threatening the peace that he has been maintaining ( by the sword ). This horde is led by a powerful figure who can communicate with animals and John Carter sees him as someone who is out to conquer Barsoom. You can see I sympathized with John Carter in his conflict with Tarzan, but, mainly, I would have preferred to see the two Earthmen not foolishly fight each other, but "team up" to fight, let's say, a greater enemy who's threatening all Barsoom. I remember a character, Ras Thavas, who was "The Mastermind Of Mars." Maybe he or someone like that could have presented a challenge for both John Carter and Tarzan to tackle.
Don't get me wrong--Will Murray does a fantastic job bringing the two Burroughs characters to life. I especially like how he recreates the dying world of Barsoom, adding some new creatures and filling in a blank section of the map. It's authorized by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. as one of "The Wild Adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs Series."
I look forward to more stories by Will Murray!

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tarzan goes to Mars and wreaks havoc as only he can. Pretty much what you'd expect.

[Dale Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I Still Live"

1912 was an amazing year.
Woodrow Wilson was elected president
The Republic of China was founded
New Mexico and Arizona become the 47th and 48th state in the Union
The RMS Titanic begins its maiden voyage never to see it's completion
Fenway Park opens for its first season. Its first game of course was the Yankees vs the Red Sox

...and All-Story Magazine, in only its 7th year of publication published a serialized story beginning in its February issue. Authored by a 36 year old Edgar Rice Burroughs who was trying to start a new career for himself as an author, that first story - titled UNDER THE MOONS OF MARS and credited under the name Norman Bean - would introduce to the world John Carter and all the wonders of Barsoom. The story by the new author was popular and 8 months later lead to a new character finding his first story being serialized in All-Story. That character - Tarzan of the Apes, perhaps Burroughs most famous and popular.

Over the next 107 years readers would marvel and be thrilled by the continuing stories of these popular characters and the questions would always be asked, "When will we see the two together in one story?" Though, recognizing that it would be an immediate best seller, Burroughs was reluctant to create such a story because he always felt that the characters were both so strong in their own rights that he couldn't give credit to both as was their due.

Enter William Patrick Murray. During the first two decades of the 21st Century, Murray has become acknowledged as arguably the best writer of recreating, updating, and producing new stories and adventures that bring the characters and stories of the past back to new life and popularity. Doc Savage, the Shadow, the Spider, G-8, and the Phantom Detective are all popular reader favorites and characters who had carried their own self-named publications during the days of the pulp heroes.

His new stories include meetings between some of the true legends. Now he has written a love letter to Burroughs in his latest book, TARZAN,CONQUEROR OF MARS and given readers of the past and present that wonderful story for which they have been waiting.

From the very beginning of the story, you will find yourself once more running through the jungles of Tarzan's Africa. You will be transported to distant Barsoom and find your way across the dying surface of the red planet. All those characters that you loved throughout Burrough's story telling are there being drawn together until the eventual meeting and confrontation between the two greatest of ERB's fertile mind.

What follows is a truly amazing story and one the I think Burrough's himself would have wanted to write and one that I am sure that he would be proud of.

Thank you Will Murray and the people and management of ERB, Inc for giving this wonderful present to your fans.

"THEY still live!"

[Evan Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is it: The most eagerly awaited team-up of all time. The Lord of the Jungle meets the Warlord of Mars!

I’m not going to tell you tell you how that meeting comes about – or what sort of ruckus erupts when it does – but I’ll tell you this: It was well worth the wait. I found Tarzan, Conqueror of Mars faithful in every way to the spirit and tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and a thoroughly entertaining adventure.

I have only one complaint. After 437 pages, it ended. I wanted the story to go on and on.

Having proven his ability to channel Lester Dent in the Wild Adventures of Doc Savage, Will Murray demonstrates he’s also up to filling the dusty boots of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

I was impressed with his deft handling of both main characters. Tarzan is as fierce as ever, half-savage and half-civilized, and loyal to Jane and all who depend on him. John Carter is proud, fair-minded, considerate, and a great strategist. Both, of course, are self-sacrificing and utterly fearless. To add to the authenticity, Tarzan’s point of view is narrated in third person, while John Carter’s is in first, just like the Burroughs’ books.

