Book Review: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Borroughs

Written by the man who would later go on to create Tarzan, this is the first book in the ‘Barsoom’ set of books (Barsoom being a name for the planet Mars) which chronicle the story of John Carter, an earth man from Virginia, USA who mysteriously finds himself on Mars.

John Carter first finds himself among a tribe of green 6-limbed Martians (two arms, two legs, and two in the middle that are multifunctional, but are usually used as an extra set of arms).  These martians are at least double the size of humans and are fierce warroirs, but Carter finds himself having greater strength and speed than these people, owing to the lower gravity, and proves himself more than a match for any of them.  Eventually Carter also encounters a member of the red Martian race, who are more like humans, who happens to be a Princess of a city/state called Helium… and through various shennanegins, fights, adventures, escapes and battles, he eventually wins her affections and helps unite various martian factions in peace.  But the adventure doesn’t end there…

This is grand old pulp fiction, the sort of story that would find itself in comic books these days, and much in common with the more familiar Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers stories we saw in the 1930s film serials.  It’s straightforward and unilayered, but the language is both charming and archaic, as John Carter is a civil war veteran, and is written to talk like a grand Southern gentleman.

How this wasn’t converted into a movie until very recently (coming out next year) I don’t know, as it reads much more like the novelisation of a movie than a novel – which I guess is the intention of this type of pulp fiction – to be easy reading, and stimulate the imagination with action and visually-oriented descriptions.

I quite liked it, but not sure how likely it is I’d go back and read more adventures.

Rating: Odd 6/10