Nov-Dec 2018: Sword n Planet

[S.E., Gray Mouser (Emeritus)]

Sword and Planet.
Gor?
Dray Prescott series?
John Carter?

Have at it.

[Jordan]

I’ve never read ANY Burroughs so I’m really looking forward to John Carter!

[Randy]

I was just re-reading Gor/John Carter/Dray Prescott last year. I first read them over 40 years ago. That was also when I was reading a lot of Elric and Conan.

• I had a tough time reading Gor and abandoned it. I used to love the series, at least up to book 6 or 7, when they went off the deep end (he no longer had an editor reeling him back).

• I also didn't enjoy John Carter as much as I used to, but still did enjoy it. But the women aren't written very well. I've read a lot of series in the past few decades with strong women main characters, and the Mars series mostly fails on that front.

• Still loved Dray Prescott. "On my own two feet, then..." :)

My favorite recent series was Kat Brewer's Erla series. But they are about a portal world featuring matriarchal groups in the "reverse harem" sub-genre.

[Mary]

The The Ginger Star, The Hounds of Skaith, and The Reavers of Skaith -- The Book of Skaith by Leigh Brackett

A planet both filled with cultures and possessing a unity imposed by circumstance. And working in such thing as prophecies in a manner that harmonizes perfectly with the genetic engineering and star ships.

[Joseph, Master Ultan]

And I just restarted (for about the millionth time) A Princess of Mars.

[Joseph, Master Ultan]

And time now for The Gods of Mars. I love these books (almost) unreservedly.

[Joseph, Master Ultan]

Finishing up the initial Barsoom trilogy with Warlord Of Mars.

[Joseph, Master Ultan]

And just to tell the story: My first encounter with Burroughs was Tarzan books when I was young -- the public library had a bunch of the black-bordered Ballantine paperbacks, some with Boris Vallejo covers (although the most memorable to me was actually by Neal Adams:



So I was already familiar with the author when Dad gave me a copy of A Princess of Mars with the D'Achille cover sometime around junior high, and when I started reading it I was well and truly hooked. I then got a copy of The Gods of Mars, read that and came bang up against the massive cliffhanger that ends the book. Fortunately, the public library did have a copy of Warlord Of Mars, so I was able to see how it all turned out. And then, since the library had book 3 and my own funds were … limited, the next one I bought was #4, Thuvia, Maid of Mars.

Some time after this must've been when I got my paper route, because that's when I started filling out the series, although at that point they had been reissued with the Michael Whelan covers. Which I do love, but the D'Achille covers are my covers; and I'm not sure if Dad would've bought me a copy of

as opposed to



I've read the series many, many times over the years, and they never fail to captivate me. Well, at least not until John Carter of Mars, which is kind of terrible, but which I cannot stop myself from reading since it's part of the series.

[Jordan]

I just picked up Princess of Mars from the library, looking forward to my first Burroughs. I love what y’all brought up about covers. For these great series (Howard, Moorcock, Norton, etc.) I feel like the covers of the books when I first started reading them encapsulated them. In collecting I find I’m drawn to those editions.

[Joseph, Master Ultan]

Onward to Thuvia, Maid of Mars, the first third-person Barsoom book, and one of the very few that didn't include some kind of framing device telling how ERB came to hear the story.

[Joseph, Master Ultan]

Thuvia is short, so I finished it and am on to The Chessmen of Mars, which is one of my two favorite Barsoom books outside the original trilogy. (The other being A Fighting Man of Mars.)

[Joseph, Master Ultan]

Finished The Chessmen of Mars, read The Master Mind of Mars in something close to one sitting (it was short) and started A Fighting Man of Mars.

Man, I love these books -- they're kind of old and creaky, but Burroughs' imagination was just an amazing thing.

[Mary]

It helps in the Mars books that he keeps changing heroes and so heroines. Keeps it fresher than Tarzan.

[Joseph, Master Ultan]

Yeah, plus there's just more room for variety when you have an entire planet to play with -- I read most of the Tarzan books back in my day, and there was an awful lot of sameness -- the only question was whether this would be one of those Tarzan books where there was a lost civilization hidden in the jungle, whether this was one where Tarzan would get amnesia, or both.

[Joseph, Master Ultan]

Finished A Fighting Man of Mars and it might be my favorite outside of the original trilogy -- it's the one where Burroughs plays most against expectations, and has some truly grotesque (human) villains and some surprisingly dark bits.

Next up: Swords of Mars.

[Joseph, Master Ultan]

Time for Synthetic Men of Mars, which is not the greatest book in the series, but which actually kind of prefigures a lot of 1950s monster/horror movies.

[Mary]

I think Burroughs did better with the idea in The Monster Men -- which is not sword and planet.

[Joseph, Master Ultan]

Mary wrote: "I think Burroughs did better with the idea in The Monster Men -- which is not sword and planet."

I wouldn't be surprised. I think I read that one, but if so it was many, many years ago.

Synthetic Men isn't the worst book in the series by a long shot -- that honor goes squarely to John Carter of Mars -- but it's almost certainly second worst.

[Joseph, Master Ultan]

The end is nigh -- after reading Llana of Gathol in something approaching one sitting, I am starting John Carter of Mars, the last of Edgar Rice Burroughs's books about, well, John Carter of Mars.

(And I admit that I'm cheating a bit -- I'm skipping entirely over the first novella in the book, the execrable and ghost-written "John Carter and the Giant of Mars" and only reading the second, "Skeleton Men of Jupiter".)

[S.E., Gray Mouser (Emeritus)]

Joseph, are you managing to pull off an entire series (re)read?

[Joseph, Master Ultan]

S.E. wrote: "Joseph, are you managing to pull off an entire series (re)read?"

Yep -- all eleven books (well, aside from the first half of John Carter of Mars). Which I should qualify by pointing out that they're relatively short by contemporary standards -- per the timer on my Kindle, they were taking an average of maybe two hours per title. This is one of those series where once I start, I won't be stopping until I reach the end.