Chasing after the incomparable Deja Thoris of Mars (Barsoom) after being transported to the lusterous sepia toned nostalgic thing that is Mars, after essentially his death, and the fighting man's soul travels to the red planet, A Princess of Mars is one of my favorite books. It's short. It's old (first published in 1912 for goodness sake...) but it's filled with action, suspense, great friendships, love, and danger enough to threaten the entire planet. It's got heroes that can leap great distances, and take down enemies three times their size with a single punch. It's got sword fighting, and mechanical wonders. In short, it's probably inspired everything from Buck Rogers to Star Wars and Conan and back without really sharing that kind of limelight.

Disney's recent attempt to make a movie of it was very good in my opinion, based on how I see the books in my mind when I read them (though I'm partial to the style of the Whelan cover art) but it seems to fall short, as in too little too late. I love the film, and what they've managed to do with it Tars Tarkas is phenomenal, but so many elements of the story have been borrowed by other great science fiction so often in homage to this series of stories that it all looks like it's been done before, even though it's likely the original source.

Ray Bradbury said that without A Princess of Mars, there probably wouldn't be a Martian Chronicles. It's worth a read. It's long on dramatics, but it's short and snappy. There are eleven books in Edgar Rice's Martian series. I love the first four, and the 6th a great deal (I think #5 is too long for the story it tells) after that you start getting into secondary characters and John Carter's story is basically over. The others are fun, but I don't know if they are classics for the ages, if you know what I mean.