A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

A Princess of Mars

Barsoom #1

Publisher: Serialization – The All-Story (1912), Novelization – A.C. McClurg & Company (1917)

Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs

Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi

Pages: 204

Price: $7.95

When Civil War veteran Captain John Carter is incredibly transported from Earth to a strange landscape on Mars, he finds that the weak gravity exponentially increases his speed and strength. Taken prisoner by Martian warriors, Carter impresses them with his remarkable fighting skills, and is quickly made a high-ranking chieftain. Before long, the captain finds himself embroiled in the deadly warfare and dark intrigues that have been polarizing the Martian races. The heroic Carter also finds dangerous romance with the divine princess Dejah Thoris, who wins Carter's love the first moment his eyes meet hers.

I've long been a reader of science fiction and fantasy stories. Starting at a rather young age I was already jumping into the genres with H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, and as I entered my teens I'd moved on to Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke. Somehow along the way I'd missed Edgar Rice Burroughs, and it wasn't until very recently that I rectified that oversight on my part. I mention this only to give a little context regarding my view of the book, it wasn't my introduction to the genres and in fact came much later in my reading life than for many people

A Princess of Mars is essentially a travelogue describing the journey and things our hero encounters a long the way. The first half of the book especially does this very effectively; while there are a lot of flowery descriptions of the things John Carter sees and does everything moves at such a pace that it's impossible for the story to get mired in the doldrums that sometimes accompany that kind of story. It's not just walking and seeing a lot of wondrous things. John Carter fights, falls in love, discovers new races, is taken captive, and wins his freedom throughout his travels. So, while it is a travelogue it isn't the type that succumbs to the negative connotations that are sometimes associated with the word.

I enjoyed the set up for the story immensely. It's presented to the reader as a true account, a memoir left to Burroughs upon the death of John Carter. The device feels very modern in its application to the story. It does have the unfortunate side effect of requiring the remainder of the story to be told in first person. When one is dealing with a character of immense power, and desirable, for the time, morals this has a slight negative effect on the story. Instead of the reader drawing their own conclusions as to the prowess and fortitude of the character they're told, by the man himself, how good he is. It gets a little tiresome after a while.

Burroughs isn't a bad writer, but his style is somewhat limited. After a few fights, captures and escapes they started to blend together a little bit and I lost count of the individual incidents. Due to this I found more enjoyment in the reprieves from the action. There are a couple of really fun characters sprinkled in among all the fighting, specifically Sola and Tars Tarkas. Ironically, the chapter that delves deepest into the character Sola was excluded from the original serialization of the story because it was decided by the publisher that it slowed the story down too much. I felt the exact opposite, it added weight to the tale, making it easier to relate to the alien characters. Finally, I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending. It happens very abruptly, almost as if a word limit had been reached and everything had to be wrapped up quickly. Burroughs also leaves unanswered the one question running through the readers' minds as to the fate of a very important character. While I'm sure it's answered in one of the subsequent books it was an unfulfilling way to end the book.

Conclusion: Burroughs is considered by many to be one of the great-grandfathers of science fiction, and I can see where his work influenced many of those that came after him. While I enjoyed the story, for the most part, I think that because I read it so late in my experience with sci-fi that it didn't resonate with me the way it does for some.

Rating: 7/10