I devoured Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan novels as a teenager, but I never read any of his other books. Now, at a very late age, I thought I'd at least give one of them a try. Burroughs's writing in this tale of an earthling transported somehow to Mars is both as good and as bad as in his Tarzan novels. While he clearly was getting paid by the word, Burroughs is a master at compelling the reader along, no matter how far-fetched or even ridiculous the events depicted seem. He is simply a genius at this sort of writing. It's scarcely literature as academics would evaluate it. Yet it propels the willing reader past all the obstacles of coincidence, unexplained impossible events (like hero John Carter going to sleep in a cave on Earth and waking up on Mars), and purple romantic prose into a vivid world of excitement. I didn't remotely enjoy A PRINCESS OF MARS as much as I enjoyed (and still enjoy) Burroughs's Tarzan books, and I'm not convinced I'll read any of the sequels (even to find out, one hopes, just how Carter made that sleepy leap from planet to planet). But it was fun, and I can imagine a 13-year-old boy getting a great deal of fun out of it, and I'm sure a whole lot of former 13-year-olds still do. ( )

John Carter of Mars! A classic! ( )

Not my favourite of the Mars novels, this one is a bit slow-moving at times. The world-building is wonderful of course. I found the immortal John Carter character a bit odd, and some things aren't very well explained, including Carter's mystical "teleportation" to the red planet.

Off topic, the covers on the NEL editions are gorgeous. ( )

Good fantasy series from the author of Tarzan. I only read the first three but enjoyed them. ( )

Someone on the net once described this as being like a flash gordan saturday morning serial. I agree but he meant it as a good thing, i don't agree. Never have i envisaged a book story in my mind only to picture styrofoam rocks and b-movie monster makeup. Its just this series of action set pieces done with a main character that has the personality of a cardboard cutout. A film of this is soon to be released if they want to stay through to the source material they'll need an actor with less personality than Keanu Reeves. One of the worst and most pointless books i've ever read. ( )