The Wizard of Venus

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The Wizard of Venus
TheWizardOfVenus.jpg
First edition
Author Edgar Rice Burroughs
Cover artist Roy G. Krenkel, Jr.
LanguageEnglish
Series Amtor
Genre Science fantasy
Publisher Ace Books
Publication date
1964
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint Paperback)
Pages136
Preceded by Escape on Venus  

The Wizard of Venus is a science fiction novella by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, as well as the title of a collection in which it was later published together with an unrelated story. "The Wizard of Venus" is the final story in Burroughs's Venus series (sometimes called the "Carson Napier of Venus series"). Written in 1941, the piece remained unpublished until 1964, fourteen years after the author's death. [1] Burroughs intended it to be the opening piece in a sequence of stories to be brought together later in book form, as he had done in the instance of the previous Venus volume, Escape on Venus . He began the first follow-up tale, [2] only to abandon the project in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; the text of the aborted sequel is now lost.

Contents

Publication history

"The Wizard of Venus" was first published in the 1964 Burroughs collection Tales of Three Planets together with the unrelated tales "The Resurrection of Jimber-Jaw", "Beyond the Farthest Star" and "Tangor Returns". [3] Afterwards, [4] it appeared in the collection The Wizard of Venus (Ace Books, August 1970). This also included the unrelated pirate adventure "Pirate Blood." [5] A subsequent British edition (New English Library, 1975) omitted the unrelated story.

Plot summary

Reception

A reviewer wrote: " this would have only been just the first adventure in the book if Burroughs had got around to finishing it, but as is it’s still really quite good. Carson and Ero Shan’s buddy adventure in this land is fun as they take on the roles of Sir Galahad and Sir Gawain in the medieval adventure and making it one of the more lighthearted and goofy chapters in the series." [7]

A review at StrangerthanSF noted: "It is forgivable maybe for Burroughs to use this mental power of Carson's as a storytelling device but to never have Carson use it in his adventures. It's not forgivable for Burroughs to suddenly switch the rules on us and have Carson start using his remarkable abilities. It makes all his previous adventures inconsistent..." [8]

References

  1. ↑ Burroughs, Edgar Rice (January 1, 2001). Pirates of Venus. U of Nebraska Press. ISBN   978-0-8032-6183-9.
  2. ↑ Taliaferro, John (January 15, 2002). Tarzan Forever: The Life of Edgar Rice Burroughs the Creator of Tarzan. Simon and Schuster. ISBN   978-0-7432-3650-8.
  3. ↑ Burroughs, Edgar Rice (September 18, 2014). The Land That Time Forgot SF Gateway Omnibus. Orion. ISBN   978-1-4732-0220-7.
  4. ↑ Burroughs, Edgar Rice (May 29, 2014). Carson of Venus SF Gateway Omnibus: Pirates of Venus, Lost on Venus, Carson of Venus. Orion. ISBN   978-1-4732-0205-4.
  5. ↑ Zeuschner, Robert B. (October 14, 2024). Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Exhaustive Scholar's and Collector's Descriptive Bibliography of American Periodical, Hardcover, Paperback, and Reprint Editions. McFarland. ISBN   978-1-4766-1284-3.
  6. ↑ "ERBList - Pirate Blood, Summarized". erblist.com.
  7. ↑ Brooks, Mike (August 2, 2015). "The Wizard of Venus: Edgar Rice Burroughs – Review". Mana Pop. Retrieved October 29, 2025.
  8. ↑ "The Wizard of Venus, by Edgar Rice Burroughs". Stranger than SF. Retrieved October 29, 2025.
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