A Princess of Mars / Edgar Rice Burroughs

A Princess of Mars

category: fantasy, space opera, author:

Edgar Rice Burroughs

book 1 of Barsoom
original copyright 1913

read in March 2012 (and before, quite a few years ago)

Agamedes' opinion: 7 out of 10: well worth reading

When I read the pre-release publicity blurb for the movie John Carter I thought, has the director ever read the book?! So, I thought, time to re-read, A Princess of Mars.

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.

..o0o..

These reviews are provided by Agamedes Consulting. For an independent and thoughtful review of your processes, problems or documents, email nickleth at gmail dot com.

PissWeakly: the Index

The Venus Series / Edgar Rice Burroughs

Pirates of Venus
and
Lost on Venus

category: space opera, author:

Edgar Rice Burroughs

book 1 & 2 of The Venus Series
original copyright 1932, 1933,
read in September 2011 (and before, in 1997)

Agamedes' opinion: 7 out of 10

Carson Napier makes a one way trip to Venus... How does his story get back to Earth? Luckily for us, Carson was taught telepathy...

Amtor (or Venus, as we call it) is populated by humans, near-humans and sub-humans. Evolution on Amtor follows a similar path to that on Earth, with the human form being top of the evolutionary ladder. The good humans look good and the bad humans have shifty eyes.

The jungles of Amtor are populated by wild beasts -- mostly ferocious, mostly bad-tempered. There are many harmless beasts but they are generally eaten then forgotten. Only the vicious killers get more than a page of description!

These adventures on Amtor are full of heroic acts and incredible coincidences...

Tarzan of the Apes / Edgar Rice Burroughs

Tarzan of the Apes

category: fantasy, author:

Edgar Rice Burroughs

introduction by John Seelye
book 1 of Tarzan
original copyright 1914,
read in November 2010
(and only once before, a couple of years ago)

Agamedes' opinion: 9 out of 10

Agamedes' opinion is 9 out of 10, "really, really good". Is that really, really true?

Well, I enjoyed it. Very, very much. And, as it says, it's "opinion". Enjoyment has a strong effect on my opinion. Still...

It is so very unbelievable! But then, it's fantasy.

There are errors of fact! Plants and animals in Tarzan's jungle which normally live in a different environment -- or on a different continent. But it's fantasy!

This time through, I noticed something new (to me). "The Apes" are not apes of any common genus... Without really thinking about it, I had in my mind that Tarzan was raised by gorillas: the largest of the primates. Yet Tarzan's Apes swing through the treetops. And they battle with their traditional enemies -- the gorillas!

One more layer added to this fantasy: In the depths of the unexplored jungle is a tribe of giant apes. Apes which have never been seen before... or since.

Okay, now it seems obvious. But it was new to me, the realisation that Tarzan was reared by Apes which only exist in the fantasy world of the Tarzan stories.

Ridiculous characters. Over-the-top characterisations. Racial and badly dated stereotypes. Unbelievable action... Yes! It's absolutely great!

Tarzan is fantasy, action, adventure, romance... Pure escapist fun. Read Tarzan of the Apes, perhaps be embarrassed by it... enjoy it.

Oh, and there's a bonus!

I read the Penguin Classic edition of Tarzan. There are explanatory notes -- and they actually help the reader!

Earlier, I read Wells' The Sleeper Awakes, in Penguin Classic edition. The notes were printed -- intrusively -- in the text. And the notes were worthless: self evident at best and with no notes for the truly confusing parts of that book.

Seelye has done a good job of producing interesting notes which actually add to the reader's understanding of -- or interest in -- the book. Then there's his Introduction... which is a fascinating examination of the evolution of the "wild man" in literature. An examination which is almost incomprehensible to the reader who has not studied the topic! Yet it still provides enough interest to be worthwhile.

Thinking about it... Perhaps "9 out of ten" is too much. It's not a great book.

Not a great book in the sense that it is well written and it stands alone as a shining example of the skill of the superior author.

Yet, as a very enjoyable book... Taking fantasy out to new horizons and back home for enjoyment by hordes of readers... As the precursor to a score of popular books and uncountable other media releases... As a book which is widely known and well remembered (if only indirectly) a century after its publication...

Tarzan of the Apes is very, very good. Well worth that 9 out of 10.

..o0o..

These reviews are provided by Agamedes Consulting. For an independent and thoughtful review of your processes, problems or documents, email nickleth at gmail dot com.

The Return of Tarzan / Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Return of Tarzan

category: action, author:

Edgar Rice Burroughs

book 2 of Tarzan
published by Penguin Group, original copyright 1913, read in May 2010

Agamedes' opinion: 8 out of 10

Agamedes' opinion is an 8?! Okay... I admit that this is not great literature. It's totally unbelievable, both characters and plot. It's either sadly dated... or a great window on its time. But for my own opinion -- it's great!

Read this book for a bit of heroic fantasy, for escapism, for fun. It provides all of those. Plus a plot so unbelievable that it could go straight to a Hollywood movie... Oh, wait... it already has :-) The women are beautiful, the good men are handsome. The evil men are dark and swarthy, with a tendency to lurk. Rescue is always, just in the nick of time.

What category should this book be under?

I could say, "classic" but I have no category for classic. It's not really "fantasy", just an exaggerated view of the world of the author's time. Or maybe it is fantasy? There is a note with this edition, that "Readers may note some discrepancies in the text regarding [the shape and geography of Africa]." But who checks the atlas when writing a novel?! The library has identified it as "action", so I shall stay with that.

I have also placed Tarzan in the "space opera" category.

Burroughs first books were (I believe) in the John Carter of Mars series. Tarzan is, really, John Carter of Earth. Both Carter and Tarzan fight the good fight, defeat evil villains and rescue fair damsels. Enormously strong, but willing and able to use weapons. Exploring new areas and discovering new, usually degenerate, civilisations.

Okay, Tarzan is not in space. But his stories fit well, in my definition of "space opera".

Back with the book, there is an old-fashioned innocence, mixed with plenty of implied sex. Tarzan, for example, is an absolute gentleman, where women are concerned... a gentleman who strolls naked through the jungle. Other characters lose their clothes though they then fashion garments from animal skins. Jane, "of course", was not expected to forage through the thorny jungle. "Her apparel was, nevertheless, in a sad state of disrepair."

Then there's the Ouled-Nail...

Tarzan is helped by a girl -- an "Ouled-Nail" -- who works in an Arab cafe. (One look at Tarzan and this girl was willing to risk her life to save him.) The girl has been a captive, a slave, forced to work for two years in this sleazy cafe. She and the other girls have individual rooms out back... with a single candle for each girl, "the better to display her charms to those who might happen to traverse the dark inclosure." Hmmm... waitresses, perhaps?

Which chapter did lead me to an internet search for "Ouled-Nail". Turns out that they are a tribe from Algeria. Who have their own style of Ouled-Nail belly dance. Which led me to YouTube. Which was, really, quite an eye-opener! I now have a better appreciation of the seductive power of "belly dance" and the more overt styles of its modern derivatives.

Read Tarzan for the action and adventure and just a lot of good fun. Follow the less common references to learn more about the world.

And if you find that there really is a Rue Maule in Paris -- please let me know!
Buy the book from Amazon and earn me a commission... Or, search the web for one of the free copies of the text.

..o0o..

These reviews are provided by Agamedes Consulting. For an independent and thoughtful review of your processes, problems or documents, email nickleth at gmail dot com.