The Moon Maid
Ratings1
Average rating3
3.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews
Summary
Julian, a military officer who claims to have somehow come from the future but also lived in the present day, tells how he was chosen for the first manned Earth mission to explore Barsoom, but was derailed to the interior of the Moon instead.
Review
Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a lot of books, so I'm not surprised to encounter some I hadn't read (I haven't read most of the Tarzan books, for example). I am very surprised to find a trilogy that ties in (loosely) with the Barsoom books. Until I opened this book, I had no idea such a thing existed, so that was a nice surprise.
The tie-in is somewhat loose (at least so far), and the rest of the story is an amalgam of common Burroughs tropes, though no less fun for all that. There's travel to another world, a vile antagonist, a maiden in distress, people living on the interior of a sphere, etc. You've seen it before in Burroughs' work, though the hero here is initially less of a talented fighter than usual; it turns out later that – of course – he's a skilled swordsman (though presumably not the best of three worlds, an honor that I recall belongs to Carson of Venus).
It has an unusual note of self-consciousness in Julian's consideration of the ethics of eating intelligent species – pointing out the hypocrisy in Julian's revulsion at doing so on the Moon, while being content to do so on Earth. Beyond that, I'm afraid there's a bit of ‘noblemen are better men' flavor to it all (and their servants are happy to serve).
There's a time travel element I'm a bit leery of, but in this first volume it's only introduced, not really examined.
All that aside, it's a perfectly serviceable and enjoyable adventure story of its time. Burroughs wrote it at roughly the same time he was writing books in the Tarzan, Barsoom, and Pellucidar series, and perhaps it's no surprise that they're all cast from pretty much the same mold. Still, it's been fun to explore this to me hitherto unknown corner of the Burroughs universe, and I plan to read the remaining books.