In typical Burroughs fashion, Tarzan finds himself mysteriously transported to Barsoom, and sets about dealing with his strange new environment. He encounters beasts, peoples and circumstances wholly outside his experience, and – in typical Tarzan fashion – makes himself master of this new domain. He turns enemies into allies and embarks on an unrelenting quest to find his way back to home and family.

Along the way, there are typically ferocious battles, plot twists and a host of engaging characters – both old and new. For those of us who’ve read both the Tarzan and Mars series, this is a joyous reunion with many of the characters and concepts we’ve come to love. For those acquainted only with Tarzan, it’s a great introduction to the world of Barsoom, opening up a whole new world of adventure.

The battle scenes are all nicely handled, and one in particular was so good it made me want to stand up and cheer.

It’s rare these days for me to find a book I don’t want to put down, but this one was exactly that. The narrative drive kept me turning those pages until my eyeballs gave out, and left me eager to start again.

Bravo, Mr. Murray! Tarzan, Conqueror of Mars is an instant classic.

[Henry Lopez]

Tarzan on Mars! What else need be said?

We live in a great time when childhood dreams of disparate heroes meeting and sharing an adventure are coming true. Will Murray first delighted with bringing together Doc Savage and the Shadow for the first time (in prose) not once, but twice! Next he thrilled us with Tarzan meeting/confronting King Kong. Then just recently, he wrote an untold tale of the Spider meeting Operator 9 and G-8.

Now, in Tarzan, Conqueror of Mars he places the Lord of the Jungle on Mars, but not the dead world NASA is currently exploring, but the romanticized red planet of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom. From the moment Tarzan awakens on the spongy dead sea bottom of Mars, the mind begins to wonder when he will face off against bizarre horrors, meet the savage green giants of Barsoom, or, of course, John Carter.

To his credit, Murray doles out the surprises slowly, but steadily. With each turn of the page, the reader is presented with either brand new obstacles and adversaries for Tarzan to overcome or the return of those foes that plagued the Warlord of Mars.

While the overarching plot is surprisingly simple, Murray deftly adds twists and details that both surprise and delight. I obviously don't want to spoil the story for future readers, but I can say that this is a very satisfying tale that left me wanting to read more new stories set upon Barsoom.
I can only hope there will be more such stories in the near future.

If you enjoyed the adventures of Tarzan or John Carter, then I urge you to go out and grab a copy of this book.

[David Mann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tarzan of the Apes versus John Carter of Mars. What's not to love about this? This is one of Will Murray's best, clearly a labor of love. Much like John Carter, Tarzan finds himself mysteriously transported to Mars, where, unlike Carter who fell in with Green Martians, he appropriately bonds with and bands with Great White Apes. And if Carter, the best swordsman on Earth, but not superhuman, benefited from the strength boast of the low gravity of Mars, imagine the feral strength of Tarzan augmented the same way! As Tarzan gathers together his motley crew of White Apes and Green Men, he leads them on a trek to the closest Red Martian city in the hopes of finding a means to return to Earth. Along the way he encounters new strange Martian flora and fauna, a mysterious city inhabited by a mysterious woman, and eventually his deeds come to the attention of the Warlord of Mars, who perceives him as a threat to the Martian order. Once John Carter enters the fray the narrative really takes off, with anticipation of the ultimate confrontation between the two...

Stylistically Murray does well in mimicking Burroughs' idiosyncrasies. In particular I loved the transition between the third person narrative of the Tarzan scenes and the first person narrative from the point of view of John Carter. Carter is as egocentric as in the canon, and Tarzan's animal instincts don't always serve him in good stead.

