In 1911 , a 36 - year older nonstarter , his late business venture crumble into insolvency , started to while away his idle hours at the office by writing a novel for the then - new “ pulp ” magazines . It was about a military man going to Mars .
The story he wrote , a swaggering tarradiddle of action , adventure , and love affair set on the dying Red Planet , was so outré he used the penitentiary name “ Norman Bean ” lest the readers think the author a turn crack .
That novel , serialize in All - Story magazine and later on published in book form as A Princess of Mars , was enough of a collision to barrack Edgar Rice Burroughs to try yet another career . His next effort , a turgid diachronic love story , was a dud . But his third novel , Tarzan of the Apes , put him firmly on the way of life to becoming one of the best - selling authors of the 20th C . But while the Tarzan books overshadow everything else he ever wrote , the eleven volume Mars series is arguably Burroughs ’ best and most influential work . With Andrew Stanton ’s film John Carter of Mars due out in 2012 , it ’s the perfect time to depend back at this pioneering skill fiction series .
Thanks to Tarzan , Burroughs is rarely think of today as a science fiction writer . But in his day he was one of the lead writers of the “ scientific romance ” that evolve into the genre we all know and have it away . Rare was the Golden Age science fiction writer who did n’t produce up on Burroughs serials in Bluebook and Argosy and later on , Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures . And it ’s not to hard to see the peculiar ingathering of the Mars series . Not only do they still make for just reading , they ’re arguably the first multi - volume series with a full - consider alien ( as opposed to phantasy ) setting .
Barsoom , as the inhabitant of Burroughs ’ Mars call it , is a dying humankind . Its oceans have long ago dry up , leaving the shorelines dot with give up cities . The famous canals are but shadows of their former selves . The cutting atmosphere is kept breathable only by a monumental “ atmosphere plant life . ” But Martian civilization is far from dead . While the mass of the planet is under the control of horde of peregrine , semi - barbarian , 15 - foot marvelous , 4 - armed green Martians , a humanoid race of crimson Martians keep civilization active in an broad meshing of forever warring walled metropolis - country .
Burroughs lend Mars with an odd mix of technology designed to maximize the action , not stimulate the imagination . The principal form of transport for red Barsoomians are “ flyers , ” aircraft rendered immune from gravity via reservoirs of the “ 8th Barsoomian Ray . ” Ranging in size from single - mortal flivvers to heavily - armed naval dreadnaughts , they can reach speeds of 200 mph . Ground transport , on the other bridge player , is by “ thoat , ” the eight - legged Barsoomian horse . For arm , there are hand - held “ radium ordnance ” that shoot volatile projectiles for 100 air mile with perfect truth . Yet Barsoomians have a universal predilection for lances and blade . Even bow and arrows are rarified .
Burroughs ’ Mars books were n’t about technological speculation . They ’re “ scientific romance ” in the modern good sense . The locomotive engine repulse every Mars book is the old boy meets missy , boy suffer girl , boy catch girl back workaday that was old when the sea still covered Mars . But a write up - teller like Burroughs imbues these hoary plots with considerable excitement . Burroughs liberally sparge his world with imaginatively - gestate bemused races , unusual monsters , hidden cities , and even a few sore scientists for the fighter to contend with . Along the agency , the hero pits his blade against endless series of enemies and countless issue of Mars ’s massive multi - pedal fauna . Who demand monsters in a world where the watchdogs ( “ calots ” ) are the sizing of ponies , and the four - armed “ white ape ” as tall as giraffes and as savage as Lion ? Burroughs ’ possibility that “ the better the combat the more appreciated the winning ” ensured play of the highest ordering . Barsoom is such a swaggering earth that Burroughs approached the King of Swashbucklers himself , Douglas Fairbanks , to asterisk in a projected movie .
And Fairbanks would have made a underworld of a John Carter , the central material body of the Mars books . A seemingly ageless , immortal agitate man most recently of the Confederate cavalry , Carter is a classic swashbuckling hero . A master fencer ( sadly , only in the literal mother wit ) , he is upstanding , firm , honorable and hardy , but never tiresome . He ’s the sort of guy cable who would rather face a XII 10 - legged “ banths ” ( Martian lions ) armed only with a blade than abandon his faithful calot . He goes about his swordplay with a dry mental capacity and a common sense of élan seldom seen in the genre . When John Carter plunge into a way of foe swordsman seeking to unblock the inevitable damsel in distress , not only do you know he ’s going to win - he ’s go to gain with style .
Fortunately for the cause of interplanetary romance , Barsoomian genitalia are fully compatible with homophile sapiens , and they can reproduce successfully . connoisseur of exotic sex practices , however , are doomed to dashing hopes . With an eye to the censors , Burroughs keep all speck of sexual bodily process well wing . Even the inevitable leering villain threatening the equally inevitable heroine at his mercifulness with the usual fate worse than decease just never gets around to it .
But even without sex , swordplay is n’t the hottest thing on Mars . Outside the polar regions , everyone be given around essentially naked . The universal Martian costume is the “ harness , ” an arrangement of strap and belts designed for fiddling more than supporting weapons and decoration . While Martian adult female may be oviparous , Burroughs makes clear that they can easily pass for amply equipped mammal . So scanty is Martian dress that even steamy example by Boris Vallejo and Frank Frazetta ( see above ) are more pocket-size than the real thing .
While they may not be gravid literature , the Mars books are still nifty fun . We ’ll be taking a look at all 11 volumes in the come week , in a series of posts , so you’re able to see the multiplex is n’t the only way to have a nifty time on Mars .
John Marr is the editor and janitor of the zine slaying Can Be Fun . He blogs at theMurder Can Be Fun Library .
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