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A Princess of Mars: Mars, Book 1
A Princess of Mars: Mars, Book 1
A Princess of Mars: Mars, Book 1
Audiobook6 hours

A Princess of Mars: Mars, Book 1

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this audiobook

"Only moments before, I lay in the Arizona cave paralyzed by a strange gas. Now, here I stand on the Arizona bluff, my bodyless spirit gazing at the stars. My attention is drawn to a large red star, Mars, the god of war, and for me, the fighting man, it has always held the power of irresistible enchantment. I closed my eyes, stretched out my arms and was drawn through the trackless immensity of space. There was an instant of extreme cold and utter darkness.  I opened my eyes upon a strange and weird landscape. I knew that I was on Mars.”
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 15, 2004
ISBN9781596072756
A Princess of Mars: Mars, Book 1
Author

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) is best known for his creation of Tarzan of the jungle and of the heroic John Carter who adventured on Mars, although he is also the author of many other novels in a range of genres.

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Reviews for A Princess of Mars

Rating: 3.580117484731544 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

1,192 ratings86 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Ignoring the fact that we've disproved some of the myths of "Mars," actually quite a good read.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book is a science fiction adventure. It is filled with combat and a romance. The story line is interesting but the plausibility of the actions of the characters is poor. This book is appropriate for a young reader as it is without any significant meaning and is merely entertaining.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the first of Burroughs Mars series, not as well known as Tarzan but fairly good. It is frankly pulp fiction and makes no pretense of serious science: John Carter, a Confederate veteran (but apparently immortal --he has no memory of his birth), while escaping from Indians in the southwest, wishes to be on Mars and is there, a Mars based loosely on Percival Lowell, with drylands stretching between canals on which are ancient cities. The first is captured by the barbaric nomad green martians, giants with four arms, but later wins the love of a red Martian princess, fully human aside from laying eggs. While they are waiting for their first child to hatch, the machine that maintains the Martian atmosphere breaks down; Carter saves it but loses consciousness ad wakes on earth, where he tells his story to a young Burroughs and then vanishes, presumably back to Mars (where the second volume picks up.)
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    John Carter dies on earth and awakens on Mars.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A fast-paced book, narrated in a leisurely fashion. Not as imaginative as "Tarzan of the Apes", written a year later. Some things were known about Mars at the time this book was written and these find there way into the narrative, things like the ice caps and Mars's rapidly moving inner moon, Phobos. Enjoyable, and far better than the movie. However, as the love story unfolds and the fighting goes on John Carter becomes completely unscrupulous and doesn't even seem to notice. John Carter explicitly prizes the more tender emotions, and his more gentle actions always have good consequences, a positive, but unrealistic message.Like Rafael Sabatini, Burroughs derived a lot of his leisurely style from Sir Walter Scott. Unlike Scott he eschewed all humour and dialect.That John Carter can interbreed with a member of a species that lays eggs is hilarious.The narration was in a quite pleasant southern accent, appropriate since John Carter is a former Confederate officer.The cover images vary wildly. Some are pretty awful "Conan the Barbarian" style beefcake, but the "Vox Libris" cover is excellent.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    True Pulp Fiction! An really hero is transported to Mars, expedience many adventures, wins the heart ofa Martian Princess and generally saves the day! Good fun.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Wonderful pulpy goodness.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fun space Opera. Burroughs knows how to keep a story moving. He is one of the early masters of the Space Opera. Great imagination.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    For years I intended to read this novel. I heard over and over again how it's classic scifi, influencer of many books, movies, tv shows we love today. Published in 1917, it's the great-granddaddy of them all.

