![]() I was laughing out loud throughout the three tales. Burrough is obviously having fun and pokes fun at John Carter. Burroughs seems to tease the reader along at times. Burroughs also does a great job with action scenes. The scenes on Mars are exotic and well described. John Carter almost instinctively understands how the society works and works it to his advantage. Stealing and lying are almost non-existent on Mars. It is hard not to like a guy like that, even with all his faults. If someone even shows John Carter a hint of bravery or compassion, John Carter is that person's friend for life. Even when exotic, beautiful and powerful Martian females try to seduce him, John Carter does not give them a second thought. He values his love for his Martian princess more than life itself. He always fights for the underdog no matter what the odds. There is nothing more he likes than a good fight. He is very clever at times and incredibly stupid at times. He is full of himself to almost ego mania. John Carter, due to his birth on earth, the lesser Martian gravity, and the thin Martian atmosphere, can outjump and outfight any two Martians. Almost every female falls in love with John Carter. Maidens need to be rescued at every turn. I spent the whole vacation reading the trilogy. ![]() However, when I saw it at a bookstore on vacation on the cheap table, I snapped it up. I tried "Tarzan" and didn't like it so I didn't try the Martian tales. My brother recommended this when we were in high school. And is often the case, fun is enough to make this a great read. But even if Burrough's is not always the most politically correct of writers (his views of women in particular are rather Victorian), his books are still a lot of fun to read, with tons of action and cliffhangers. Not only does Carter find virtue in all the races of Barsoom, he even marries (and has a child with) one. For all I've heard of Burroughs's rather antiquated views, the Mars books sometimes has a rather progressive view for WWI-era books. ![]() Fortunately, Carter is a man whose built up a collection of powerful allies in all the races. All is concluded in the final book, The Warlord of Mars, which has Carter traversing Barsoom, contending with various colored Martians (black, red, white, yellow and green), all while trying to save Dejah Thoris from the clutches of some nasty villains. Meanwhile, Dejah Thoris, thinking her husband Carter is dead, winds up in the area and in danger, ending the novel with a cliffhanger. Carter finds that the religion of Mars is a farce and goes about trying to expose it. He finds himself transported to the far south of Mars, an area that is supposed to be a paradise that old Martians go to when they become 1000 years old. The second book, The Gods of Mars, takes place twenty years later fortunately the Martians age very slowly, and that trait has been passed on to Carter. Thoris is one of the red Martians who most closely resemble humans, and they soon fall for each other. His abilities will also be essential in rescuing the princess Dejah Thoris. In Barsoom's weaker gravity, Carter is almost superhumanly strong, and his fighting skills win the respect of the green men. Carter will first encounter the warrior race of green men (actually all the races are interested in combat, but the green men are especially aggressive). Known to the locals as Barsoom, the planet is filled with various intelligent races of different colors. ![]() The first book, a Princess of Mars, introduces John Carter, an ex-Confederate soldier from Virginia who finds himself magically transported to Mars. The Martian Tales Trilogy is comprised of the first three Mars books. The last I've heard, there is a chance of a John Carter movie in 2011 maybe it'll actually happen, but it'll take a long time to catch up to Tarzan. Interestingly, according to The Best Science Fiction Movies Never Made, an animated Carter movie has been off-and-on in development since the 1930s if made then, it would have been the first feature-length cartoon, even preceding Snow White. While the better known Tarzan has become one of the most iconic characters in fiction, up there with Sherlock Holmes and Dracula, and featured in countless books, movies and TV shows, John Carter is still limited to the written page. Take John Carter, Edgar Rice Burroughs's second-best known hero. It can be a bit of a problem to be second-best.
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