Synthetic Men of Mars is a science fiction novel by American writer Edgar
Rice Burroughs, the ninth of his Barsoom series. It was first published in the
magazine Argosy Weekly in six parts in early 1939. The first complete edition
of the novel was published in 1940 by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.
Despite a successful career stretching back more than two decades, Burroughs
had trouble finding a publisher for the serialized version of the novel. Both
Liberty and Blue Book turned him down; Argosy was his third choice. He received
00 for the magazine rights.
Like several previous novels in the Barsoom series, Synthetic Men introduces
a completely new character as its protagonist: Vor Daj, a warrior from Helium
and a member of John Carter's personal guard. Vor Daj narrates the action in
the first person, so that when John Carter appears in the story, he is
described in the third person (unlike other Barsoomian novels that feature
Carter as the first-person narrator).
Synthetic Men also brings back a familiar character, Ras Thavas, a brilliant
but evil scientist who functions as the villain in The Master Mind of Mars.