A Princess of Mars
category: fantasy, space opera, author:Edgar Rice Burroughs
book 1 of Barsoomoriginal copyright 1913
read in March 2012 (and before, quite a few years ago)
Agamedes' opinion: 7 out of 10: well worth reading
Now I have still not seen the movie. But there are some stories that have come back from those who have...
First, an apology to the screen-writers: Okay, the story is introduced by (supposedly) Burroughs himself. Perhaps, grasping at straws, my memory had been affected by details from the book:
"My first recollection of Captain Carter is... just prior to the opening of the civil war" (from the Foreword). "I was then a child of but five years." So the Burroughs of the Foreword would be about nineteen years old when Edgar Rice Burroughs was born...
What we have, is the standard, "I found a manuscript..." approach with the less standard "and 'I' am the author..." If you see what I mean:-)
Still, when I heard that ERB himself could be dragged into a sequel movie, I groaned. Yet, perhaps, that Foreword does leave room for later authorial engagement in the action. So. I apologise.
Then there's the leaping.
Look, it's just the lighter gravity on Barsoom! Not super-powers, just Earthly strength -- of a very fit man -- on a lighter planet.
One hundred and fifty feet horizontal, thirty feet high. That's about it. Fifty metres along, ten metres up. It's jumping, not flying. No big thing.
Did the movie cover the Martian telepathy? Now that is almost a super-power. Except that every Barsoomian can do the same... A very ordinary super-power.
But enough of the movie... I write about books!
And this book is a lot of fun.
Ridiculously over-the-top, supremely violent, very lightly plotted, fun.
A series of adventures, loosely tied together into a flimsy plot.
Which -- and I'm sorry to harp back to the movie -- which could explain why the movie is, apparently, rather hard to follow.
John Carter arrives... mysteriously... on Mars. Fights and wins the respect of a tribe of green men. Fights and escapes from a different batch of green men. Meets and makes friends with a red man, then more red men from a different city. Realises that the second lot of red men are threatening the only woman in the book, so Carter battles the second lot of red men. Before escaping, to save a green man in the middle of a battle between the two green tribes that he had met earlier. Leads half the green men (the winners of the battle) back to sack red city one (with the help of red men), then to break the siege at red city two.
Upon which he marries the princess, lives for ten years in wedded bliss interspersed with incredible battles. Is the only person who can single-handedly save Barsoom -- which he may or may not have done... Only to be snatched back to Earth, even before his and the princess' heir and egg has hatched... Oh dear, how sad.
There... you try to put all that into a coherent movie script!
Oh, and a further comment on the movie "adaptation": I look at the cover of my book. And think, Why did the movie over-dress its stars?
And finally, a story which I rather like. True or not...
The book is called, A Princess of Mars. The hero is John Carter. The movie was to be called, "John Carter: A Princess of Mars". Focus groups found that no boy would go to a movie with "Princess" in the title. So the name would be, "John Carter of Mars". Except that further focus groups found that no girl would go to a movie with "Mars" in the title... So we get, "John Carter".
Which is a pity, really.
Since no-one knew who John Carter was.
Argh! forget the movie! Get the book, and enjoy some space opera fun.
PS: Look, you do know who Edgar Rice Burroughs is, don't you? He wrote Tarzan... And he wrote the Barsoom series, set on Mars, and the Venus series. (Martians call their planet Barsoom. Venusians call their planet Amtor.)
Burroughs wrote a whole lot of books. Tarzan, Barsoom and Amtor have similarities: intelligent, tough, heroic man in strange environments, battling hordes of very alien creatures. (Even Tarzan found some amazingly alien creatures in the depths of the jungles of Africa.) Hero fights with sword and fists. Usually against insuperable odds... which turn out to be less-than-insuperable after all. Hero is motivated by honour, decency and a drive to save the heroine, sometimes for another man.
Burroughs' books are packed with action, packed with imagination and loaded with an enormous variety of good tribes and bad tribes, where at least one member of the bad tribe turns out to be good after all.
If you like one, you'll like them all.
I have not read them all. So far, I have enjoyed every Burroughs book that I have read.
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