Gulliver of Mars

Read this and Princess of Mars back to back. Both are awful in their own way but were Princess is boring, pointless and has a main character with no personality. Gulliver of Mars is interesting and exciting with a lead that at least has a pulse. Of course Gullivers main character trait is that he's a complete tool but at least thats something. Its amazing how angry and frustrated this book made me due to its flaws. There really seemed to be a decent story trying to get out but the author never seemed to go where i wanted him to, plus this really feels like a 1st draft, there are so many things mentioned which then make no sense later. The best character disappears without explanation halfway through and it features one of the worst Deus show more Ex Machina's i've ever seen and thats after a set of them which i forgave and put it down to luck or destiny.
Still despite ALL its flaws it at least provoked a reaction from me, even if that reaction was that i wanted to track down the author and make him rewrite it properly this time. show less

This has been credited as inspiring Edgar Rice Burroughs's Princess of Mars. They are both stories of a military man magically sent to Mars, and they both rescue Princess there. Otherwise they are very different stories. I liked this better than the Princess of Mars. The Martians Gulliver meets are reminiscent of the Eloi from the Time Machine. Beautiful, happy, lazy and carefree.

Lieutenant Gulliver Jones ends up on a quest to rescue the Princess of an infantile Martian civilisation of hedonistic layabouts that he is clearly only half bothered about rescuing out of some misguided sense of duty.
After leisurely sight-seeing the Martian landscape and also meeting and greeting some friendly locals along the way, he bumbles along and somehow, more out of chance, succeeds in his mission - but only by the most contrived of plot lines imaginable, which allows him to continuously run away from any real conflict whilst maintaining his dignity.

This book is memorable only in the way that recovering from an illness is; and leaves you with no more desire to revisit it again.
Don't be fooled by the higher than expected marks show more which I think I must have given in respect of the elderly (The story was penned 105 years ago).
The story does have a couple of nice scenes: the frozen glacier of the dead sticks in my mind - but not enough to save it.

Worth the read? - NO! show less

No rating, as I won't be finishing the book. I made it to about the 20% mark.

I just wasn't enjoying it, and it was actually a little boring. The English was too "upper crust" and out-of-date for me to read easily. I was checking the definitions of too many words (often not found in the Kindle dictionary).

A precursor of Burroughs' Mars novels. Quite entertaining in a Victorian sort of way.

Had to stop reading this as it was annoying me. I know it was written in 1905 but really, mars inhabited by english speaking people! Also the writing was getting on my nerves!