Thuvia, Maid of Mars

By: Edgar Rice Burroughs

Narrated by: John Bolen

Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

Mars has become divided by love. Not one, but two princes and a Jeddak are vying for the love of Thuvia of Ptarth. When she is mysteriously kidnapped, treachery threatens to throw Barsoom into bloody war. Now Cathoris must follow in the footsteps of his father, John Carter, and overcome phantom armies, dangerous spies and savage beasts as he attempts to save his true love and reunite Mars.

The fourth in Burroughs' 11-volume Mars series, a blend of sci-fi and romantic adventure.

©2000 Tantor Media Incorporated

Fun story, bad narration

This is the first Barsoom novel not focused entirely on John Carter. Instead Carthoris, his son and the titular heroine Thuvia. This is a logical extension of the previous books, but honestly not really needed. It has a bit of a shoehorned feel to it...as if it were written to order by the publisher. As such, it lacks some of the depth and sheer joy of the first books. Still, written by a master storyteller, and therefore raised up considerably.

But the biggest issue I had with this book was the narration. For some bizarre reason the narrator decided that everyone needed to sound like a 1930's Charlie Chan movie. With everyone speaking in the bad imitation of an Asian speaking poor English. This was highly distracting and lowered the enjoyment level of what is honestly a decent fun story.

I recommend the story, but you can find a better narrator. If you can't do that, then read the book the old way and continue to enjoy the mysteries of Barsoom.

Fake accent and wooden performance

I've read the novel before, and it is classic Burroughs. Not his best but not his worst by any means. The main problem I had with this audiobook was the narration.

There were two problems. First, the narrator used some sort of Eastern European accent for all the Martian dialogue, and a neutral American accent otherwise. This grated on me and detracted from the content of what was being spoken, since the accent was being pushed so much that the dialogue felt unnatural. Second, there was little feeling or emotion being expressed in the dialogue. I felt that the narrator didn't understand the feelings of the charactors nor the author's intent, and as a result it was difficult for me to engage with the characters or the story. It was like listening to someone reading a laundry list.

For me either aspect was a killer. I would not recommend this rendition.

Good book. Bad narration

Would you listen to Thuvia, Maid of Mars again? Why?

Yes, but not from this narrator. The reading wasn't like listening to someone reading the story. It was like hearing someone who recorded a series of disjointed sentences and then pasted them together so it came across with a lot of unnatural pauses that frankly got to be too unbearable to tolerate.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, I couldn't.

Thuvia Maid of Mars

Edgar Rice Burroughs has always been one of my favorite authors. This entire series is worth listening too. :J

terrible narrator decent stort

terrible narrator wish they used the same one as the other books but decent story

Having your highschool science teacher reading.

There are 4 other versions of this one. I highly recommend picking any of them over this. The narrator is just awful at this. He could probably read a short scientific paper or something of the sort but this is not his forte.

Good book bad reader

The book is good but the reader is very bad.

Story was great

narration was terrible. the quality was very poor compared to what I've come to expect.

Thuvia Maid of Mars

This is a great tale with pretty good narration. See the thing is the Kindle version is FREE and you can add the Audible version for ONE DOLLAR. So get the kindle first and enjoy, for a dollar.
PS it’s truly a great series.

Recommend Different Version

I suggest trying a different audio version. The narrator here reads the book in a rather dreary manner. Character voices are oddly chosen. Action scenes are monotonously emotionlessly read. The E R Burroughs story is solid although formulaic.

I finished the audio but I would not choose to listen to it again. Ever.