2.5 stars, mostly due to repetition.

Reading Burroughs' Mars series, yeah, there is some repetition. These were meant to be action/adventure novels for male readers, and while there is some "deep" content in them, they're mostly swashbuckling and fantasy. With the Venus series, which was written later (the last series that he started/finished, if I recall), he's getting into the "cashing checks" phase of writing.

If you read the first two, you're going to read the second two, which is where I'm at with this. Carson of Venus continues the adventures of Carson Napier, and still has him expressing undying love for a beautiful princess that he keeps rescuing and running into. In the third installment, we at least get a bit of variety, with a new female character - who he's not trying to mount - who has some sense of her own.

Going back through these, I realize that Burroughs keeps inserting new characters who become best of friends, or trusted allies, or brothers, and then just drops them. It'd be like watching a superhero movie where they introduce 3 or 4 sidekicks and then just leave them at a coffee shop, library, neighboring town, etc, throughout the film and then don't mention them again.

But Burroughs at this point was raking in the dough.

Classic Burroughs

This is the best of the Venus series, so far. After a somewhat slow start with an adventure involving a conflict with a race where the women are rough and tough and the men are weak and wimpy (heaven forbid!), the bulk of the book is essentially an espionage thriller that is a lampoon of Nazi atrocities (the evil empire is even an anagram of Nazi, i.e., Zani).

Another rip-roaring adventure with Carson Of Venus and the love of his life, Duare. If you've read the previous books in Edgar Rice Burroughs' Venus series, then it's more of the same. Carson and Duare are flying their plane in search of somewhere that they can call home. Of course, along the way Duare gets captured and it's up to Carson to rescue her. They eventually make it to the city of Sanara, which is under seige from the Zani. The main part of the story has Carson on a secret mission from Sanara to infiltrate the city of Amlot and the Zani and deposing their leader Malthu Mephis, and then back to Sanara to rescue the ever in peril Duare, first from the advances of the nefarious ruler of Sanara and then from her home city of Vepaja.

All full of the usual Edgar Rice Burroughs stuff. If you're a fan of the vintage pulp interplanetary action adventure stories, then I'd recommend this.

A bit better

Quite a fast paced adventure story! Characters are becoming more familiar, but still a very light story with simple villains and not a complex plot

I still think the characters were shallow. But it was so entertaining! Specially when the whole Nazi city thing started with all spying back and forth. I found myself cheering for the characters every time.

Another good adventure story in the Venus series. Not too much to say about it. Hero trying to save his damsel in distress. Burroughs does that story in about every book. But it's still good for an easy read.

2.5 stars, but rounding down, here. I might have been less bored if I hadn't read the first two books. more to come later.

Duare seems to have a knack for getting kidnapped and putting Carson into dangerous situations. This one is very episodic. Which is probably because the stories were originally released that way in magazine. Luckily ERB keeps it wild and fun, so you can keep coming back for more.