The Chessmen of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fifth of his Barsoom series.

Burroughs began writing it in January, 1921, and the finished story was first published in Argosy All-Story Weekly as a six-part serial in the issues for February 18 and 25 and March 4, 11, 18 and 25, 1922.

In this novel Burroughs focuses on a younger member of the family established by John Carter and Dejah Thoris, protagonists of the first three books in the series.

The heroine this time is their daughter Tara, princess of Helium, whose hand is sought by the gallant Gahan, jed (prince) of Gathol.

After landing and fleeing from a ferocious pack of banths (Martian lions), she is captured by the horrific Kaldanes, who resemble large heads with small, crab-like legs.

The Kaldanes have bred a symbiotic race of headless human-like creatures called rykors, which they can attach themselves to and ride like horses.

Tara doesn't recognize Gahan as the unfamiliar prince she met earlier, as he is worn from his ordeals and no longer dressed in his fancy clothes.

In light of her earlier reaction to him, Gahan decides to keep his identity secret, and identifies himself instead as a panthan (mercenary) called Turan.

In Manator, captives are forced to a fight to the death in an arena, in a modified version of jetan, a popular Martian board game resembling chess; the Manator version uses people as the game pieces on a arena-sized board, with each taking of a piece being a duel to the death.

[4] Most of the action in a planetary romance is on the surface of an alien world, usually includes sword fighting, monsters, supernatural elements as telepathy rather than magic, and involves civilizations echoing those on Earth in pre-technological eras, particularly composed of kingdoms or theocratic nations.

[3] Burroughs' vision of Mars was loosely inspired by astronomical speculation of the time, especially that of Percival Lowell, who saw the planet as a formerly Earthlike world now becoming less hospitable to life due to its advanced age,[5] whose inhabitants had built canals to bring water from the polar caps to irrigate the remaining arable land.

[1] A technologically backward Red Martian civilization, which has no firearms or fliers, survives by raiding caravans and prevents anyone from leaving their society.

They have two distinctive traditions, firstly a habit of displaying the dead, covered in ornaments, and secondly playing a live version of the Martian chess, jetan.

In order to function in the physical realm, they have bred the Rykors, a complementary species composed of a body similar to that of a perfect specimen of Red Martian but lacking a head.

Tara of Helium compares them to effete intellectuals from her home city, with a self-important sense of superiority, and Gahan of Gathol muses that it might be better to find a balance between the intellect and bodily passions.

In the novel it is played at life size, at the arena in the Barsoomian location of Manator, with actual living people, who are dressed to appear the same as the pieces they represent.

Interest in the game from fans was high; consequently, he included the rules in an appendix,[13] entitled "Jetan, or Martian chess",[16] when the novel version was published.