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Customer Reviews of CARSON OF VENUS 3

ERB takes aim at the Nazis as the Zanis of Venus
"Carson of Venus," the third novel in the Venus series of Edgar Rice Burroughs, was published on the eve of World War II, which explains the thinly disguised political commentary in this pulp fiction yarn. This time around Carson Napier, the adventurer who ended up on Venus despite the fact he was trying to get to Mars in his rocketship (he forgot to take the moon into account when he did the math), has to deal with a political faction called the Zani, a rather obvious anagram of (gasp!) Nazi. ERB develops some strong parallels: the Zanis come to power because their nation had lost a war, and then them discriminate, imprison, and torture those of an inferior race (the Atorians in this case). To top things out, the ruling tyrant is named Mephis and his followers cheer "Maltu Mephis!" whenever he appears. The first two volumes in the Venus series took aim at communists of the Soviet Union under Stalin, but this time ERB has a different target.

The plot pretty much picks up from where we last left our heroes and ERB does a recap by picturing himself musing about the fate of Carson and Duare, wondering is they managed to escape from Havatoo and make their way to Vepaja. Then Carson sends him the next installment of his saga by telepathy. Of course it does not take long for Duare to be recaptured and Carson has to rescue her, and the standard ERB romantic adventure is being spun out once again. It is not until Carson encounters the Zani that the real world subtext of the story makes things a bit more interesting. Adolf Hitler is not the only one disguised in "Carson of Venus," as our hero dons a series of disguises throughout this adventure (the best of which is prince Vodo of Vodaro). That makes the title rather ironic since Carson is probably the least used name by which our hero is called in the entire novel. The main problem with this novel is that towards the end ERB abandons several promising subplots and suddenly wraps everything up in a few pages. "Carson of Venus," which was originally serialized in "Argosy" magazine in early 1938, had the potential of being one the best of the Venus books, but the abrupt ending really works against it reaching that level.