New post - A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

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Recent comments in the SFFWorld Forums coincidentally led to this tome arriving on my desk. I approached it with some caution, admittedly. Whilst aware of the dated nature of stories from a similar age – racism, sexism, gender bias, etc – what else is there to say on a book which has influenced so many…

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Thanks for this review Mark! Like Howard, Rice Burroughs is a product of his time and it shows in the writing - but what great & entertaining writing it is. No mean feat to be still very readable and enjoyable after so many years and shifting cultures and (writing) styles. To be honest though, I did think the quality of the Barsoom series dropped off quite steeply after the first three volumes...still, a must-read for anyone with even the faintest interest in scifi.
 
Thanks as ever, Sfinx. For the record, I still find Howard, Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith etc readable.

This is another one of those that I thought I'd read years ago ... and might have done! - but I could remember very little about.

I'll continue to read the series, but will bear in mind what you've said about the later books. I suspect by that time ERB was more focused on the big-seller, Tarzan...

Was intrigued by a quote I read years ago that ERB was less interested in literary merit and more in sales... how things have changed! :D

But then I also remember Robert Heinlein saying something similar when he was accused of "selling out" to the big glossy weekend magazines... although IMO he was concerned with writing better and better - even at the end!
 
I started reading Burroughs/John Carter in Jr high (7th-8th grade). The Martian stories were about the only SFF on the shelves of the tiny library in Vista California where I lived with my grandparents. Continued as my dad, sister & I drove around Europe. (I should have paid more attention to the landscape. Never got to do it again.) So they are part of my experential backlog. I remember the specifics of the plots better than 90% of what I have read since. Does that speak to my warped brain or to the quality of Burroughs adventures?
 
pogopossum said:
I remember the specifics of the plots better than 90% of what I have read since. Does that speak to my warped brain or to the quality of Burroughs adventures?
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No, I think you've got something there, pogo. They are simple, and straightforward and as a result are memorable. The story is not chock-a-block full of ideas, but the ideas that are there and the imaginative descriptions are vivid and well done and as a result are more memorable.

The themes are basic and straightforward too - the story deals with love, loyalty and friendship - universal absolutes that remain constant even today, to young readers and adults. Its concepts do not need much explaining, nor do they get it!

That and perhaps the fact that the story is only about 150 pages, does not meander much, tells what it needs to tell and then ends may have something to do with it.

Whatever it is, there's clearly something there that endures.
 
I read the ‘Mars’ books back in the early seventies and agree that the first three were the best. The Disney film ‘John Carter’ wasn’t as bad as the reviews. Certainly better than the film starring Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris.
 
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