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Post by Calenture on Nov 3, 2007 13:56:15 GMT
Cover by Bruce Pennington NEL edition 1972, '73 A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice BurroughsFirst published as a serial in All-Story Magazine February to July,1912 After the American Civil War, Captain Jack Carter (John Carter) of Virginia is working his way south-west to restore his fortunes, gold prospecting with his companion, another former Confederate officer, Captain James Powell. One day he sees Powell being pursued by Redskins and sets off in pursuit. Carter catches up too late to save his friend and has to take refuge from the Indians in a cave. When he wakes up in the cave, he sees the Indians at the cave mouth. But the Indians and Carter alike are alarmed by a moaning and rustling sound that comes from further back in the cave. Carter finds he is unable to escape, but with a ‘click like a steel wire snapping’, he is free of his own body. Emerging from the cave and looking up, he sees the red eye of Mars in the sky, which, as a fighting man, he feels an affinity with. He raises his arms to the red planet which ‘seemed to call across the unthinkable void, to lure me to it, to draw me as the lodestone attracts the particle of iron.’ To be continued... Wikipedia entry for A Princess of Mars. Killercrab wrote: I love the NEL covers Cal - but just can't read ERB - or haven't the will to yet. My favourite books of 2006 were MORGOW RISES ( Peter Tremayne) and APACHE DEATH ( G.G. Gilman) . What were yours - anybody jump in and maybe start a fave 2006 read thread somewhere?
adeTaking your last lines first, I think a fave 2006 reads thread is a great idea. Probably the Yet More Books section would be best for the thread? Burroughs fantasies were books that I read by the score in my teens/twenties, along with those by Merritt, etc. Starting this thread is a sort of doomed attempt to revisit those heady days, along with a more sensible attempt to push my reading speed back up to what it was around 2000, when I was reading at least 60 or 70 books a year and writing more, too. I thought it would be fun to read it fast, post as I was going (it suits Burroughs cliffhanger style, I think) and illustrate the posts with as many great pieces of cover art as possible. Demonik wrote: I agree - a favourite books of 2006 thread would be great for Yet More Books. I take it from ade's selections that it encompasses the book(s) we enjoyed most, not necessarily those that were published last year? I certainly hope so, because I'd be pretty knackered for options.
Beyond a short story or two, I don't think I've read any ERB. One of the mad sisters in Angus Wilson's Raspberry Jam drools over a some photos of "Johnny Weismuller in swimsuits that she had cut out of Film Weekly" if that's any good to you.Craig Herbertson wrote: I'd have a real problem listing a favourite book in 2006 as my reading rate is embarrassingly high - my job entails a lot of waiting around and I read for hours at night. This is one of the few years where I didn't read any of the Burroughs Martian series. I did read Lost on Venus again though - which has great bits with the living dead.
I think the only Burroughs books I haven't read are a few of his mainstream novels which were diabolically bad.Brad Stevens wrote: Favourite books of 2006. J. R. Salamanca's LILITH (which I picked up on a whim for 10p in Notting Hill's Book and Comic Exchange) is certainly the best book I read last year.A Princess of Mars by Frank Frazetta The story continues... Carter has arrived on Mars, he knows not how; he is only certain that it is Mars. He is standing on a dead-sea bottom, a vast plain of yellow moss. Nearby, a low walled closure turns out to be an incubator in which giant eggs are hatching. He scarcely has time to take this in before he’s set on by a troop of the hatchlings adult counterparts, all of them 15 feet tall, six-limbed and riding twelve-limbed beasts - the green Martians. He escapes a lancer’s charge because his instinctive leap to safety, driven by Earthly muscles, sends him thirty feet into the air! Even at this early stage of the book he is explaining that the Martians carry rifles with ‘wireless-finders and sighters’ which deter him from attempting to escape by daylight. The name of his captor is Tars Tarkus. He is taken to an ancient city where he sees that the architecture and furnishings of the rooms are not designed for the green Martians; it’s all too small for them, although it fits Carter! Straying too far through the deserted streets and buildings one night, Carter encounters another of the city’s denizens – savage giant white apes! Soon after their arrival, a flotilla of flying ships is seen sailing above the city. The green Martians immediately attack, and force one of the ships down into the streets. From a distance Carter sees a single prisoner led from the craft, a young woman. This is his first glimpse of the incomparable Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium! Craig Herbertson wrote: Dejah Thoris. I still see her dark haired beauty in my dreams. What did those incomparable girls, Thuvia, Dejah and the blonde Thern do for a year incarcerated in that dungeon. OH TO HAVE BEEN A FLY ON THE WALL. |
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Post by Dr Strange on Sept 9, 2011 14:52:37 GMT
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 9, 2011 20:02:38 GMT
Thanks for loading this. Usual trepidation - boyhood hero, virtually lived on Mars at the age of ten, book is a sacred icon read hundreds of times. Desperately don't want to be disappointed, will pick holes in the slightest plot deviation but its got to be seen. |
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Post by andydecker on Sept 10, 2011 9:19:16 GMT
So, no nude Dejah Thoris? Damn! (Just kidding. I guess this will get a PG rating, so no breasts allowed.  ) This will stand and fall with the successful interpretations of characters like Tars Tarkas and all things Mars. I don´t think this will be a success. Prince of Persia didn´t do so good at the box office, Conan was a flop. Seems unlikly that the american viewers will embrace this. |
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Post by Dr Strange on Sept 10, 2011 9:48:38 GMT
I read the book when I was a teenager, but I remember very little of it now. What I am struck by though is how similar the briefly seen "green martian" is to the one on the cover above, and the "yellow moss" mentioned above is there too... so it looks like there's some effort been put into getting it to look right. I suspect you are probably right about it not being a big box office winner but these things are so difficult to predict - and maybe the "Disney" brandname will help it along a bit. Full cast is here - www.imdb.com/title/tt0401729/ |
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Post by andydecker on Sept 10, 2011 16:48:28 GMT
r but these things are so difficult to predict - and maybe the "Disney" brandname will help it along a bit. Full cast is here - www.imdb.com/title/tt0401729/Indeed. Who would have thought that a pirate movie would be so big. When the last one before this was such a box office failure. My Burroughs experience is mostly movies. I read the Venus books though as a teen (which impressed me much and made a fan of all things Ken Bulmer and Lin Carter because I didn´t knew it better) and I think the first two Mars books. Tried to get much later into the Tarzan books and found them quite dull. To begin with ERB as an adult is not a good thing - it cames apart so quickly at the seams. Still look new adaptions up now and then. Like the current Dynamite comics of John Carter and Dejah Thoris. Terrible, terrible crap. Especially compared to the few pages Alan Moore &Kevin O´Neal did in their League of Gentleman 2. |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 11, 2011 13:52:25 GMT
Dejah Thoris should certainly be virtually naked. (Burroughs portrayed her as such and I certainly filled out the details imaginatively with little help). An interesting feature of Burroughs from the modern view is that if portrayed correctly his books would probably be more horrific than a splatter movie. There would be more bits of brains flying around than Lawnmower Man
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Post by stuyoung on Sept 26, 2011 14:42:55 GMT
I've only just twigged that the actors who played Gambit and Silver Fox in Wolverine play John Carter and Dejah Thoris in the upcoming John Carter film
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Post by sadako on Oct 30, 2023 2:16:57 GMT
Textless Bruce Pennington cover art…  |
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