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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great example of the series.,
By frumiousb "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 500 REVIEWER)
This review is from: Swords of Mars: (#8) (Martian Tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs) (Mass Market Paperback)
Swords of Mars is one of my favorites of the Martian Tales. Although late in the series, it has all the elements that made Burroughs a classic in the field:
1. It is a John Carter novel. He is still the best character in the series. 2. It does not suffer from the same artifacts of serialization that you see in some of the other Mars books. The chapters flow together very nicely without too many inconsistencies or abrupt breaks. 3. It manages to deal with the political aspect of life on Barsoom while staying smaller. I enjoy the more intimate focus on John Carter more than I do the more epic sweeps of some of the other books. Recommended for fans of the series. People new to the series should really at least read A Princess of Mars series. However, if you have read that one and are skipping around, this would be a good one to skip around to.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
AS FUN AS THEY GET,
By s.ferber (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Swords of Mars: (#8) (Martian Tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs) (Mass Market Paperback)
"Swords of Mars" is the 8th of 11 John Carter of Mars books that Edgar Rice Burroughs gave to the world. It first appeared serially in the "Blue Book Magazine" in six parts, from November 1934 to April 1935, and is one of the best in the Carter series. For the first time since book 3, "The Warlord of Mars," Carter himself takes center stage, rather than making a brief cameo appearance, and his return as the lead character is perhaps the best single element of this book. This time around, Carter goes to the Barsoomian city of Zodanga to put an end to the assassins guild that is thriving there. In the first half of the novel, Carter goes undercover to infiltrate this Murder Inc.-type of organization, and this segment is extremely tense and exciting. In the second half, Carter's wife, Dejah Thoris, in what to any reader of this series must come as an instance of Dejah vu (sorry...couldn't resist!), is abducted again, and Carter follows her kidnappers to one of the Martian moons, using one of that planet's first spaceships. His subsequent adventures on the moon propel the reader into the realm of pure fantasy. Both parts of the novel are as fun as can be, although very much different in tone. This novel features very few of the inconsistencies--both internal and with other books in the series--that mar every previous Carter novel. There are some, however. For example, the great Scarlet Tower of Greater Helium is referred to in this book, whereas in previous novels, this tower was referred to as being in Lesser Helium, and besides which, was destroyed in book 5, "The Chessmen of Mars." More of a problem in the current volume are the book's implausibilities. For example, Carter & company jump out of their spaceship on that Martian moon, without bothering to check on the moon's breathable air. Fortunately, the air is just fine, thank you, although Burroughs makes nothing of this...surprising, given the pains he had taken in previous books to explain the breathable air on Mars itself. The invisibility-inducing hypnosis that the moon people use against Carter is a bit much to buy, but that's alright; it's all in good fun. But Burroughs' theory that a person who lands on this 7-mile-wide moon would be the same relative size that he would be on Mars--in other words, that he would shrink in proportion to the planetoid's mass; his so-called "compensatory adjustment of masses"--is, as Carter puts it, "preposterous," though, as it turns out, such is the case in the book. Like I said, it's all in good fun. And this book IS as fun as they get. Oh...one other nice touch. As pointed out in the ERB List, a fine Burroughs Website, if you take the first letter of each first word of each chapter in this book, you will find a secret message that Burroughs incorporated for his new bride. A nice touch.
1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome! Exciting!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Swords of Mars: (#8) (Martian Tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs) (Mass Market Paperback)
It's a great book like the rest of the series! Buy it
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