Juho Pohjalainen’s Reviews > The Moon Maid > Status Update

I was getting into this last book a bit more than the others. It had a measure of moral ambituity to it and got it across that the circumstances of our birth do not make the difference between good and bad. I was gearing up for a final assault and the dethroning of the False Or-Tis, and then suddenly we're all done. Mandatory kiss and goodnight.

You've known her for like five minutes, Julian, you don't love her!

He should have taken up the offer for ceasefire and negotiations. Genocide always backfires: at the very least it'll make your enemies fight even harder and cause even more casualties to you. Or at least it should, but if the enemy here is as chronically treacherous as implied, maybe they can't be negotiated with. Which of course has its own implications: why was it written this way?

Apparently Burroughs wrote Men before Maid, but couldn't find market for it at the time. I can't say I'm surprised: with the fantasy and wonder stripped out of it, there's not much left. A simplistic, bare-bones tale about a fight against tyranny with your basic heroes and villains and damsels, no surprises apart from perhaps the ending.

Here's hoping for a better finisher for the trilogy.

For how utterly vile these invaders have been shown to be, it's funny that their justice system remains somewhat respected. You'd think they wouldn't care about the rules at all.

Still, I feel like Julian the Elder is about to face it.

Always nice to see a tyrannical ruler get humbled a little bit. Despite the hang-ups I have about the writing in general, I remain invested.

I find it a little bit funny how, even a century in advance, the villains here play to the most obvious antagonistic stereotypes of our time.

On one hand, they preach immigration and inclusion and then turn it around to oppress the natives.

On the other hand, they're book-burning anti-intellectuals.

You can be left or right, you'll still look at them and be like "Yeah, they're the bad guys, it checks out".

At first I thought this story had way too much in common with John Carter, but it's finally finding its own voice and consequently I'm far more on board.

I don't recall either John Carter or Tarzan having this sort of a problem with telling instead of showing, at least where character interactions are concerned.

Well, these are rather the worse lot than the Green Martians were.