    Then Disney happened. 'John Carter of Mars' is Disney's film version of 'A Princess of Mars'. Dunno why they didn't call the movie by the book's title, unless it goes along with the company trying to get away from anything 'Princess' (thus titles like 'Tangled,' 'Brave,' and 'Frozen'). At first, I was happy a movie was being made of the book. I thought, maybe, it'd give me a taste of the novel, so I'd know what to expect. But then, I'll be honest, I didn't go see the movie because the reviews were so bad. Everyone seemed to be so mad at Disney for created something so stupid. I kept wondering if Disney didn't do the book justice or the reviewers hated the book, too. No one ever said. No one mentioned that it was classic scifi novel in the public domain...and although Disney lost money, it wasn't like it was an original Disney work they poured their hearts out over.

    Curious how bad the movie could be, the husband and I watched it. It's NOT that bad. I've endured much worse blockbusters. The pacing in the beginning is slow, but ultimately the film improves later on. Dunno if the pacing/bad editing in the beginning turned people away, or if they didn't like the mix of scifi and fantasy. In today's world, scifi can be very scientific. If the theories in the story aren't kinda maybe possible, people will pick them apart (Scientists on NPR covering Jurassic World for example). We want our scifi to be almost real.

    John Carter is a Civil War veteran who finds a cave that takes him to Mars. It's not extremely scientific, it's more magical. He suddenly finds that he also has super human powers on Mars. He befriends a local tribe of green people, gets caught up in politics (that are about as interesting as the Star Wars prequels), and falls in love with a captive humanoid princess. Like any super hero, he saves the day and gets the girl. The book ends on a sad note, but sets the story up for its many sequels.

