With a plot tailor-made for a B-movie, this is a story about chivalry, its costs and its rewards. Our protagonist, the Martian son of John Carter, proves his superhero heritage in undertaking the rescue of a princess he loves yet is pledged to another. She is sometimes a modern woman ready to stand up for herself and sometimes a simpering girl needing the reckless courage of a man to save the day. The book was published in the opening decade of the 20th Century and as such offers a fascinating time capsule of the science and mores of the times; Martians are not microbial, radioactivity is magical, race defines character, women are people/chatel, and warfare has not yet been reduced to body counts. There is a section in the middle of the book involving the nature of reality for those readers with a metaphysical bent. The book's sentence structure is wordy, slightly stilted, early 1900s vintage. It takes a chapter or two before it becomes less distracting. Also sprinkled throughout is "Martian vocabulary" for which the reader must retreat to a glossary of terms if they cannot figure out the meanings on context alone. I enjoyed this book as much for its time capsule quality as for its campy storyline.