Recently read: The Sword of Rhiannon

I'm not sure this tale has ever had a cover worthy of it. The recent edition under the Planet Stories imprint probably comes closest, with fiery art by Daren Bader, who has a blog and is selling a book.

I digress for a minor quibble. Crediting Leigh Brackett as the "author" of The Empire Strikes Back is... interesting. By which I mean not strictly true. No movie ever had a single "author" because film is an inescapably collaborative art. Brackett is credited (along with Lawrence Kasdan) with writing the screenplay of Empire, based on a story by George Lucas, but (1) a screenplay is not a movie, and (2) writing credits are subject to negotiation and arbitration and don't necessarily reflect the real origin of what ends up on screen. But "Credited co-writer of the screenplay of" doesn't roll trippingly off the tongue, and the lawyers must have decided it would fly as is. Cool with me. Whatever. I'm just saying, is all.

The Ace paperback I own is undated, as far as I can tell. The $1.25 price and the "lowercase a" logo place it in the early 70s. The cover art is uncredited (of course) and it's not ringing any bells at the moment. The cloaked figure is supposed to be a humanoid lizard, but his pointy snout makes him look like a green poodle. He also has a rather forlorn air (for a poodle), whereas Brackett makes her serpent-like "Dhuvians" very effective figures of revulsion and primal fear. Fifi stands amidst a cracked and barren landscape that evokes the somber desert Mars of the story's beginning rather than the lush, vibrant Mars-of-a-million-years-ago where the real action takes place. The symbol rather arbitrarily placed on the figure's cloak is a misinterpretation (I believe) of an image on the eponymous sword:

The corridor ended in a vast chamber. ... There was a dais at one end with an altar of marble, upon which was carved the same symbol that appeared on the hilt of the sword - the ouroboros in the shape of a winged serpent. But the circle was broken, the head of the serpent lifted as though looking into some new infinity.

The symbol's significance is pretty clear by the book's end, though to her credit Brackett never beats you over the head with it.

The vast chamber described above is the antechamber of (dum-dum-DUM!) the Tomb of Rhiannon, called the Cursed One, a rebel godling of Martian legend. His rest (or imprisonment) has been disturbed by Penkawr, a rat-like native thief who can be thrown considerably further than he can be trusted, and Matt Carse, an Earth-born archaeologist who has gone native and joined the "aristocracy of thieves" of the Low Canal towns of Mars. Carse is a bit like Indiana Jones by way of the Gray Mouser, or Conan with a PhD and a proton-gun.

Forget Penkawr, who disappears after his inevitable act of betrayal, and doesn't even rate the eventual comeuppance usually due his kind. Carse emerges from Rhiannon's tomb a million years before he entered it, wanders in a daze down to the now-living city nearby, is promptly arrested as a spy and, sans trial, condemned to a short miserable life chained to an oar in the war-galley of Lady Ywain of Sark, whose father plots to rule all of Mars.

Our hero is now the lowest of the low. Of course by story's end he will hold the fate of a planet in his hands. There's a great deal of swashbuckling adventure in between (the novel was originally titled The Sea-Kings of Mars); Carse finds companions, allies, enemies, etc. in various city-states and among several races (sky-people, sea-people, lizard-people and just plain people-people) He learns the nature of Rhiannon's sin, and discovers to his horror that he carried a lot more than that sword out of Rhiannon's tomb.

It has literally been decades since I've read any Edgar Rice Burroughs. Nevertheless I do not hesitate to rate Brackett higher than her model and inspiration in at least one area - psychological realism. When Carse steps out of the tomb to find himself in Mars' distant past his first reaction is shock, then denial.

Carse's numbed gaze swept along the great coast of the distant shoreline. And down on that far sunlit coast he saw the glitter of a white city and knew that it was Jekkara.

Jekkara, bright and strong between the verdant hills and the mighty ocean, that ocean that had not been seen upon Mars for nearly a million years.

Matthew Carse knew then that it was no mirage. He sat and hid his face in his hands. His body was shaken by deep tremors and his nails bit into his own flesh until blood trickled down his cheeks.
...
Blindly, still gripping the jewelled sword, he leaped up and turned to re-enter the buried Tomb of Rhiannon.
...
He stopped, a convulsive shudder running through his frame. He could not make himself face again that bubble of glittering gloom, that dreadful plunge through interdimensional infinity.

Impossible to imagine John Carter or David Innes reacting so violently to anything. The typical Burroughs protagonist possesses a few simple, exemplary traits - honor, courage, loyalty - and precious little else. Nothing that would get in the way of that most basic form of reader identification: I wish such adventures would happen to me; I wish I were equal to such adventures.

And there's a lot to be said for that. But there's also a lot to be said for this:

Between his feet Carse saw dimly the red streams that trickled down into the bilges and stained the water. The rage that had burned in him chilled and altered as iron tempers under the hammer.

At last they stopped. Carse raised his head. It was the greatest effort he had ever made, but stiffly, stubbornly, he raised it. He looked directly at Ywain.

"Have you learned your lesson, slave?" she asked.

It was a long time before he could form the words to answer. He was beyond caring now whether he lived or died. His whole universe was centered on the woman who stood arrogant and untouchable above him.

"Come down yourself and teach me if you can," he answered hoarsely and called her a name in the lowest vernacular of the streets - a name that said there was nothing she could teach a man.

For a moment no one moved or spoke. Carse saw her face go white and he laughed, a hoarse terrible sound in the silence. Then Scyld drew his sword and vaulted over the rail into the oar pit.

The blade flashed high and bright in the torchlight. It occurred to Carse that he had traveled a long way to die...