Customer Reviews

Edgar Rice Burroughs Science Fiction Classics: Pellucidar, Thuvia Maid of Mars, Tanar of Pellucidar, the Chessman of Mars, the Master Mind of Mars

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

These stories are as much a part of me as my beard. I first read them as a boy nearly fifty years ago, and they're as enjoyable today as then.

When Amazon says a book is 'value-priced,' they ain't kidding. Not only do you get five for the price of one, but you also get to see the original illustrations from a time long past. That alone was worth the price of this book.

Of course, younger readers won't get the nostalgia rush I did, but SF devotees should all read Burroughs; he was one of the giants who founded the genre.

one of burroughs' best

In the 1980s Castle Books put together a simple anthology of Edgar Rice Burroughs tales that are set from the deepest core of Earth to the plains and deserts of Mars. I think the purpose of the book is to give an overview of the breadth of Burroughs because these are certainly not his best tales.

Rather than A Princess of Mars which I think is his best work in the Mars series, we are shown Thuvia, Maid of Mars and The Chessmen of Mars. These two tales are pretty good but unless you've been reading the earlier books I don't think they really stand that well on their own.

John Carter returns to Earth and gives his grandson some stories that he writes down for the reader. The people of Lothar, the evil Chessmen (damn that Bobby Fisher, joking), and other harrowing tales.

Typical pulp formula: the hero falls in love with the unavailable woman who doesn't even know he's alive. The girl is kidnapped, the boy rescues her, they go through various dangerous experiences, the end. But Burroughs' writing is such a page-turner, they're awesome (to use an overused word).

The Pellucidar series is interesting as well. Rich with detail of intelligent lizards, ancestors of pirates and cavemen, and David Innes' attempts to civilize them. The stories reflect Burroughs' apparent anti-war sentiment in my mind.

The occasional drawings are harsh pencil sketches which depict certain scenes. They're not bad artistic renditions, but the artist is uncredited, unless you can read the scrawl at the bottom of the sketch. He/she is no Frank Frazetta, however.

The book itself has a small font and is formed in the pulp fiction style of two columns each page. This is just like the old Forties' pulp magazines popular during Burroughs' time.

So if you want a taste of what Burroughs' scifi fiction was like or want something different than the jungle fiction of Tarzan of the Apes, then pick up this book. There are better anthologies however.

Check these out!

Pellucidar and Other Works by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Halcyon Classics)
The John Carter of Mars Collection

can't believe I got the book for such reasonable price and prompt service with delivery

Book was not exactly what I was expecting, but was quickly received at an acceptable cost.

Writers I admire (C.S. Lewis and Robert Sheckley, and I know that there are others as well) have kind words to say about Edgar Rice Burroughs, and claim to derive inspiration from him. I mention this because I have to. It means that perhaps there is something in the man's writing that I'm missing. I must be honest and allow this possibility. The more LIKELY possibility, though, is that writers make poor critics, and will allow their superior imaginations to do the work that Burroughs didn't.

For one thing that has been said about Burroughs is that, while he could scarcely write, and was woefully ignorant, and inconsistent, he at least had a vivid imagination. Like hell he did. His imagination was the most pallid thing about him. This is clearer in the Mars books than anywhere else. Everywhere there are beasts exactly like terrestrial ones but bigger, fiercer, with more limbs and sharper teeth and brighter colours ... every forgettable sort of detail-enhancement that might substitute for true invention.

Burroughs takes the standard view of an ancient, decadent, dying Mars and adds nothing, except damsels and stilted dialogue. These are the books of someone who spends valuable time working out new units of measurement to replace feet and inches, whiles away afternoons dreaming up pointless bigger-is-better variations on terrestrial chess, but makes up the details about character and social organisation as he goes along. Admittedly he has plenty of time, since the story is invariably a fight-after-fight-after-fight affair, the author doing little to disguise the fact that he's being paid by the word. (Never let anyone convince you otherwise: his prose is ghastly.)

If you sense that Burroughs must have been reaching towards something worthwhile, you're right. If you want to know what it was, exactly, read someone by Jack Vance. Any reason there might be to read Burroughs is a reason to read Vance. But not vice versa.