Comments by Fredrik Ekman

Late comer to the discussion here. Regarding the piece values, there are many takes on this. I list most of the ones I know about in my recent ERBzine article about jetan. Follow the link below, and scroll about two thirds down the page to the appendices. 

Exploring Jetan, from ERBzine

I love Larry Smith's analysis, as shown in this article, but I am not comfortable with his conclusion that all variants of jetan were created equal. In my own analysis of jetan, published at ERBzine, I would like to think that I have shown conclusively that most of the jetan variants can in fact be treated as apochryphal. In Smith's terminology, the following pieces should be treated as "correct":

Chained Panthan, Chained Thoat, Chained Warrior, Chained Padwar, Chained Dwar, Chained Flier, Chained Wild Chief, Brave Chained Wild Princess

A case could be made to use the Free Thoat in place of the Chained, and there is also an optional board set-up. But otherwise, Burroughs' rules emerge as pretty clear after a thorough analysis.

After almost 20 years, this is still the best existing computer implementation of jetan. It contains lots of variants, which may be slightly confusing, especially for the beginner. If you want to play the game that Burroughs intended, and that I have researched in my article Exploring Jetan at ERBzine, then you should choose the variant "Chained Wild Jetan with Chained Warriors".

The pieces for the jetan presets are set up wrong. Chief and princess should change places on both sides, so that chief stands to the left, as seen from each player. Note that this does not affect gameplay, since the moves can just be mirrored. It would still be nice to have the board set up the right way.

It would also be nice to have the red and blue pieces switch sides, since the proper game has black pieces playing from south and orange from north.

If there are any aspects of the rules that are not clear, please check the rules of jetan (edited from Burroughs' original for greater clarity).

This is not a game in itself, but a book about a game. I found no other way to create a page about it, so I hope this works out. Let me know otherwise.

I would just like to mention that there is now a book about jetan, written by me and published by McFarland. Follow the link to learn more. I would welcome reviews of the book posted to the book's page.

I would just like to mention that there is now a book about jetan, written by me and published by McFarland. Follow the link to learn more. I would welcome reviews of the book posted to the book's page.

This variant, along with many other Jetan variants, is mentioned in my book about Jetan, published by McFarland. Follow the link to learn more. I would welcome reviews of the book posted to the book's page.

In my book about Jetan, published by McFarland, the rules of Jetan-Sarang are included in an appendix. That version of the rules are based on a thorough analysis of all available rule versions (including the version on this page) and games of Jetan-Sarang played on Game Courier, and fixes many of the ambiguities built into previous versions.

Here is a link to a review in Abstract Games magazine: https://www.abstractgames.org/bookreview24.html

Re: Jetan.

Larry Smith, for reasons unknown to me, liked to exaggerate the inconsistencies found in Burroughs' novel The Chessmen of Mars. In reality, there are only a couple of real inconsistencies, although it is true that due to Burroughs' vague wording, jetan has sometimes been played with alternative rules.

Consistent rules can be found in connection with my jetan articles in ERBzine and Abstract Games, and not least in my book Jetan: The Martian Chess of Edgar Rice Burroughs (McFarland, 2022).

A couple of comments to George Duke:

First, The Chessmen of Mars was first published in February-March of 1922. The dates you give was the period when Burroughs wrote the book.

Second, the appendix was not added to the first edition book; it was there in the final instalment of the original Argosy publication, and was probably written first, even before Burroughs got started on writing the novel as such. Thus, the appendix rules are not to be seen as an afterthought or a revision, but as the original. Whether the jumping thoat from Chapter two was a mistake, or if it was mistakenly left out of the appendix, or if it was an actual case of a revision, we shall never know.