A Princess of Mars

Damaged Goods

I was eager to reread this classic novel, especially in light of the upcoming movie adaptation. However, the amount of junk and missing words (presumably OCR errors, but perhaps a reader error) in the copy I downloaded to my Color Nook from the B&N store made it difficult to read and enjoy. I do not recommend the ebook edition.

15 out of 15 people found this review helpful.

Poor quality of an eboook

I started to read the Princess of Mars but quit after the first 7 pages. The quality of transcription was exceedingly poor for this book. words or groups of words missing. I expected higher quality from Barnes and Noble. Good thing it was free.

12 out of 14 people found this review helpful.

Find a different free ediion

Poor quality scan and not proofreading. Chunks of text are missing.

I highly recommend the book, but not this edition.

Zero stars for this edition.

10 out of 11 people found this review helpful.

my favorite novel of all time

In Burroughs' Princess of Mars, he describes a lushly realized Mars (Barsoom to its inhabitants) where former Captain John Carter of Virginia can conquer alien civilizations and win the hand of the Martian Princess, Dejah Thoris, the universe's most beautiful woman. (Contrary to many portrayals in art, yes, Burroughs does describe what she's wearing, and, no, it's nothing more than jewelry.) This was followed by two equally fine novels, The Gods of Mars and The Warlord of Mars, as well as a brilliant series of Barsoomian adventures to follow. Is it any wonder a book with such a dreamlike quality can become arguably the world's most widely read novel?

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

Buy the book instead of ebook

This is an awful copy. Missing words and sentences. This ebook version is not a book - its a puzzle!

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Not Working for me

I downloaded all four of these, but they will not open and have actually screwed up my nook. I can't open any other books after I have tried to open these books.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Is this good or not?

Most people are saying to not get this book because if missing words. But some people are recamending to get it. So who should I listen to? When you read the blurb (the little info it gives about the book) it tells you the whole story, or main plots.

1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

Very Imag­i­na­tive

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Bur­roughs is a science-fiction book pub­lished in 1912. This is Bur­roughs first pub­lished book and stars John Carter.

John Carter, a Civil War Con­fed­er­ate vet­eran, finds him­self pro­jected to Mars. Dis­cov­er­ing he has enor­mous strength and agility due to the lower force of grav­ity, Carter rises to a high posi­tion in the Tharks tribe. The Tharks are nomadic green Mar­tians who have six limbs.

Soon the Tharks cap­ture the Princess of Helium, Dejah Tho­ris who is a mem­ber of the red Mar­tians which are a humanoid race. The red Mar­tians live in city-states and con­trol Mars’ canals and agri­cul­ture. John Carter saves Dejah Tho­ris but becomes embroiled in Mar­t­ian politics.

Even­tu­ally, Carter leads a horde of Tharks against Zodanga, a city-state of the red Mar­tians and his­toric enemy of Helium. This act of valor wins John Carter the hand of Dejah Tho­ris and he becomes Prince of Helium. The happy cou­ple lives joy­fully for nine years when a bread­own of the Atmos­phere Plant threat­ens to destroy all life on Mars. Carter uses a tele­pathic code to enter the fac­tory with engi­neers who can restore it to work­ing con­di­tions. How­ever, Carter soon becomes asphyx­i­ated and awaken back on Earth wan­der­ing what hap­pened to his beloved and his people.

A Princess of Mars is Edgar Rice Bur­roughs’ first novel, while the novel is good, it feels like a first novel and I’m glad Bur­roughs con­tin­ued to write and get bet­ter each time.

What impressed me about the book was how imag­i­na­tive it was com­pared to other science-fiction sto­ries of the time. While Jules Verne con­cen­trated on the sci­ence aspect of his sto­ries and H.G. Wells’ sci­ence fic­tion sto­ries were more about social com­men­tary, Bur­roughs con­cen­trated more on the story aspect, but instead of tak­ing place on earth, he set it on Mars.

The book is an escapable fan­tasy, and enjoy­able tale which, if set on earth, could have been eas­ily been clas­si­fied as pulp fic­tion. A Princess of Mars is very imag­i­na­tive with lots of action, alien cul­ture, romance and chivalry.

