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Kline's Venus and Mars books were reprinted in paperback during the "Burroughs Boom" of the early 1960s. I remember reading the Ace editions as a teenager. The narrative flow in the framing stories seems to place Kline's Martian stories as having taken place earlier than the Venus cycle. As I recall (strictly from memory), in The Swordsman of Mars, an Earthman named Harry Thorne swaps consciousness (via some mumbo-jumbo sf magic) with a Martian named Borgen Takkor and is thus able to experience adventures on Mars. The introductiuon to Planet of Peril has Takkor, now living on Earth in the guise of Thorne, seeking adventure and thus swapping consciousness with a Venusian man. Confusing, of course, but fun. However, if Kline's three Venus novels were written and published prior to his two Mars books, that would blow this chronology all to pieces. Yet, this is the way I remember it. (I don't have the books any more.) Sounds to be as if the framing stories were rewritten some time after the original magazine publication, either for the early book editions or for the circa-1962 revival. Can anyone out there explain? It should be interesting! WHPratt (talk) 17:54, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Richard Lupoff's book, Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure, tells us that Kline wrote the Mars books in retaliation after Burroughs had "invaded" the Venus setting that Kline had already established. I checked the online Gutenberg editions of the stories in question, and find that it's in the second Venus story, The Prince of Peril, that the former-Martian-now-on-Earth Harry Thorne gets sent on to Venus. I can't be sure whether these texts are from the original magazines or the books, and so cannot attempt to resolve the issue with assurance. However, from this evidence, it would appear that Kline had at least plotted his Mars books prior to writing his Venus books, or that some rewriting was done to change the chronology after the fact. WHPratt (talk) 18:07, 11 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
