Jupiter, the second story in this book, offers no such problem as does Giant of Mars. By contrast with Giant, Skeleton Men received nothing but extravagant praise from readers at the time of its first appearance in AMAZING in February, 1943. Its name may sound odd for a "Martian" story, and indeed, most of the action of Skeleton Men takes place not on Mars, but on Jupiter. However, the hero is John Carter, and the basic story rationale is part of the Martian series, so the tale well fits into the present book.

Skeleton Men of Jupiter was intended by Burroughs as the opening episode of the group of interconnected novelettes, probably to number four, which would have become a John Carter novel in the fashion of LLANA OF GATHOL or the Carson Napier book ESCAPE ON VENUS. This form of quasiserialization was one with which Burroughs experimented quite successfully in the early 1940s.

However, wartime service as a correspondent in the Pacific reduced Burroughs' fiction output nearly to zero, and after the end of the war his health prevented ERB from resuming his former pace. As a result, the continuing episodes of John Carter's Jupiterian adventure were never written. Still, Skeleton Men is a complete adventure story, and an excellent one.

Writing (or at least dreaming) its sequels has become a favorite pastime of Burroughs fans over the years, and the reader is invited to join in the fun.

The Foreword of Skeleton Men of Jupiter, by the way, is published here for the first time. When the magazine version of the story appeared twenty-one years ago, the editor may have felt that a Foreword would serve only to put off readers, while a policy of "On with the story" above all else, would have greater commercial appeal.

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