We are going back to classic science fiction with this next book, A Princess of Mars which is book one in the Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. John Carter has retired from fighting after the Civil War and is now working on mining when he is chased by local natives. He ends up cornered in a cave where he seems to have died as he finds himself looking down at his own body. Next thing he knows he is waking up in an extremely unfamiliar location surrounded by some unknown species. Taken captive he pays attention and realizes that they are sentient and have both a language and a culture. Learning their language he finds out that he is now on Mars, though they call it Barsoom, and that there are two different sentient species. The green martians are the ones currently holding him hostage while the red martians look remarkably similar to typical humans like John Carter. When the green martians capture a local red Martian princess named Dejah Thoris he decides to escape, and take her with him in the process. However, that is much easier said than done and their attempts to escape quickly become rather perilous.
This happens to be part of a series that I have been wanting to read for a while and I have recently a complete copy of. It starts with a rather interesting premise, that Mars is inhabited and that humans from Earth are able to travel back and forth. I don’t know about you but that right there does grab my attention. However, it also doesn’t provide a lot of detail on the traveling process. In fact it actually seems to imply that John Carter has no memory of actually traveling between planets. While I would really like to know more about that process it seems incidental to the overall story which is focused on Carter’s interactions with the martians. It is here that the story really seems to shine as it provides a lot of detail and insight into the Martian culture. Admittedly there is more information provided about the green martians then the red martians but there is least some information provided about both. There isn’t a lot of history provided but there is significant detail provided about the current state of things. It makes it really feel like a fairly well thought out world which makes the overall story more realistic. There were only a few things that I didn’t necessarily like though they did not impact my enjoyment of the story. A big one for me was how overpowered the character of John Carter was. It seemed like he had way too easy of a time overcoming any obstacle and nothing really stopped or slowed him down for very long. I felt like there was little genuine struggle because of that. However, the story itself was pretty good and I did enjoy it so I am happy giving it four out of five stars.
This is a great example of classic early science fiction so if you happen to enjoy that I would highly recommend trying this one. It may also hold some appeal to readers who enjoy classic literature in general. However, if you don’t enjoy either of those then I doubt it will appeal to you. This series is technically aimed at adults but was also written at a time when there really wasn’t separate literature for children. There is considerable violence but the descriptions are not overly graphic and there wasn’t any mature or adult content so it could easily be read by readers as young as thirteen. They may not enjoy it as much as older readers probably will. I hope you will consider trying it if this sounds interesting. Remember to share your thoughts in the comments if you do.