While I cer­tainly enjoyed many of Bur­roughs’ later nov­els (Tarzan of the Apes comes imme­di­ately to mind), this book is on a dif­fer­ent level entirely. While I found Tarzan of the Apes to be com­plex, involv­ing and even philo­soph­i­cal, A Princess of Mars is a silly joyride, full of action with won­der­ful narrative.

I know what you’re say­ing to your­self: “he read this just to cap­i­tal­ize on the release of the new John Carter movie”.
And I’d say: “good obser­va­tion, Cap­tain Obvious”.

I did read this book because the movie is com­ing out, and I hope you do too. I’m glad Dis­ney decided to reju­ve­nate this old series, bring Bur­roughs back into the spot­light and have a new gen­er­a­tion of read­ers enjoy his tales.

1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

Classic Science Fiction from the early 1900s

John Carter is a Confederate officer in the now post-Civil War world out prospecting for gold when a series of events takes him from the Arizona desert to Mars, which as called by its locals is "Barsoom". Instantly he is forced to fight for his life and adapt to a whole new culture of war and violence with the green martians. While he is with the green martians, they capture a beautiful red martian called Dejah Thoris, who so happens to be the princess of Helium, a great kingdom on Mars. Instantly John Carter falls in love with her, and through more events she is taken from him and he is forced to find her and rescue her.

This story is one of the first of its kind ever written. Not necessarily the best writing I have ever read, but nonetheless a precedent in science fiction and fantasy writing. A must read for those who would claim to be versed on classic literature or classic science fiction. Considered to be one of the first pulp sci-fi novels ever written, it was first released as a magazine serial in the earl 1900s.

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

A pleasant surprise

I am not usually a fan of early sci-fi because early sci-fi 1) can be corny 2) can have too much drama, as if it were a play translated to book form.
This novel does have both of those characteristics but not in large proportion. The creativity of the book (especially considering when it was written) is refreshing, entertaining, and engaging enough to make a reader want to read more.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Good hokey fun!

This "classic" pulp sci-fi from 1917 is good hokey fun. It tells the story of Civil War veteran John Carter who is transported to Mars, a planet whose natives are engaged in constant warfare. John Carter's soldier training and muscles adapted to earth's stronger gravity make him a nearly superhuman warrior on Mars as he fights his way through dangers at every turn. There are plenty of convenient coincidences, some cheesy (but chaste) romance, and lots of over-the-top action... just take it all in stride as part of the genre and this is a fun mindless sci-fi read.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

would read it over & over

Its ez to see how all the grate si fi directers get there inspiration from the mars books. The problems in the ereader makes littel dif. To me . I enjoy it very much and could not pput it down.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

book lover

Loved the book! Very good. Would recomend to any one.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

One of the best books ever

A friend gave me his father's copy to borrow while I was laid up after surgery. I was very skeptical about it because of it's name. After the first page, I was hooked. It is the kind of book you read, and then go to great lengths to find more of the series. I have just found a copy in hardbound after 3 years of looking. 3 years. The book is just that good. Phenominal choice. A must read.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Great Book

If you want a good science fiction series, read the Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, of which A Princess of Mars is the first. Burroughs uses his great imagination and spins a story about John Carter going to mars. I love the series and have read them over and over, trust me science fiction lovers, this book is for you.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Classic, vintage science fiction

Few novels in the sci-fi arena have instilled the excitement and attention to detail that Burroughs has. I first read the Martian series in High school back in the 60's. I have read each novel (all 10 & 1/2)several times each and still find them as exciting as the first time. This is 'Must Read' material; which you will find yourself using to compare against all others. A brilliant storyteller!

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Well worth the read!

While somewhat difficult to read as the odd OCR scan jibberish mixes with the odd character and place names, this is a fascinating tale relevant to any era and well worth reading. Any reader is sure to look up at Mars with wonderment of possibility after this adventure!

Love it

Was an amazing book!!! Read next 3 out of 25 and it was pretty good but could not finish all still realy good

Is horrible

Worstt book ever

Great Story

The first of ERB's Martian stories.......it sets the stage for all of the others. The only reason I bought this was I didn't want to go digging around in the garage for my 47 year old paperback.