    The story is told by John Carter and really shows its age. Indians are out to get you old-West-style. John Carter is a Confederate gentleman who never forgets his genteel manners no matter what's happening to him. Everyone is either super good or bad. The princess is objectified and needs saving. John Carter suddenly notices that she's humanoid and is instantly in love with her. He turns kinda "Me Tarzan, You Jane" on her. So, it doesn't stand the test of time. When reading (or watching the movie) you've really got to consider the time frame it was published. It's very imaginative for its time. The book rightly belongs on the shelf with other old timers like Tarzan (also by Burroughs) and The Prisoner of Zenda, Still not a bad read if you're a scifi nerd, into classics, or both.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Really??? head-->desk
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The first three books of the series are in fact a complete trilogy. One that has endured for a century, and rightfully so, but if action and adventure novels are common enough, what is the lasting appeal of these books? Simple: Honour & loyalty. Essential qualities of character. I am finding in the home brood that the internet generation are missing, and lacking, these seeds. Books like these, themes like these, have shaped me. Read them. Put them into your kid's hands and no, they won't die if the iPod goes away for hours each day, forcing them to grow roots into self evaluation, meaning, and notions about character, loyalty, service.
    Okay and it's fun. Hot chicks, swords, wild landscapes and wilder humanoids. You gotta love it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Imaginative to say the least, it's easy to see how this tale became the precursor for the space operas and space Westerns we all know and love today.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Each of Burrough's Barsoom books have weak and strong points. Although I may have enjoyed some more than others, aspects of them dragged them down. Some have worse editorial work. Some may be better written technically, but are formulaic. They are all straightforward adventure books. The superman hero John Carter uses brain and brawn to fight and win a series of increasingly difficult battles in order to achieve his goal. In this book (as in the first 3) his goal is to save his beloved, the beautiful Princess Deja Thoris. This series is the basis behind much of modern storytelling - the influences on Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon are clear, as well as the early comic book superheroes and most modern summer blockbusters. James Bond, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and other films certainly follow this style.The story is relentlessly forward moving, like the rail shooter video games or a roller coaster. There is only one way the story can go and the reader is propelled along it. Each book introduces new exotic locales, new exotically beautiful damsels, new horrific beasts. His characters are noble or villains.On the science fiction front, Burroughs tries to maintain a rationale behind Carter's superman abilities as well as the world environment he is thrust into. Whether the rationale holds to deeper scrutiny is irrelevant, it was a good enough reason for contemporary audiences and provided a framework to build a story on. There are fantastic elements, such as telepathic control of animals and the mysterious way John Carter is transported between worlds. There are flying battleships and mounted warriors, projectile weapons that can shoot accurately for miles and swords, everyone is hatched out an egg but can still cross-breed with an Earthling, roving hordes living in the many dead cities and technological cities with never-dying light bulbs. Each book in the series has its strengths and weaknesses. Being the first book, the devices do not get old, but his world and style isn't quite developed. However, the setting is new and novel enough to be exciting. The first 3 are from the first person of John Carter as he tries to save Deja Thoris from increasingly powerful enemies and situations. The next few books have the same exact style with new locales and people. The first book introduces Green and Red men. The next introduces the White and the Black, the third, the Yellow man. He runs out of colors and then proceeds to telepaths who can will thoughts into material manifestations (or do they...?). Then spider heads and headless bodies in a rough symbiosis and cities filled with beautiful dead people by skilled taxidermists. This series is possibly the first example where the first book is introductory and stands on its own, but the second ends in a cliffhanger and the third resolves it so that hero gets his girl and is king of everything. Think Star Wars 4/5/6, the Matrix, Pirates/ Caribbean series. In the fourth book on, Burroughs abandons his first person viewpoint and the story moves beyond John Carter. Characters and settings introduced earlier get fleshed out and new ones introduced. I think these stories are a bit more complex than the first three and enjoyed them more. Unfortunately, my copies of Thuvia, Maid of Mars and the Chessmen of Mars had spelling errors, typos, swapped names, disjointed sentences where words and phrases were completely gone,... I should check other editions to see if this is common or just my book. The first three were editorially clean. The editions for this series that I chose in LibraryThing DO NOT reflect the actual editions I have. I broke the set out from the single volume compendium I have to more accurately track my reading. Mine is the single volume compendium John Carter of Mars from Fall River Press 978-1-4351-4991-5
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Edgar Rice Burroughs' 1912 novel "A Princess of Mars" is a brilliant, wonderful piece of literature. That it is still just as good one hundred years after it was written is testament to just how good a writer Burroughs was. What would it be like to be transported to another planet without a spaceship, guns, or even clothes? What would it be like to be plopped all alone in an alien culture with nothing to rely on but one's wits, strength, agility, courage, and ethics? What would that world be like if it was dried up planet with mere canals to provide water and its mighty seas were dried up? What if that planet had an ancient culture that had vanished with the drying up of the seas and all that remained were dead seas and hordes of savages roaming the dead sea bottoms? What if these savages did not even give birth as we do but laid eggs and placed them in incubators for five long years? These are the questions Burrough must have asked before writing this terrific novel that spawned generation after generation of science fiction novels.

    At root, if you put aside the alien planet, it is a story of a mighty swordsman and a beautiful princess and the swordsman, blundering though he may be in the ways of women, has sworn to save this damsel in distress though a million swords be arrayed against him. It is a story of a gallant Virginia gentleman and his love story to rescue over and over again his princess, Dejah Thoris. It is at times chivalry like the knights of the round table or the three musketeers.

    Burroughs, back in 1912, gave his swordfighting warriors of Mars a few technological details, such as fliers that hovered above the seabeds and ray guns, but they preferred to fight with swords and fists and wear little but harnesses to hold their weapons. The people of Burroughs' Mars had an atmospheric plant that kept the thin atmosphere breathable and navigation systems on their fliers, but they were, even the red martians, in numerous little city-states forever at war with each other.
    Burroughs wrote this story of chivalry and derring-do for a readership that craved adventure, but he gave them far more than just adventure. He created mighty kingdoms and history and a whole culture that is just stupendous. No one before or since has created a sword and planet story quite as good as Burroughs did and this the first of the eleven Martian books was the best of all.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Great old fashioned pulp. Good reader. I enjoyed it very much
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Nothing like the movie. The movie was so wrong on so many levels. It made me angry.

