Swords, Swashbuckling and Scantily-Clad Martian Chicks...It
Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This...
As American troops were fumbling around the Mexican border
and getting ready to ship off and fight the Hun in America's first European
War, A certain science fiction book was being published, one that would truly
crate the genre and change the views of a generation of Americans.
Barsoom...the red planet, and one Confederate make for a
wild story of aliens, flying ships and what the Apache saw as Gods from the
Stars. Written by Edgar Rice Burroughs,
the book was originally serialized in Munson's All-Story magazine in 1912. Burroughs' most famous story, Tarzan
Of The Apes had nothing to do with this story and everything to do with
it. If Tarzan had not achieved the success
it did, John Carter, Mars and the princess would have remained an obscure
literary novelty. A Princess Of Mars (or, Under
The Moons Of Mars as it was originally called in All-Story) was only
published as a book because of Tarzan's success.
Burroughs created the World of Barsoom and all of its far
thinking technology, creatures and characterizations simply because he was
disgusted with the low-quality work other authors were passing off. It became one the most
popular novels of its era and etched its author's name in the Pantheon of
science fiction and literary fame. Aside
from Burroughs success, his eleven books based around a fantastical Martian world
that no author had before had created, influenced Science Fiction writers and
writing for decades to come. The author
was the gold-standard and a large portion of Sci-Fi as we know it traces back
to Barsoom.
Who needs laser pistols when you can have an ex-Confederate
cavalryman swing his sword on a planet far, far away...and if you think sword
fighting and Science Fiction are strange bedfellows...what do you think a Jedi
light-sabre is?
You can read a first edition of Burroughs' landmark novel here:
