The blonde from Barsoom — Context and Discussion

The Writer as Hero and Target

Harold Worthington Smith is both the author and the protagonist of his own Martian story, thanks to his ability to achieve “total identification” with his characters. When Thon Carther the Earthman faces the Tarks, it is really Harold—tall, tanned, and handsome—standing there. Young uses this conceit to lampoon the wish-fulfillment at the heart of pulp science fiction. The editors' criticisms of Harold's work—stilted dialogue, dimensionally impossible heroines, unredeemed Burroughs influence—are quoted verbatim, and Harold's defensive rebuttals are equally precise. He argues that a 46-21-46 female is plausible on Mars, and that Burroughs influence is an essential ingredient. The story thus becomes a meta-commentary on the genre's conventions and the writer's ego.

The Collapse of Fiction and Reality

The story's central conceit is that Harold's fictional world literally intrudes upon his real one. The Tark horde closing in corresponds to the clacking of his typewriter; the blond princess he rescues is described as “big-breasted” and “blond,” matching the cliché he defends. As the narrative progresses, the boundary dissolves: Harold's wife, initially a source of nagging, transforms into the princess, and the apartment study becomes a throne room. Young signals this shift through concrete details: the typewriter becomes solid gold, rejection slips become checks for $750, $2500, and $5000, and the wastebasket fills with “Long Thin Envelopes.” The phone rings with an editor from Mammalian Blonde Stories offering $10,000. The satire escalates as Harold nonchalantly stacks checks and tells his wife to put on clothes.

Satirical Details and Structural Patterns

Young's humor relies on precise, recurring details. The wastebasket marked “Long Thin Envelopes” is a running gag—Harold empties it, but it fills again immediately. The editors' names are parodies of pulp magazines: Dead-Sea Bottom Stories, Red Planet Stories, Mammalian Blonde Stories. The story's structure mirrors Harold's own plot: a climactic battle, a rescue, and a reward. But the reward is not a princess—it is commercial success, measured in checks and obsequious editors. The ending, with Harold descending majestically to greet editors, completes the fantasy. Yet the story never fully abandons its ironic distance; the final line, “THE END,” is a wry acknowledgment of the artifice. Young's satire is affectionate but pointed, targeting both the writer's delusions and the genre's formulas.

Young's story rewards attention to its layered ironies: the way Harold's rejection-slip complaints become the very plot he lives, the way his wife's nagging transforms into adoration, and the way the typewriter's clack becomes the Tark horde's charge. Readers may enjoy tracking how each element of the opening criticism—stilted dialogue, dimensional heroines, Burroughs influence—is both acknowledged and subverted. The story is a compact, self-aware artifact of early 1960s science fiction, offering a glimpse into the genre's self-image.

I finished The Blonde from Barsoom and found myself thinking, oddly, about wishes. Harold's fantasy princess felt so real to him that she overstepped into his study — as if wanting something hard enough could call it forth. It reminded me of Five Children and It — Background and Themes, where the sand-fairy grants wishes and everyone learns how clumsy that longing can be. Both books seem to whisper that imagination has a mischievous side.