Carthoris of Helium loves Thuvia of Ptarth, who is promised to another man; when she is carried off, the evidence points at him and two nations arm. Burroughs handed the fourth Barsoom book to the son and kept the father off stage, which let him build the strangest city in the cycle — Lothar, defended by archers its people imagine into existence. The question underneath is how much of what we see is put there by someone who needs us to see it.











