The Gods Of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs the second of his Barsoom series. The story proper begins with his arrival back on Barsoom (Mars) after a ten-year separation with Dejah Thoris their unborn child and the Red Martian people of the nation of Helium whom he has adopted as his own. Unfortunately Carter materializes in the one place on Barsoom from which nobody is allowed to depart: the Valley Dor which is the Barsoomian afterlife.