Long ago I obtained and read a photocopied version of "Tarzan on Mars" by "John Bloodstone" (Stuart J. Byrne). I don't remember the details of that unauthorized book, but I remember it wasn't very good. This new incarnation of Tarzan on Mars is much more entertaining.

If you are leery of crossovers, remember that ERB was among the first to create his own "cinematic universe" with common technology like the Gridley Wave and the buoyant rays that enable air flight. And he had no hesitation to send Tarzan to Pellucidar at the Earth's Core. It's a shame he never put Tarzan on Mars himself, but the present volume is the next best thing.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

When it comes to pulp fiction, Will Murray is an expert in multiple ways. He’s a pulp historian who has written extensively about and helped preserve the legacy of vintage pulp magazine writers like as Lester Dent, creator of Doc Savage, and many others. Among other things, Murray is literary executor for the Dent estate and has written fifteen modern Doc Savage novels under Dent's Kenneth Robeson pseudonym. In recent years, he has also written “new pulp” novels featuring other old pulp characters, including The Shadow, The Spider and Tarzan. TARZAN: CONQUEROR OF MARS is the third Tarzan novel Murray has written for the Altus Press “Wild Adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs” series and, as huge a fan of Burroughs novels since the 1960s, I have been amazed and pleased by how well Murray both maintains the iconic ERB style while also creating fresh storylines. Setting this novel on Mars was a genius idea. It allowed Murray to write a creative mashup involving two of Burroughs’ best-known characters, Tarzan and John Carter. I found it to be a totally fun, unpredictable and enjoyable book. It also has a great cover by Romas Kukalis. I give TARZAN: CONQUEROR OF MARS two enthusiastic thumbs up and 5 stars!

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

At over 430 pages, I was worried that Will Murray wouldn't be able to keep up a Burroughsian pace in this long-awaited crossover adventure. He succeeded wonderfully, however. This is a non-stop adventure in true Burroughs fashion. Murray's Tarzan and John Carter are pretty spot-on. His new characters are engaging, and his handling of some of our old friends is equally enjoyable. The transition between the third-person Tarzan narrative and the first-person John Carter chapters is seamless. It's almost like two Burroughs stories in one. The only thing that disappointed was the fact that it ended.

[Fredrik Ekman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Edgar Rice Burroughs died over 73 years ago, yet new books with his immortal heroes are still being published. Here, his most popular protagonists, Tarzan and John Carter meet for the first time, although not for the first time. That is, these two mighty heroes have met many times before, in comics (most of which have been officially licensed), in fan fiction, in professional pastiche, and so on. Yet, each time they meet, they seem to have lost all memory of ever having seen each other before.

Burroughs himself considered letting Tarzan and Carter meet in a book, but wisely chose not to, realising that it is very difficult to find a balance between two such powerful heroes. Will Murray writes in his afterword to Tarzan, Conqueror of Mars, that "I believed I had the solution to the problem." And then he goes on to prove that Burroughs was perfectly right from the beginning. Because one of the problems of this book is that Tarzan simply outshines Carter at every turn. Although this is probably reasonable, it turns Carter into a second-rate hero, a role which suits him astonishingly poorly.

Another problem is that Carter was always, in Burroughs' books, the lone hero. Even when he had become Warlord, he used to go out on adventure all by himself. And if he ever acted as a leader of men, it was only when he was a background character, leading the cavalry to save the day at the end of the story. In Murray's tale, his role is a completely new one. Here, he orders people around in one half-cooked plan after another in his cat-and-mouse game against Tarzan. The whole thing quickly becomes tiresome, and Carter is superbly ill-suited in this role.

But the main problem is neither this, nor a good number of minor factual errors (e.g. the thoats are sometimes said to be six-legged, sometimes ten-legged, but never the correct eight), nor the fact that the tempo is way too slow, making the whole thing exceedingly boring. No, the main problem with this novel is that there is no proper conflict. Sure Tarzan wants to go home, and John Carter happens to stand in his way, but through the second half of the novel, I keep expecting the real conflict to show up. I mean, where is the mad scientist trying to take over the planet? Where is the evil jeddak with his schemes of conquest? Where are all the damsels in distress that need rescuing? Where are the scheming priests of yet another false religion? We see nothing of this, and so the plot trudges along, just like Tarzan's zitidar, taking us toward the inevitable conclusion, one slow step at a time.

