Publisher's Synopsis
Consider the ideas that are intimated, but never carried through: the ancient Martian civilization that had traveled to, or possibly from, the Egypt of the pharaohs; Jones's language education by psychic impression; the deflection of weaponry by telekinetic force (useful for repelling an invasion of iron-age barbarians); a prince aware of how far his people have fallen, from world-dominating greatness into decadent, dissipated lassitude, but unable to do anything about it; the grimness of the embers of a civilization being crushed forever by barbarian conquest, and the essential hopelessness of that battle; an Earth soldier becoming the premier warrior by virtue of not being a wimpy milquetoast; and this weirdly ineffectual hero figure unaware of his incompetence. Gulliver Jones himself is especially problematic. As a protagonist he fails to be the John Carter-style superhero that Burroughs devised for his version of the setting, and Arnold fails to convey the level of irony necessary between word and deed to establish Jones as a lovable-or-otherwise rogue and ne'er-do-well. What's left is someone not particularly likeable--his half-heartedly humorous running commentary is a detriment, as is his inconstancy to his Earthly love--and whose competence leaves much to be desired: he twice fails to rescue Princess Heru from her abductors, is a mere bystander to a grand battle of monsters, fails at every navigational task set to him (him a NAVAL OFFICER, no less), and (view spoiler). In all, everyone would have been just as well off, if not better, without him, making him extraneous to his own story. I was ready to render judgement on the above until I slept on it and realized the ideas that Arnold did capture: the civilization gone weak and dissipated, unable to maintain their own cities and living in decayed splendor; their indian summer existence at the end of their history and gentle post-economic existence; its retreat and collapse in the face of the foreign Thither-folk; the Thither-folk perception of these people as fey creatures; the ghostly abandoned cities now feared and avoided, and the dangerous stuff within; the River of the Dead, leading to a vast Martian ice-tomb of frozen corpses and tomb-riches; the intimations of glorious alien flora. As it stews in my head, I find myself liking the pieces more and more, as well as the book as an implementation of what could have been
