The Chessmen of Mars' is the fifth of eleven books in the Martian series by renowned Science Fiction author Edgar Rice Burroughs. Some would say that Burroughs was at the top of his writing career when writing this thrilling classic. It was written in 1921. Carried away in a deluge, Tara (daughter of John Carter) becomes lost on the red planet with only a dagger to protect herself. She then becomes the prisoner of the evil Kaldanes whose cannibalistic tendencies are unleashed against her.