Ulysses Paxton

rdf:langString Ulysses Paxton

rdf:langString Cover of Amazing Stories Annual , showing Ras Thavas, Valla Dia and Ulysses Paxton

rdf:langString The Master Mind of Mars

rdf:langString Male

rdf:langString Ulysses Paxton is a fictional character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his novel The Master Mind of Mars. Within the narrative framework of the novel, Captain Paxton, United States Army Infantry, is a fan of Burroughs' Barsoom series, and after having a shell blow off his legs during trench warfare in World War I, he finds himself drawn across the gulfs of space to Mars (where his body is whole again) like John Carter before him. He sends Burroughs a first person manuscript of his adventures on the dying planet, which Burroughs publishes. On Mars, Paxton is taken in by elderly mad scientist Ras Thavas, the "Master Mind" of the novel's title, who educates him in the ways of Barsoom and bestows on him the Martian name Vad Varo. Ras has perfected techniques of transplanting brains, which he uses to provide rich elderly Martians with youthful new bodies for a profit. Distrustful of his fellow Martians, he trains Paxton as his assistant to perform the same operation on him. But Paxton has fallen in love with Valla Dia, one of Ras' young victims, whose body has been swapped for that of the hag Xaxa, Jeddara (empress) of the city-state of Phundahl. He refuses to operate on Ras until his mentor promises to restore her to her rightful body. A quest for that body ensues, in which Paxton is aided by others of Ras' experimental victims, and in the end (and after meeting fellow Earthman John Carter) he attains the hand of his Valla Dia, who in a happy plot twist turns out to be a princess.