So, are there no redeeming factors in this novel? Sure, Murray manages to write a fairly convincing Tarzan, and through the first half of the novel, before John Carter has shown up on the scene, I allow myself to enjoy Tarzan's natural air of superiority. This is the way the ape lord should be, even though the tempo is still too slow.

The bottom line is, I think, that the world does not really need all these new "ERB novels". Burroughs' legacy rests safely in the novels he wrote. What others do with his characters is pretty inconsequential, and as long as it is no better than this, we could do without it.

[Tim Deforest · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun crossover within the ERB Universe, with Tarzan ending up on Mars and encountering John Carter.

Murray does a great job of keeping the method of how Tarzan ends up on Mars and eventually returns to Earth consistent with the original stories. His depiction of Barsoom (Mars) feels right as well. He does introduce a few new creatures, but there is room to do that. The events of the 11 original Barsoom books by ERB probably only covered a small percentage of the planet's surface. One of the reasons that Barsoom is such a perfect World of Adventure is that its nature as a dying planet with civilization preserved in isolated cities means that introducing new elements and discovering unexplored regions is always plausible.

At first, when Tarzan is transported to Barsoom, I expected him to know a lot about the place, based on the idea that ERB exists within the ERB Universe as an historian/biographer and Tarzan would have read about Barsoom.

But then I realized that William Patrick Murray, being the excellent storyteller he is, made the right decision in having Tarzan know nothing about the planet. A large part of the fun of the early portions of the novel is the Jungle Lord using his usual courage and intelligence to figure out his new environment and survive in it even when he starts with no knowledge about it at all. So despite the fact that ERB is essentially Tarzan's biographer, the Jungle Lord apparently doesn't read many of his books!

It was interesting that John Carter didn't know the name Tarzan, either. Apparently, when he occasional visits Earth to recount his adventures to his nephew Edgar Rice Burroughs, he never bothers to ask "So, Edgar, what else have you written?" Gee whiz, John, take a little interest in the life of your only earthly relative, would you?

Tarzan eventually finds himself commanding a combined horde of White Apes and Green Martians, which ends up putting him at odds with John Carter and the armed forces of Helium. I think Murray constructs the plot effectively, giving plausibility to a situation that makes two honorable men enemies for much of the book until they finally learn more about each other.

The novel is action-packed, full of imaginative and well-choreographed battles. The pacing remains fast and exciting from start to finish.

The White Apes in this book seem more intelligent that the ones encountered in the original books, but Murray acknowledges this and once again uses the fact that so much of Barsoom is unexplored to justify the existence of a slightly smarter tribe of apes that was previously unknown.

All in all, a fun book that shows enormous respect and love for the source material. I don't think it is a part of the official ERB Universe that is currently adding new stories to the original Canon, but the part of my brain that secretly believes that Tarzan and John Carter really existed has no problem considering this to be a "true story."

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will Murray's newest book takes Tarzan to Barsoom - a feat that Burroughs himself reportedly wanted to do for years, but he couldn't quite find an angle he liked.

Murray found it. This is an EXCELLENT addition to the Burroughs library.

And while the mechanism that brings the Ape-Man to Mars is a little unsatisfying (It's magic. Literally magic, divine intervention, something that Burroughs nearly always avoided), once he gets to the trackless expanses of the red planet, the adventure continues in true Burroughsian fashion. Large portions of the book read almost exactly like the classic novels - strange creatures, high-octane excitement, interesting interactions with conflicting cultures & nonhuman beings, etc. When Tarzan and John Carter finally meet, the encounter is both fun and satisfying (and also a little surprising at first, but, once I thought about it it made perfect sense to me.)

