tags, classics, Martians, sci-fi
A Princess of Mars is the first of eleven thrilling novels that comprise Edgar Rice Burroughs' most exciting saga, known as The Martian Series. It's the beginning of an incredible odyssey in which John Carter, a gentleman from Virginia and a Civil War veteran, unexpectedly finds himself on the red planet, scene of continuing combat among rival tribes. Captured by a band of six-limbed, green-skinned savage giants called Tharks, Carter soon is accorded all the honor of a chieftain after it's discovered that his muscles, accustomed to Earth's greater gravity, now give him a decided advantage in strength. And when his captors take as prisoner Dejah Thoris, the lovely human-looking princess of the city of Helium, Carter must call upon every ounce of strength, courage, and ingenuity to rescue her before she becomes the slave of the depraved Thark leader, Tal Hajus!
Excerpt:
Her oval face was beautiful in the extreme, her every feature finely chiseled and exquisite, her eyes large and lustrous, and her head surmounted by a mass of coal black, waving hair, caught loosely into a strange yet becoming coiffure. Similar in face and figure to women of Earth, she was nevertheless a true Martian--and prisoner of the fierce green giants who held me captive, as well!
Most new fiction books are mediocre IMHO, usually peppered with obscenity and annoyingly "politically correct". I am now reading classic sci-fi and mystery novels that I never read before. The ebooks are free to borrow either from the county library or Amazon Prime.
I've never read any Edgar Rice Burroughs books and I'm surprised I like this first book in the Mars series. It is well written, interesting, and hard to put down. I think Star Wars copied the jedi term from this series - jed, jedakk, etc. to mean leader, emperor, and so on. I suspect the princess, Dejah Thoris, is the model for Princess Leia when she became the prisoner of Jabba the Hutt. Dejah is scantilly clad because they don't wear clothes in Mars apparently. Princess Dejah was captured by enemies twice and had to be rescued by John Carter. She's no damsel in distress, though. She's tough and highly intelligent but to keep the peace in Mars she is willing to marry the ugly enemies of her family.
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