The Gods of Mars: Review and Ramble

 I read somewhere that Edgar Rice Burroughs began writing to prove that he could write terrible fiction and still make money. It was his protest against all the bad writing that appeared in the pulp magazines of the time.

The thing is, he is actually not a bad writer. If he was terrible then he would long have faded into obscurity, and his most famous character, Tarzan, wouldn't be almost a household name. The other character he created who looms large is John Carter or Mars.

When the Cosmos series produced and presented by Carl Sagan appeared on television back on the 80s I had never read any Edgar Rice Burroughs. Yes, of course I had heard of him, I knew about Tarzan, and at one time the TV series with Ron Ely as Tarzan was one of my staple shows. But as to reading any of his books, nah. To this day I have not read a Tarzan novel. I should do something about that shouldn't I?

Carl Sagan kept referring to the saga of Barsoom, to the sweeping plains of Mars where John Carter cut a swath with rippling thews. Sigh. Grand stuff.

Ages ago I bought the full set of Martian books, and they sat on the shelf, waiting for the day I would read them. I picked up and read the first in the series, A princess of Mars, and was captivated by characters and the narrative. It took a little while to get used to the relentless flow of adjectives that sometimes got in the way of the story. I figure back in 1912 that was the rage. At the end of the novel when John Carter returns to earth, having saved Mars from a terrible fate, I left Mars for some years.

I went on to read the stories set on Venus but did not return to Mars. Years have passed, and they have made a movie, which I guess was OK but did not live up to the promise, possibly because it was just another script in the hands of a director not invested in the material as Peter Jackson was with the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. It was the same with the movie they made of Eragon. At least the John Carter movie was watchable. I would be happy to watch it again. The Eragon outing was just plain terrible. What were they thinking?! They didn't get anything right. I mean, did they even read the book? If you are even halfway true to the original material, how is it possible for you to produce such a stinker?

I am intrigued to see how the new project shapes up with Christopher Paolini at least in partial charge of the creatives.

I was disappointed, massively so, with the Disney rehash of one of my favourite all time movies: Willow. But don't start me on that, we'll be here a while ... I confess that I started reading Paolini's new sprawling sf epic, something to do with a sea of stars, but frankly, I have bogged down about 1/3 the way through. Not that it's badly written, it's not, but I'm not finding the story all that engaging. It seems not much more than a pastiche of tropes. It's on the shelf, and it glares at me every now and again as I pass by, accusing me of piking out. Eventually I might pick it up and continue where I left off, somewhere in deep space with aliens pressing their gambit to take over the known universe and inflict pain, hardship and suffering on all and sundry.

Anyway, I was looking for something different to read after putting down a Hardy Boy's installment, and I picked up the second novel in the Mars series, and after a couple of pages of once again getting used to the torrent of adjectives, I was hooked by a story of escape. John Carter and his giant green friend, Tars Tarkas, find themselves trapped, not in Elysium, as they thought, but in a place of violence and horror.

What better hero is there to fight his way out of such a place? Along the way he makes new friends, of course, and finds the son he didn't know he had. Why not? The novel wouldn't be complete, of course, without an inevitable return, back into the maw of fear, in order to rescue his princess.

Edgar Rice Burroughs knew thing or two about pacing, and his plot ticks along at a canter most of the time. Every now and again it gallops at breakneck speed, with scenes of battle that leave the reader breathless, all the while knowing that John Carter lives to fight another day, even and in spite of any injury he suffers.

I was left wondering if there was some deeper message Burrough's was trying to weave into his narrative. The polemic against false religions was heavy handed at times, although central to the plot. At the time of writing, I wasn't able to discover whether or not Burrough's had any religious affiliation, although he was descended from Puritan early settler Edmund Rice, on his grandmother's side.

There is a hint of the superiority of Carter's earthly religion in a throw away comment that he felt was entitled to seek justice and reparation for the wrongs done to him by another.

There are more than a few "as if" moments, those wonderful improbabilities that you happen across that add flavour to the story. A good writer can carry them off, a bad writer has you ready to throw the book against the wall. When it's all said and done and the last page is read and the book is closed, Edgar Rice Burrough is a good writer. I know that some would argue otherwise, and I know that he may not be to everyone's taste, his prose style is turgid, and sometimes his adjectives find themselves in grid lock, but crank up another battle scene or place John Carter in danger and it shines brighter than most from that time. A mediocre writer is not going to enjoy longevity.

Having said that, the sad truth is that many good writers fade into obscurity simple because they didn't enjoy a wide readership. The publishing industry has many such victims I fear, and with the advent of independent authors easily being able to self-publish, I fear that many gems will go undiscovered simply because readers don't find them.

The only thing I didn't enjoy was the ending. It has me cry out: "You can't leave it there!" After which I reached for book three in the series, just to find out what happened. For me, that is high praise indeed. If you get to the point I want to read on you have done your job as a writer.