I loved it, and if you're a fan of either the Tarzan or Barsoom (John Carter) books, I highly recommend it.

If you're looking for critiques of it... there are some character deaths that seem a little pointless and abrupt. I would have loved to really dig deeper into the culture of the White Apes of Mars. A little diplomacy or even just a normal conversation could have resolved almost all of the conflict in the book very quickly, although misunderstandings and near-misses are certainly true to the source material. And a new Barsoomian creature is introduced which, while it poses an interesting and unusual sort of threat, it's also kinda goofy and cartoonish - it felt a little out of place to me - although the evolutionary origin and explanation for it being there does make good sense in the context.

Those notes, however, are very minor complaints - I really loved the book. I read it in two days, over two sessions, and I will eagerly and immediately purchase Mr. Murray's next Burroughs-universe novel. Please run out and buy it today so that he can keep adding new titles to the series!

[Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tarzan: Conqueror of Mars by Will Murray

When the witch doctor Sobito uses a kingo root to call down lightning on Tarzan, the Ape-man wakes up on the planet Mars. Naked and disoriented, Tarzan discovers that he can leap tremendous distances and is stronger even than he is on Earth.

An elephant-like animal comes by hauling a chariot that contains the skeleton of a giant, with a skull containing two huge tusks. Tarzan takes them as weapons. He accidentally comes to know how to control the beast and rides in the chariot toward a city.

The city is occupied by huge four-armed white apes. Tarzan learns to communicate with them and becomes part of the tribe. Later, Tarzan becomes their leader, and the apes also join a group of green Martians. This rag-tag band is crossing Mars towards another city, but they have come to the attention of the real Warlord of Mars—John Carter!

The book tells a smashmouth pulp story of scientific adventure on the red planet of Barsoom. The planet is covered with strange vistas and vegetation. There are unusual animals, some that are terrifyingly deadly. The white apes and the green Martians are not usually allies, so there is much infighting. And no one on Barsoom has ever seen someone like Tarzan—a man who is so bestial as well as human.

The interaction between two of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ greatest creations, Tarzan and John Carter, is extremely well handled. Murray doesn’t detract from the original at all, the story does exactly what he claims—it is an additional story to add to the lore of both the Mars saga and Tarzan’s novels. And it is amazing!

I give this novel five stars.

Quoth the Raven…

[Joel Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Murray takes on the enviable/unenviable job of engineering a meet-up between Tarzan of the Apes and John Carter. Who knows how it would have gone if Edgar Rice Burroughs (the creator of both characters) had written the story, but in this scenario Carter and Tarzan immediately butt heads.

It's an entirely plausible scenario given that you have two characters who are used to getting things their way: an alpha soldier and an alpha animal who have both faced insurmountable challenges and overcome them.

Tarzan's advent on Mars goes a bit differently than Carter's. Carter fell among the four-armed tharks, but instead, Tarzan encounters the white apes and quickly manages to become their leader. Of course, such a thing is unheard of on Mars and so naturally Tarzan is viewed with suspicion by the red men in Carter's command.

[mabuse cast · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good pastiche crossover between 2 of American pulp author Edgar Rice Burroughs' most famous creations, Tarzan and John carter of mars! A bit too long at points but otherwise is a very fun and quite obvious labor of love from author Will Murray!

I debated giving this a 4 out of 5 stars at points honestly but by the end it did exactly what it says on the tin so I would say it is well worth the read if you like either of these characters and pulp fiction in general!

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best praise I can give is that this feels like an ERB story. There’s a lot of dedication and care that went into this and it shows.

Tarzan being marooned on Mars is a concept every ERB fan wants to see. Tarzan raises hell and unites the green Martians with giant apes. New creatures are introduced that feel very in line with the rest of Barsoom books.

Overall a very fun story that any fan of ERB or Tarzan should try out.

[Jeff J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun mashup of Tarzan with John Carter.

[Nick Galley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could have been a short story, if the two main characters had spoken to each other, probably would have been much better

[Jim Ordolis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really well done!!!