    The book was alright on its own, and Disney just destroyed it. It makes me angry just thinking about it.

    I like knowing all the extra stuff they always cut out of movies. It was nice to know what actually happened.

    Although him just wishing to go to Mars was a little stupid. That part in the movie was a better. But only that part.

    It was hard for me to get through it. It took a little while. But I think that is the writing style. The novel was written a long time ago.

    I do want to read the rest of the series. I think there is potential and I want to know what is going to happen.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A unique beginning to a very unique series. The impact ERB had on science fiction is unmistakable. His ideas have stood the test of time, and his characters are memorable.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Too romantic for my tastes (beyond the fact that every cover I've seen of this is misogynistic in the extreme), but well-written on the whole.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Rating: 3.5/5 stars.

    This is a classic pulp science-fiction/fantasy novel, with all that that title entails. So, there's colonialism (albeit turned kind of on its head), sexism (with an appropriately beautiful damsel in distress), and a hero who can practically accomplish anything. Very little goes wrong for our illustrious hero (aside from the events that land him on Mars to begin with and a few others).

    The writing isn't spectacular, but it's serviceable. While ostensibly a science-fiction story due to its setting, this story has more to do with its contemporaries of Kull/Conan than the science-fiction of say E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series.

    I'd probably rate this higher if it weren't for the last chapter which lessened my enjoyment of the rest of the book for me. It seems to be there just to set up a sequel while pulling the rug out from the rest of the book. I
    don't mind the set up for a sequel, it's the undermining of the book I disliked.

    The narration by Scott Brick isn't outstanding, but it's not bad. He's certainly done a better job for other books.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Definitely pulp fiction, but more fun than I expected.

    I wonder what it would have been like reading this before we had sent spacecraft to Mars, and before we had nice pictures of Martian surfaces.

    I can't help but wonder if Burroughs meant the reader to believe Earthlings are descended from the red men of Mars--the planet is collapsing, the ancient humanoid residents of the huge now-dead cities created the atmosphere maker.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I gave it the old college try, I really did. It was just so godawful..
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I only hope the film can live up to it. Classic fantasy fiction. Never a dull moment. Loved it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A little over the top, but it's fun, and it's the original of its kind.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A fun and refreshing blast from the past, there were still some things about it that were far too fantastical even for me. It's hard to explain. Honestly, I'm not sure I'll write a full review of this one, since so many people have already expressed their views. :)
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Not very good. I'll give the author a break because it was his first novel, but it lacked the quirky charm of the Tarzan books that I've read. I'll probably read the next in the series and see if I like it any better.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Pulpy and terribly dated.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Who did I see describing this as "old school, pulpy goodness"? I think that works pretty well. I'm not sure how I'm going to relate this to Herland in my SF/F essay, but I'm thinking on it... Obviously there's a ton of colonial, North American stuff going on here, wherein a white man from Earth comes and suspiciously saves a red-skinned princess and reforms the Martian societies to good American values...But it's still sort of fun, and not a chore to read: the prose is straight-forward and not too crammed with infodumps, and I did get sort of fond of one or two characters, mostly Sola (perhaps because she was "civilised" and relateable before the Great White Man's intervention). No real surprises here, and I don't think I'll be in a hurry to read other Barsoom books, but it's enjoyable in its way.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Pulp fiction at its apex. A western in spaceship clothing.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A completely new World. John Carter finds himself on Mars, locally called Barsoom, and meets many dangers and adventures there.
    It reads like the Tarzan books. If you like them, you'll like this one too. It is no high literature, but a good read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It was a lot of fun. It was very interesting to read a book where the hero is NOT flawed in some sort of way. Carter was this crazy super man who was devoted, loved and loved by the 'perfect woman,' strong, brave; everything one could cram into a character. It was completely unbelievable and way over the top, but was fun because this is what every modern hero is a reaction to whether they know it or not. But it is was very fun and ran exactly like the cover of the book looked.