(Adapted from a Goodreads review. I read somewhere that Edgar Rice Burroughs began writing to prove that he could write terrible fiction and still make money. It was his protest against all the bad writing that appeared in the pulp magazines of the time.

The thing is, he is actually not a bad writer. If he was terrible then he would long have faded into obscurity, and his most famous character, Tarzan, wouldn't be almost a household name. The other character he created who looms large is John Carter or Mars.

When the Cosmos series produced and presented by Carl Sagan appeared on television back on the 80s I had never read any Edgar Rice Burroughs. Yes, of course I had heard of him, I knew about Tarzan, and at one time the TV series with Ron Ely as Tarzan was one of my staple shows. But as to reading any of his books, nah. To this day I have not read a Tarzan novel. I should do something about that shouldn't I?

Carl Sagan kept referring to the saga of Barsoom, to the sweeping plains of Mars where John Carter cut a swath with rippling thews. Sigh. Grand stuff.

Ages ago I bought the full set of Martian books, and they sat on the shelf, waiting for the day I would read them. I picked up and read the first in the series, A princess of Mars, and was captivated by characters and the narrative. It took a little while to get used to the relentless flow of adjectives that sometimes got in the way of the story. I figure back in 1912 that was the rage. At the end of the novel when John Carter returns to earth, having saved Mars from a terrible fate, I left Mars for some years.

I went on to read the stories set on Venus, but did not return to Mars. Years have passed, and they have made a movie, which I guess was OK but did not live up to the promise, possibly because it was just another script in the hands of a director not invested in the material as Peter Jackson was with the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. It was the same with the movie they made of Eragon. At least the John Carter movie was watchable. I would be happy to watch it again. The Eragon outing was just plain terrible. What were they thinking?! They didn't get anything right. I mean, did they even read the book? If you are even half way true to the original material how is it possible for you to produce such a stinker?

I am intrigued to see how the new project shapes up with Christopher Paolini at least in partial charge of the creatives.

I was disappointed, massively so, with the Disney rehash of one of my favourite all time movies: Willow. But don't start me on that, we'll be here a while ... I confess that I started reading Paolini's new sprawling sf epic, something to do with a sea of stars, but frankly, I have bogged down about 1/3 the way through. Not that it's badly written, it's not, but I'm not finding the story all that engaging. It seems not much more than a pastiche of tropes. It's on the shelf, and it glares at me every now and again as I pass by, accusing me of piking out. Eventually I might pick it up and continue where I left off, somewhere in deep space with aliens pressing their gambit to take over the known universe and inflict pain, hardship and suffering on all and sundry.

Anyway, I was looking for something different to read after putting down a Hardy Boy's installment, and I picked up the second novel in the Mars series, and after a couple of pages of once again getting used to the torrent of adjectives, I was hooked by a story of escape. John Carter and his giant green friend, Tars Tarkas, find themselves trapped, not in Elysium, as they thought, but in a place of violence and horror.

What better hero is there to fight his way out of such a place? Along the way he makes new friends, of course, and finds the son he didn't know he had. Why not? The novel wouldn't be complete, of course, without an inevitable return, back into the maw of fear, in order to rescue his princess.

Edgar Rice Burroughs knew thing or two about pacing, and his plot ticks along at a canter most of the time. Every now and again it gallops at breakneck speed, with scenes of battle that leave the reader breathless, all the while knowing that John Carter lives to fight another day, even and in spite of any injury he suffers.

I was left wondering if there was some deeper message Burrough's was trying to weave into his narrative. The polemic against false religions was heavy handed at times, although central to the plot. At the time of writing I wasn't able to discover whether or not Burrough's had any religious affiliation, although he was descended from Puritan early settler Edmund Rice, on his grandmother's side.

There is a hint of the superiority of Carter's earthly religion in a throw away comment that he felt was entitled to seek justice and reparation for the wrongs done to him by another.

There are more than a few "as if" moments, those wonderful improbabilities that you happen across that add flavour to the story. A good writer can carry them off, a bad writer has you ready to throw the book against the wall. When it's all said and done and the last page is read and the book is closed, Edgar Rice Burrough is a good writer. I know that some would argue otherwise, and I know that he may not be to everyone's taste, his prose style is turgid, and sometimes his adjectives find themselves in grid lock, but crank up another battle scene or place John Carter in danger and it shines brighter than most from that time. A mediocre writer is not going to enjoy longevity.

Having said that, the sad truth is that many good writers fade into obscurity simple because they didn't enjoy a wide readership. The publishing industry has many such victims I fear, and with the advent of independent authors easily being able to self publish, I fear that many gems will go undiscovered simply because readers don't find them.

The only thing I didn't enjoy was the ending. It has me cry out: "You can't leave it there!" After which I reached for book three in the series, just to find out what happened. For me, that is high praise indeed. If you get to the point I want to read onyou have done your job as a writer.

(Adapted from a Goodreads review. C.C. Parfoot (Author of Eddie) | Goodreads)